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There were poignant moments, too. How much the sadly departed Terry Mills would have loved to see Petara Bay, trained by his son Robert, win the Toyo Tires Summer Stakes. The old horse, now a seven-year-old, was injured in his Derby year and has had a series of problems since but has patiently been nursed back to a success which brought the owner not just a £40,000 prize but £500 worth of Toyo tyres, too. Not that Petara Bay’s owner really needs them: the horse runs in the name of Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone.
I had the chance to give some airtime to the most significant new face in British racing. Nobody was enjoying himself more at Goodwood than Sheikh Fahad al Thani, one of six Qatari brothers, nephews of the Emir, whose Qipco Holdings is sponsoring the new British Champions series and who is personally giving the British bloodstock industry a welcome boost.
The first race meeting Sheikh Fahad attended was at Newmarket in May 2010 when he watched the French-trained Makfi win the 2,000 Guineas. But horses are part of Qatari culture — his father kept Arabians — and Sheikh Fahad knew from his student years in Britain what he wanted to do. He calls it ‘taking it slowly’ and insists he gave his mentor a strict budget but already, advised by the shrewd David Redvers of Tweenhills Stud, Sheikh Fahad has 45 horses in training. They are building a significant breeding operation, too, and, surprise, surprise, their foundation stallion is Makfi, acquired last year.
What Sheikh Fahad does not bother to disguise is his bubbling enthusiasm for a sport in which he has quickly learned the ropes. There is a careful commercialism there, too, but when we spoke again after his sprinter Group Therapy had run third after being knocked back he was clearly uplifted. ‘That’s why you are in racing. If the adrenalin isn’t there in running you shouldn’t be here,’ he told me. When I asked him for his keenest ambition in racing he did not, like others, opt for winning the Derby or the Oaks: ‘For me it’s the Guineas. I love the Guineas and I love the Newmarket track so I hope to find a horse that can win that.’
He may not have to wait for his chance until Makfi’s progeny are running three years from now. The day after we spoke I saw him again in the cluster around trainer Richard Hannon’s best two-year-old Harbour Watch. After Harbour Watch had duly won it transpired that Sheikh Fahad had bought a half-share in him from owner Robin Heffer, and following his Goodwood performance Harbour Watch was installed by the bookmakers as favourite for next year’s 2,000 Guineas.
Thanks to the amount of liquid natural gas to hand, Qataris currently have longer pockets than most when it comes to buying bloodstock and it is to the good of British racing that Sheikh Fahad is making enthusiasts of his brothers, too. When another of his purchases, Frederick Engels, won at Royal Ascot he ran him not in his own Pearl Bloodstock colours but in the family colours.
The Qipco Holdings family has been well pleased with the worldwide publicity it has received for the international group from its British racing sponsorship — from Hong Kong to the USA — and although the quality of Qatari racing is improving their turf track invariably provides firm going and he doesn’t like racing on sand. Better for Arabians than thoroughbreds, Sheikh Fahad insists, and so he prefers to race in Britain. ‘Without a doubt, it is the best racing in the world.’ With his help, and that of a few others like him, it will hopefully remain so, despite the poor levels of prize money here. You can’t put heritage in the bank, but for some it still counts.
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