Evening Saigon (red cap) ridden to Stewards' Cup glory by James Doyle

Evening Saigon wins the Coral Stewards' Cup: Report, reaction and free video replay

Horse Racing

Sat August 01, 2026 · 2h ago

Evening Saigon won the Coral Stewards' Cup as a good week for Wathnan Racing continued in great style at the Qatar Goodwood Festival.

The powerful owners target the meeting given their close associations with sponsors, Qatar, and Evening Saigon become their seventh winner of the week under their first jockey James Doyle.

The low numbers dominated in the historic contest with Evening Saigon and Stratusnine pulling clear on the far side while Mitbaahy flashed home to be first in his group on the stands' side.

In a typically thrilling finish the winning distances were just a head, a short-head and a neck.

Evening Saigon was bought out of Michael O'Callaghan's yard in 2024 after a winning debut and was making just his ninth start after two truncated campaigns. He made a winning start to 2026 at Newcastle in April before gaining valuable experience of the Goodwood track when just missing out to Far Above Dream (sixth here) in May.

Connections reached for the cheekpieces at Royal Ascot where he finished seventh in the Wokingham and Doyle felt they made the difference in the finish today.

Coral Stewards' Cup result

1. EVENING SAIGON 16/1

2. Stratusnine 25/1

3. Mitbaahy 14/1

4. Completely Random 7/1

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Post-race reaction

Winning trainer Hamad Al Jehani said: “I’m very happy for Evening Saigon. I was a little bit concerned if he could handle the faster ground. It was a great performance from the team to have won the hardest two handicaps at Goodwood. Evening Saigon deserved to be here today, and I’m very happy with him. Hopefully we can see him next time in a higher level race than a handicap.

“We were confident that he would run well, but you need everything to go positively, especially in the big handicaps. With twenty eight horses in the field it is not easy as you need to be in the best position to win it. James gave him a great ride. It was real simple instructions for James and he did the job perfectly.”

Richard Brown, representing Wathnan Racing, said: “James had a bit of a hard choice but he was pretty firm on riding this lad in the end. Hamad has turned up and won two of the hardest handicaps to win all year. We plot these and work as a team – when these results come off, it’s just fantastic for Wathnan and what Wathnan is all about.

“If you look at Hamad’s statistics since he started training, they match up with the best trainers in the country. He’s a phenomenal horseman and was a very good rider himself. He’s very modest about it but he showjumped to a good level. He’s a great horseman and he’s formed a great team. We all work very closely together and to pull this off is huge for everybody involved.”

Evening Saigon and James Doyle after winning the Stewards' Cup

Doyle said: “He has been a bit tricky in the past and we have Craig Witheford down at the start with him. He got a super start, which is quite important in a race of this magnitude, and he got a decent position in behind Dark Thirty, who I thought would be the horse that would take me as far as I needed, and he did. It is usually quite hairy, but it was quite comfortable.

“I didn’t think we went overly strong for a race like this. Usually we would go a few clicks higher and he is a horse that takes time to get organised and I didn’t want to get done by something zipping away from me so I got him organised in plenty of time. He had the cheekpieces on today as well, so that helped.

“I was kind of happy with my draw because at least I was on one side and I would rather be drawn high or low than in the middle.

“It is always difficult when we have multiple runners in the race, and I got it wrong today and yesterday, but as long as one of our ones is winning I’m more than happy to see the gold cap or black cap in front.

“He wasn’t always the one I was going to pick. It was a bit eeny, meeny, miny, mo to be honest. He ran a solid race at Ascot, but he was upsides Realign so it wasn’t an easy decision.

“We only had the one winner here last year so we were a bit deflated driving home last year, but the team have done an amazing job and they have put a lot of thought into this week.

Hugo Palmer on Stratusnine: “He’s run with plenty of credit. I don’t know what we do differently, he’s going to win more handicaps. We’ll go to York. The other horse (Dubai Bling) missed the break, so we will do remedial training with him.”

Charlie Hills on Mitbaahy: “Delighted with him. He’s been pretty lightly raced the last couple of years, he had a few problems that sort of set him back, but I think he’s nearly back to his best now. That was a huge run.

“He’s run a huge race and he’s in the Maurice de Gheest; he’s obviously a Group 2 winner in the past, so I think he’s up at that sort of level.”

Saffie Osborne on fifth home Toca Madera: “He’s run an absolute cracker. He’s obviously a horse who likes to front run, but over six furlongs I was keen to get some cover on him. He settled beautifully, got into a lovely rhythm, probably had to wait slightly too long to get a run, but he hit the line really well and that opens plenty of options for him in these kinds of races for the rest of the season.”

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