RIGHT now, a high-stakes poker game is being played out in America’s Kentucky. In two years’ time, when Godolphin and Coolmore go heads-up for the largest pots in the racing world, the cards their trainers Saeed bin Suroor and Aidan O’Brien can play will depend on who holds and who folds most astutely at this week’s Keeneland Yearling Sales.
The showdown began on Monday and comprises 14 sessions. The flow of play will inform us of the comparative health and confidence of Europe’s thoroughbred superpowers. It also announces their most cherished ambitions.
Early signs suggest Godolphin architect Sheikh Mohammed is playing with more freedom than 12 months ago, when waning results required corrective action. The offshoot juvenile academies, run by Eoin Harty in the US and David Loder in the UK, have since been scrapped but the selection technique of buyer John Ferguson and team was also under scrutiny.
In 2004, top races like the King George and International Stakes have gone Godolphin’s way and, although the only classic collected was Rule Of Law’s St Leger, strong juvenile results promise much for next year. Their in-house stallions, such as Cape Cross, who sired dual Oaks heroine Ouija Board, have also made a big impact. This is a solid base from which to acquire a few strategic — albeit expensive — additions to the squad.
For Coolmore, the brief is rather more desperate. Poor results, by their high standards, mean that, this year, it is the turn of their fêted purchaser Demi O’Byrne to feel the heat. Ballydoyle, their racing arm, houses not one classic winner and group one victors full stop are scarce. Apart from the nascent promise of Tiger Dance’s winning debut at Leopardstown last Saturday, their two-year-old results to date have offered little reason to be cheerful.
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Of course, Sadler’s Wells — behemoth of the stallion world — still keeps pumping out classy individuals to fly the Coolmore banner but, aged 23, he dwells in the twilight of his siring career. The search for a successor was made more urgent by Danehill’s sudden death last year, although Giant’s Causeway has made a superb start to his stud career.
O’Byrne has made some brilliant purchases at Keeneland, notably 2001 world champion juvenile Johannesburg for a bargain $200,000 (about £111,000). But he has begun cautiously this week. Perhaps the lots have not yet been to his taste or maybe the purse-strings are tighter.
He usually buys fewer horses than Ferguson for a higher average price, so his first-day haul of five for a collective $5.4 million compared with Ferguson’s 19 for $14.4m is not out of kilter with their typical end-of-sales tally. But, on the equivalent day in 2003, O’Byrne spent $10.5m and Ferguson $3.4m.
Furthermore, at least $2.8m of the $5.4m spent on Monday by O’Byrne — the price of an Unbridled’s Song colt for whom, in their sole heated exchange, Sheikh Mohammed was underbidder — wasn’t bought for Ballydoyle but will be trained in the US.
Top lot of the day, a colt for $3.1m by talented US dirt sire A.P.Indy, went to Ferguson. He also bought two of six Storm Cats sold whereas, remarkably for an operation so wedded to the top US sire, O’Byrne bought none. Have fragile under-achievers like One Cool Cat and Hold That Tiger eclipsed the precocious excellence of Giant’s Causeway, all by Storm Cat, in the minds of Coolmore? Storm Cats are infrequently favoured by Sheikh Mohammed — Sussex and Lockinge Stakes hero, Aljabr, is a rare precedent. That these buys joined progeny by Tale Of The Cat, Deputy Minister and Saint Ballado — all likely Kentucky Derby sires — in his basket, indicates his US ambitions burn brightly.
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The ‘Run For The Roses’ and Breeders’ Cup Classic remain notable omissions in the Sheikh’s crowded trophy cabinet and he must stock a comparatively new venture, Jonabell Farm Stud in Kentucky. Given his employer’s mood, it looks likely that Ferguson will be Keeneland’s biggest spender for the sixth year running and perhaps even match his incredible $40 million outlay of three and four years ago.