John Ingles column

A big year for Sheikh Ahmed

Horse Racing

Sun September 13, 2026 · 1h ago

John Ingles highlights a season of success for an owner with probably the lowest profile among the Maktoum brothers.

An older generation of racing fans will have good memories of that top-class middle-distance horse Mtoto. Injuries interrupted his early career, but he flourished as a four-year-old when his biggest win came in the Eclipse where he took the scalp of the Derby winner Reference Point after a tremendous duel through the final two furlongs. Trained by Alec Stewart, Mtoto was kept in training at five and proved every bit as good that season, winning the Eclipse for the second time and then following up in the King George. His only defeat in five races that season came when he was a fast-finishing neck second in the Arc to Tony Bin who had been third behind him at Ascot. An enthusiastic sort with an outstanding turn of foot, with a rating of 134 Mtoto was Timeform’s joint-best middle-distance performer of 1988, alongside Tony Bin.

All these years later, Mtoto remains the best horse to have carried the colours – yellow with the black epaulets – of his owner Sheikh Ahmed Al Maktoum. Before Mtoto, his first good horse was the 1983 Irish 2000 Guineas winner Wassl. The 1980s was the decade when the four Maktoum brothers became leading players in British racing, headed by Sheikh Mohammed. His creation of what has become the worldwide Godolphin empire ultimately led to his once familiar colours disappearing from racecourses. The eldest brother and co-founder of Godolphin, Maktoum Al Maktoum, died in 2006, while Hamdan Al Maktoum passed away in 2021, though unlike his elder brother, his colours live on under the Shadwell banner with daughter Sheikha Hissa now at the helm.

Born in 1950, Sheikh Ahmed is the youngest of the Maktoum brothers and an owner-breeder on a much smaller scale than either Sheikh Mohammed or Sheikh Hamdan. Not being a regularly lavish spender at the yearling sales adds to his discreet profile. But he has owned some other good winners since Mtoto. In the current century, they have included Tobougg, the unbeaten champion two-year-old of 2000 and that year’s Dewhurst winner who subsequently joined Godolphin. There have also been the Group 1-winning fillies, Ameerat (1000 Guineas), Nahrain (Prix de l’Opera) and Nezwaah (Pretty Polly Stakes), while more recently, Lincoln winner Addeybb went on to win the Champion Stakes in 2020, as well as three Group 1 contests in Australia. Nahrain’s daughter Elmalka became a second 1000 Guineas winner for her owner in 2024.

But Sheikh Ahmed is enjoying a hugely successful season in 2026 and is currently sixth in the owners table in Britain and Ireland with what must be his strongest team of horses at any one time. The year got off to a very good start in Dubai where Quddwah, Elnajmm and Meydaan were all Group 2 winners. The Simon and Ed Crisford-trained Meydaan also finished third in the Dubai World Cup.

In Europe, Sheikh Ahmed owes much of his success this year to the offspring of his broodmare Talmada. Trained by Roger Varian, her biggest win came at listed level in the John Musker Fillies’ Stakes at Yarmouth, but she then gained a Grade 1 placing when runner-up in the E. P. Taylor Stakes in Canada. At stud, she can now boast two Group 1 winners, both of them successful this year. First to strike was her high-class five-year-old Almaqam, winner of the Tattersalls Gold Cup for Ed Walker at the Curragh in May and who went very close to another top-level success in last month’s Juddmonte International.

Almaqam and Kieran Shoemark win the Tattersalls Gold Cup

Talmada’s four-year-old Saddadd, from the same stable as his dam, became a Group 1 winner too just last weekend when successful in the Grosser Preis von Baden. That’s not the first time, either, that Sheikh Ahmed had won Germany’s top all-aged prize as he was first successful with the John Gosden-trained Mashaallah in 1992. More on another of his winners of that race below. Another who has clearly improved with age, Saddadd also won the Gordon Richards Stakes at Sandown earlier in the year before finishing third to his half-brother in Ireland.

