Celebration time for the Mostahdaf team

Mostahdaf's Juddmonte a tribute to the legacy of two great owners

By John Ingles

Horse Racing

Sun August 27, 2023 · 2y ago

John Ingles reflects on a Juddmonte International which was a fine result for two of the sport's most successful breeding operations.

It was good to be back at York on Wednesday for the Juddmonte International Stakes, the first time I’d attended the opening day of the Sky Bet Ebor Festival since Frankel won the race with the sort of performance that anyone lucky enough to be at the Knavesmire that afternoon is most unlikely to witness on a racecourse again.

Maybe it was the feeling that subsequent renewals of the race would pale by comparison was part of the reason why it took me eleven years to return to the Juddmonte International, but appropriately enough it happened to coincide with Frankel siring his first winner of the race and, for good measure, the runner-up too.

The combined first and second prize money won by Mostahdaf and Nashwa help extend Frankel’s huge lead in the sires’ championship over Siyouni in second. A good chunk of Siyouni’s prize money this year has been earned by Paddington, and even though he picked up a six-figure sum himself, finishing third of the four runners wasn’t the result many were expecting.

A one-two for Frankel was an excellent result for the sponsors, however, and came after a presentation took place in the parade ring just before the big race to mark the induction of Juddmonte’s late founder Prince Khalid Abdullah into the QIPCO British Champions Series Hall of Fame.

Big day for two huge teams

But the latest Juddmonte International was also very much a triumph for another major bloodstock operation, Mostahdaf’s owners Shadwell Estate being the legacy of Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum in much the same way as Juddmonte has been left behind by Prince Khalid, the two founders of their respective empires passing away within months of each other early in 2021.

Frankel was a second winner of the Juddmonte International for Prince Khalid after Twice Over had won the race the year before, while Sheikh Hamdan saw his colours carried to victory just the once during his lifetime when Nayef was successful in 2002. However, when Sakhee won the race by seven lengths – the same margin as Frankel - twelve months earlier (under Mostahdaf’s rider on Wednesday, Frankie Dettori), he carried the all blue of Godolphin though was to all intents and purposes a Shadwell horse, having been bred by Sheikh Hamdan’s stud and later retired there as a stallion.

Nayef tried again a year later when finishing third, setting the tone for subsequent attempts by Sheikh Hamdan’s runners Maraahel, Mukhadram, Mutakayyef, Elarqam and Mohaafeth who all reached the frame, the last-named pair also sons of Frankel, by the way. Maraahel went the closest of those – twice - beaten a neck and a head into third in 2005 and then going down by a short head to Notnowcato twelve months later.

But five-year-old Mostahdaf is now a second consecutive winner of the Juddmonte International for Shadwell Estate after Baaeed put up the best performance seen in the race in the post-Frankel era twelve months ago. The profile of the two horses and their routes to their respective successes at York could hardly be more different however. While Baaeed progressed rapidly through the grades and then ran up a sequence of Group 1 victories prior to his Juddmonte success, Mostahdaf took a longer route to get there with a few setbacks along the way.

Baaeed is out on his own at York

Another late bloomer for Shadwell

Like Baaeed, Mostahdaf was unraced at two and made a bright start to his career at three, but after winning his first three starts, including the listed Heron Stakes at Sandown, he came unstuck when his sights were raised for the St James’s Palace Stakes. But Mostahdaf was soon back on the up, ending his three-year-old season with a Group 3 win in the Darley Stakes at Newmarket and beginning his four-year-old campaign with another in the Gordon Richards Stakes at Sandown. That augured well for the rest of his season, though his only subsequent success in 2022 came in the September Stakes at Kempton before he trailed home last in the Arc.

Once again, though, Mostahdaf underlined that he goes well fresh when returning this year with an emphatic win in the Group 3 Neom Turf Cup on the Saudi Cup undercard in February. There was no disgrace in his next start when fourth to Japanese star Equinox in the Dubai Sheema Classic, particularly as he’d given closest chase to the impressive winner in a race where the track record was broken. Even so, Mostahdaf was relatively unconsidered when taking on the likes of Luxembourg, Adayar, My Prospero and Bay Bridge in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot but upstaged all those better-fancied rivals with a four-length victory that left no doubt about his claims to being a high-class performer, something his win at York this week duly confirmed.

Mostahdaf has therefore played his part this season in a tremendous run of Group 1 success for Shadwell that has also included wins for Anmaat in the Prix d’Ispahan, Baaeed’s brother Hukum in the King George and Al Husn in the Nassau Stakes. Perhaps that succession of high-profile wins has been a factor, but Sheikha Hissa has quickly become the public face of Shadwell, more visible in that regard perhaps than her late father, and in what has traditionally been a male-dominated realm of the leading Middle Eastern owners.

Nazeef (left) comes out on top in a three-way war for the Falmouth Stakes

What sort of stallion prospect is Mostahdaf?

Sheikha Hissa presides over a slimmed-down Shadwell these days but can hopefully look forward to racing the offspring of both of her Juddmonte International winners in due course. Mostahdaf is bred on the same cross as 2021 Derby winner Adayar as he’s out of a Dubawi mare. His dam Handassa was a 100,000 guineas purchase as a yearling and wasn’t far off being a smart performer herself for Kevin Prendergast, winning two of her six starts, including a listed race over a mile at Naas.

Handassa has been a great asset to the Shadwell broodmare band because Mostahdaf isn’t her first Group 1 winner. She’s also the dam of the filly Nazeef who made into a very smart performer for the Gosden stable at four when her wins included the Duke of Cambridge Stakes, the Falmouth and the Sun Chariot. Her three-year-old colt Mostabshir, by sprinter Dark Angel, didn’t run much of a race in blinkers in last weekend’s Hungerford Stakes but he’s already useful which bodes well given how his siblings have gotten better with age.

With Paddington now added to the scalps he took at Royal Ascot, Mostahdaf’s owners certainly won’t be short of material when the time comes to promote his stallion career.

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