David Ord talks to Marcus Tregoning about Mubtaker and Unfuwain in the Arc

The door to the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe may not have swung wide-open for Baaeed – but it’s at least now ajar with the ParisLongchamp showpiece under consideration for the latest Shadwell superstar.

Hamdan Al Maktoum never won the great race during his remarkable ownership career, Sakhee having switched to Godolphin before his triumph in 2001.

So you can see why connections – in terms of legacy – are thinking of rolling the dice.

After all he hails from the remarkable Height Of Fashion line who served the team so well over the years – and very nearly provided their founder with victory in the great race back in 1988.

The horse in question was Unfuwain, a son of the great mare and the first of her progeny to be sent to Dick Hern, who trained Height Of Fashion during her racing career for The Queen.

Assistant at the time was Marcus Tregoning and he remembers the blue skies over Paris that October casting a dark shadow over the colt’s connections.

“I don’t think Dick Hern would have been mad about running him in it because of the ground,” he said. “Unfuwain had very large, concussion prone feet which he never threw to his progeny interestingly enough.

“I remember when he first arrived in the yard, he was the first foal we’d had out of Height Of Fashion and being by Northern Dancer it was an honour to get him. We were thrilled. Dick had trained the dam and all the family before her.”

A very talented colt, Unfuwain had a propensity to win by wide margins when given his conditions. He landed the Warren Stakes by 15 lengths and Chester Vase by eight in the spring of his three-year-old career, then the Princess Of Wales’s Stakes by 15 lengths at the Newmarket July Meeting.

But the huge prize he seemed destined to snare always just eluded him. Disappointing in the Derby, he was beaten two lengths by Mtoto when sent off the 2/1 favourite for the King George at Ascot.

Freshened up for the Paris after that, he arrived at the Arc in peak condition – but the weather gods hadn’t been kind. In the end he ran a huge race, finishing fourth behind Tony Bin, beaten only a length-and-a-half.

“He ran very, very well on ground he didn’t really like,” Tregoning recalls.

“He was quite a heavy-topped horse. History relates he was actually a very good stallion and had a champion two-year-old in Alhaarth, and did well with several others. He had tremendous ability and threw it to his progeny which was great, but he did slightly miss out on the very big one as a racehorse.”

12 months later the team had the horse of a lifetime in Unfuwain’s Blushing Groom half-brother Nashwan.

He was campaigned aggressively through the spring and early summer, winning the 2000 Guineas, Derby, Coral-Eclipse and King George. It was unprecedented.

He too was given a break before the Arc but took in the Prix Niel as a prep-race. Defeat at the hooves of Golden Pheasant ended the dream – and his racing career – before October even came around. However, Tregoning felt the writing had been on the wall.

“I had a suspicion myself he wouldn’t get there,” he admits. “He’d had four Group Ones, the Guineas, Derby, Eclipse and King George and they’re all in very quick succession. There comes a point when you do that, they can go over the top. He was a tall horse, very athletic and a little immature. It’s tremendous to have done what he did but as it turned out his season was over really at Ascot.”

The Arc was one of the very few big races in Europe to elude Hern, Sun Princess and Troy others to have gone close for him. So does the Whitsbury-based trainer feel that was a cause of frustration for his mentor?

“I think he’d have liked to win the Derby a few more times too,” Tregoning said. “He always liked to have runners at Epsom, and we found out if they were good enough on the day. To have won it three times was terrific. Of course, he’d have liked Sun Princess, Troy or something to win the Arc but it’s a very difficult race to win.

“Not so long ago they used to give them a break mid-season and come back fresh for it and that worked reasonably well for a lot of people, but we had a busy season with our champions, and it didn’t quite happen for them in Paris.”

It very nearly did for Mubatker, who joined Tregoning early in his own training career in the year 2000. He made a winning start for the handler in the mud at Newbury that October and went on to enjoy a remarkable career.

He raced as an entire until he was nine, winning 13 races, seven of them pattern events, including three successive renewals of the Geoffrey Freer Stakes.

He also gave Sheikh Hamdan and his trainer a huge thrill when finishing second to Dalakhani in the 2003 Arc.

“Of all the horses I’ve trained in my career I’d say he was my favourite,” Tregoning smiles. “I’ve been fortunate enough to have had some good ones, but I just loved him. He won six times at Newbury and a Group race for me most years I had him. He wasn’t the soundest horse in the world, he had a few issues, but we kept patching him up.

“What he did have was a huge heart and Sheikh Hamdan absolutely loved him.”

Mubtaker arrived in Paris off the back of four successive wins including the Geoffrey Freer and September Stakes but so deep was the field that year, he was a 25/1 chance with the bookmakers.

Again there were going concerns too.