Nahrain, mentioned above, is another of Sheikh Ahmed’s influential broodmares, with six of her offspring earning Timeform ratings of 100 or more. As well as Elmalka, she’s also the dam of Benbatl, a high-class Group 1 winner in Dubai, Germany and Australia, though he didn’t race for Sheikh Ahmed, spending his entire career with Saeed bin Suroor and Godolphin. But Nahrain’s latest star performer, her four-year-old Frankel gelding Sallaal, is enjoying an excellent campaign in his breeder’s colours for Roger Varian who also trained his dam. Sallaal put up the handicap performance of the season, running to a figure of 124, when running away with a race at the Derby meeting and has since completed a hat-trick in a listed race at Sandown and the Rose of Lancaster Stakes at Haydock. Like Almaqam and Saddadd, Sallaal holds a Champion Stakes entry giving his owner plenty of options in that contest.

Sallaal bounds clear of his rivals at Epsom

Another Varian-trained four-year-old who looks on the way to graduating to better things from handicaps is Raammee. He won the John Smith’s Cup at York and followed up with a smart effort under 9-12 over the same course and distance at the Ebor meeting. Over longer trips, stablemate Rahiebb, last year’s St Leger runner-up, made his breakthrough at pattern level when returning with a win in the Yorkshire Cup, and another four-year-old who won his first pattern race this year is miler Remmooz, successful for Owen Burrows in the Group 3 Prix Bertrand du Breuil at Chantilly in June to take his career record to five wins from eight starts. Burrows also trains four-year-old filly Waardah, winner of Thursday's Park Hill Stakes at Doncaster and likely to head to the Prix de Royallieu on Arc weekend.

Heading the owner's three-year-olds is progressive stayer Infraad, trained by William Haggas, though he too may well be destined for still better things as a four-year-old. Nezwaah’s close relative held Derby and St Leger entries this year, but his trainer’s patient approach has paid off in handicaps to date, as he followed up a good win at Goodwood with a smart victory in the Melrose at York, and he could bid to step up to listed company in the Noel Murless Stakes at Ascot early next month.

The same stable unleashed a really exciting two-year-old for Sheikh Ahmed at Haydock recently in the form of Sharadd, a son of Dark Angel who cost €175,000 as a yearling. It remains to be seen if he ends up taking up either of his entries in the Middle Park or Dewhurst, but the fact that he’s engaged in both races is a statement in itself, and he certainly looked something out of the ordinary in winning that novice by six lengths, earning the ‘large P’ on his rating (102P) indicating significant improvement to come (replay below). He’s one to look out for wherever he runs next time.

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Another Sheikh Ahmed winner for the Haggas stable this season is Morshdi, a brother to the 2024 Park Hill Stakes winner Nakheel, who began the season looking a potential Derby contender when winning the Feilden Stakes at Newmarket. While not one of his owner’s very best winners this season, Morshdi is interesting for being a namesake of Sheikh Ahmed’s 2001 Derby Italiano winner, trained by Michael Jarvis, who was another winner of the Grosser Preis von Baden in the yellow and black.

As will be apparent by now, Sheikh Ahmed, like Sheikh Hamdan did, gives his horses Arabic names – Morshdi, for example, means ‘my guide’ or ‘my mentor’ in that language. What you may also have noticed is that all his horses these days have seven-letter names, which has to be more than a mere coincidence. He’s not the first owner to adopt that naming policy. Lady Beaverbrook – owner of Boldboy, Petoski, Niniski, Bustino and Mystiko, among others – apparently used the logic that seven was the most common number of letters in the names of Derby winners. It didn’t quite pay off for her, though Relkino and Terimon were both runner-up in her colours at Epsom. The rationale behind Sheikh Ahmed’s naming policy isn’t known, but it is evidently serving him well!

A big year for Sheikh Ahmed

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