Sheikh Mohammed

Nominations for the 2021 Thoroughbred Industry Employee Awards (TIEA) opened June 7 and will close Monday, Aug. 2. Sheikh Mohammed's Godolphin is the principal sponsor of the awards in association with The Jockey Club, the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (NHBPA), the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association (TOBA) and Breeders' Cup. Godolphin sponsors the Stud and Stable Staff Awards in England, Ireland, France and Australia. While the 2020 TIE Awards ceremony took place virtually, a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, this year's ceremonies are planned as an in-person...

LOUISVILLE, KY - Two years ago, Brad Cox got the phone call that every trainer wants to receive. "I got a call one day from Jimmy Bell and he said that he'd like to meet me at Churchill one morning," Cox said of his initial conversation with the Godolphin USA president. "It was an honor to get a call like that. We met in my office and he said that they'd like to send us some 2-year-olds. You knew there were gonna be runners in that group and that they'd...

Derby dreams at this time of year can prove as ephemeral as the vapours rising into the glacial air of Hot Springs. But the owner of the champion juvenile knows perfectly well that plans, with Thoroughbreds, can only ever be provisional--and that the postponement of Monday's Oaklawn card is a relatively trivial inconvenience to Essential Quality (Tapit). To recall the graver vexations that can unravel a Derby colt, Sheikh Mohammed needs only rewind to the last cycle, and the last colt that offered to requite perhaps the greatest single ambition...

For the first time in nine years and for the third time overall, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid al Maktoum's Godolphin LLC was recognized at the Eclipse Award ceremonies as America's Outstanding Owner. Horses carrying Godolphin's royal blue colors got their pictures taken 80 times in 2020, good for a remarkable strike rate of 22.2%. The operation was represented by no fewer than a joint-best eight winners at the graded stakes level (tied with Gary Barber) for a broad swath of conditioners, highlighted by the Brad Cox-trained champion Essential Quality (Tapit),...

Applications for the 2021-2023 in take of trainees for the hugely popular Godolphin Flying Start (GFS) program will be accepted beginning Dec. 1, 2020 and will remain open through Feb. 8, 2021. The online portal has been opened a month earlier than normal to provide applicants additional time in a process that has been more streamlined than ever. GFS is a two-year international management and leadership program for the Thoroughbred industry and provides its trainees with practical, hands-on work and study experiences in five different countries. "It is fantastic that...

None of us, after 2020, will ever again take even our simplest indulgences for granted. How much more culpable, then, was any complacency the industry may have permitted itself, over the years, in the patronage of the greatest investor in its history? His absence from the September Sale, a year after once again heading the buyers' table at $16 million, sharpened a sense of the incalculable collective debt owed to Sheikh Mohammed. His team did resurface, to much relief locally, for Book 1 of the October Sale at Tattersalls last...

When Sheikh Mohammed purchased Stonerside back in 2008, trainers previously employed by Bob McNair's massive operation, such as Mike Stidham, were kept on board provisionally as the acquired stable of runners transitioned to carry the famed maroon-and-white silks of Darley. "The deal was that we were able to stay in with the horses that we had at the time," said Stidham, who saddled the Stonerside-bred Tizaqueena (Tiznow) to a pair of graded tallies as well as Grade I placing at Keeneland for Darley. "And once those horses were retired, we...

   On the 20-year anniversary of Dubai Millennium's track record-setting victory (a mark that still holds today) in the Dubai World Cup, Tom Frary looks back on the legendary performance by the storied horse. As the final Saturday in March 2000 slipped into evening, an already exhilarated Nad Al Sheba gathering waited with a mix of eagerness and angst for the main event. The fifth running of the $6-million G1 Dubai World Cup featured a beautiful, inspiring bay colt with an edict placed upon him by the talismanic Sheikh Mohammed...

Magic Lily (GB) (New Approach {Ire}), third in the G1 Fillies' Mile as a juvenile, made good on her early promise with a narrow victory over Team Valor International's Nisreen (Ire) (Raven's Pass) in the G2 Cape Verde at Meydan on Thursday. The Charlie Appleby runner bore the Godolphin blue silks in the one-mile contest under pilot James Doyle, who, along with Appleby, were winning their third Cape Verde. The 5-year-old completed the Cape Verde in a new stakes and track record-setting time of 1:34.84. Sent straight to the head...