“I remember walking the track that Arc weekend and thinking ‘oh god the ground’s going to be too soft for him, he won’t like this’,” the trainer recalls.

“Then on my way over to see Sheikh Hamdan who was in the Maktoum box in the main stand I bumped into Willie Carson and spoke to him about it and he said not to worry as they’ll open up a fresh strip so you’ll have a bit of better ground and he might be alright.

“I was fuelled with optimism then and went into the box. Sheikh Hamdam was so excited about the race, but he was always going to do the right thing by the horse. He said ‘what do you think’ and I said it might be a bit soft but he was in good form so he said ‘let’s go, let’s run’.

“For all of us it was almost like he won it. He ran beyond our expectations and had some very good horses in behind like Derby winner High Chaparral who went on to win at the Breeders’ Cup. It was a good field and only Dalakhani prevented him from winning it.

“We were taking on the best three-year-old in Europe and to finish second was quite a feat. At the end of the season I think Mubtaker was the highest-rated older horse in the world off the back of that run. It was some race.

“We went back the next season, but he’d won the Cumberland Lodge at Newmarket the week before and wasn’t at his best. It came too soon for him, and he was ninth behind Hurricane Run.

“But he was a wonderful horse to have had for years and years, he won a Group race as an entire at the age of nine which I think might possibly be a record. He was very special to me.”

Tregoning has trained a host of big-race winners for Shadwell – the latest being brilliant Qatar Sussex Stakes winner Mohaather who’s first foals are now on the ground.

The early signs are encouraging.

“I’ve seen a few – everyone always says when a stallion goes to stud and their first foals are born, they are always wonderful – and of course they are,” he said.

“I have seen a few and I did really like them. A lot had his quarters, which I always say are Galileo quarters. When you’re standing behind them, they look like two oranges. They have wonderful muscle definition – that’s what Galileo had.

“Mohaather, being a very fast horse, probably the fastest I ever trained, had the same muscle definition, that power, and I’ve seen it in his foals. It’s very exciting.

“With any stallion it’s pretty important they at least win as a two-year-old and if it’s a Group race people think ‘well these might not be backward horses, they might be more precocious’ and, in this day and age, the emphasis seems to be on sprinters/milers.

“I’ve always said Mohaather was a sprinter dressed up as a miler – he could have won anything in the sprint division. He was very, very quick but thanks to my good, loyal staff we got him to settle well at home and get the mile.

“He was stunning to watch in the Sussex Stakes. I was speaking to Brough Scott that day and he said he hadn’t seen a horse quicken like that since Dancing Brave and I think he was right.

“He had to go round horses, including two Guineas winners, and still beat them hand over fist. If that hadn’t happened, he’d have won even easier which is most impressive.”

For Tregoning it was special to have one final champion for his loyal patron who sadly died in the March following Mohaather’s scintillating Goodwood win.

“He enjoyed Mohaather immensely,” the trainer said. “He loved discussing plans and I had lots of talks with him about the colt and how we were going to map the season out. I said after Royal Ascot I wanted to go to the Summer Mile and then the Sussex. One or two people didn’t think the course would suit him at Goodwood but I’ve found that virtually all of my horses have acted well there. We train on downs, and they race on downs.

“That was our exciting plan and he thought it was a great idea and it was so unfortunate he couldn’t be there. It was the height of the covid pandemic, and it took a bit of the icing off it – the fact he wasn’t there – or the public to enjoy it.”

The restructuring at Shadwell has seen Tregoning’s numbers significantly reduced for 2022, although he does still train for the team.

It’s been a slow burner of a campaign but there are signs among the two-year-olds that there is plenty to look forward to for the rest of the year and beyond.

“It’s been a very difficult year. Because of the changes at Shadwell and the selling of the horses we are around 30 down in terms of numbers. It’s a huge hole and we don’t have the older horses because they went to the sales,” he said.

“It’s been a struggle, but we do have some nice two-year-olds and hopefully come the autumn when the ground changes they’ll do well.

“Skysail was particularly important as I was keen on him before he ran at Windsor on Saturday. I hadn’t done the grasswork with him that I’d wanted to but still hoped he’ run well. In fact he ran very, very well to finish second.

“He looks an exciting horse and even though he’s by Tasleet I think he might stay a mile one day.”

Skysail carried the silks made famous by Dominica, Todber and Sheppard’s Watch which Tregoning inherited from the Kennard family for whom he trained over the years.

Dumfries, a promising fourth at Ffos Las earlier in the week, the blue and white checks of Dick and Sheilah Hern, loaned to the Whitsbury Partnership by Sheilah’s cousin Giles Blomfield.

A nod to the trainer’s rich past in the sport – but hopefully carried to bright futures by the current inhabitants of his famous yard.

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