AT A PRESS day ahead of the Festival, Gordon Elliott was taken aback when a journalist for one of the tabloids asked about Labaik, a long-absent horse clearly not going to be running at Cheltenham.
Elliott’s irritation was understandable on a couple of levels: he is patently ill at ease with the reality that he trained a horse who was at one stage owned by a convicted drug dealer and was subsequently seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau.
Elliott, of course, was completely unaware of all of this but has enough conviction about him to regret it. Being associated with owners of ill-repute is hardly ideal and this has now become an unfortunate reality for the much-respected Jim Bolger, John Oxx, Willie McCreery and Michael Halford, all of whom train horses for Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin.
These trainers are without doubt among my favourite personalities to deal with in the sport. McCreery is a former footballer for Kildare and one of the most talented trainers around. Halford has established himself as one of the best in the game while Oxx and Bolger flirt with legendary status, the latter’s work in Ireland’s fight against cancer immensely inspiring.
They are now among the thousands worldwide working with an operation headed by a man who tried to supress a judgement that may yet have major ramifications for racing. Abduction, forced return, torture and a campaign of intimidation were on Thursday among the damning allegations made against the billionaire ruler of Dubai by his former wife, Princess Haya Bint Al-Hussein.
It was for Princess Haya that Bolger trained New Approach to win the Derby in 2008. Her colours were carried by two jockeys riding on the all-weather this week in England.
The allegations have now become established fact, published in a series of judgements by the High Court in London. Unsurprisingly, the Sheikh did not want this all to be made public.
Moreover, the ruler of Dubai was found to have “not been open and honest with the court”.
In a statement issued after the judgements were published, Sheikh Mohammed said: “This case concerns highly personal and private matters relating to our children. The appeal was made to protect the best interests and welfare of the children. The outcome does not protect my children from media attention in the way that other children in family proceedings in the UK are protected.
“As a head of government, I was not able to participate in the court’s fact-finding process. This has resulted in the release of a ‘fact-finding’ judgment which inevitably tells only one side of the story. I ask that the media respect the privacy of our children and do not intrude into their lives in the UK.”
Whether or not a man who tried to abduct his children, one of whom has not been seen in public since 2000, is in a place to lecture the media about intruding in their lives is another thing.The ruler of Dubai orchestrated the abductions of two of his children – one from the streets of Cambridge – and subjected his youngest wife, Princess Haya, to a campaign of “intimidation”, the damning UK family court judgment found.
The judge accepted virtually all Princess Haya’s allegations as true on the balance of probabilities, including that the Sheikh: attempted to have her abducted by helicopter; arranged for guns to be left in her bedroom; taunted her over her adulterous relationship with a bodyguard; divorced her without telling her; threatened to seize their children; and published threatening poems about her online.
The Racing Post covers the story this afternoon and one can only wonder what the Sheikh makes of that, given that he still retains ownership of the paper’s name. How it is reported in the Irish Field tomorrow will be of intrigue too.
This must be a horrific time for Sheikh Mohammed. He has spent astronomical amounts of money, from which Irish and British racing has benefitted hugely, which did not add up to much when it came to the findings of the court of the United Kingdom.
Sheikh Mohammed is credited with transforming racing into a global industry. Having ridden on beaches in Dubai as a child, he was introduced to the sport in 1967 in the UK, four years before the United Arab Emirates gained independence from the UK. The Sheikh would set up Godolphin as well as the breeding operation Darley.
Godolphin – which has facilities in the UAE, England, Ireland, Australia, Japan and the US – has won 6,000 races since 1992, including 315 Group Ones races.
How can racegoers now cheer on steeds running for the boys in blue? And will his relationship with British racing ever be the same again?
Racing can exist in something of a moral vacuum, beholden as it is to owners like the Sheikh, whose United Arab Emirates is a horrible place to live for many of its indispensable migrant workers. Recently, the decision of Shane Lowry to play a golf tournament in Saudi Arabia was strongly criticised, with Rory McIlroy having opted not to partake on moral grounds.
When Saudi Arabia hosted an obsenely lucrative racing fixture last month, there was little or no debate within the sport about the morality of sending runners there.
Those who work in Sheikh Mohammed’s racing empire must be a little reticent this morning. Will the man who has given so much to British racing feel the same going forward? How will he feel about setting foot on a British racecourse again?
It is not easily forgotten how he made plain his discomfort on the subject of a drugs scandal by cutting short a live TV interview with Clare Balding when she asked him about the continuing investigation into one of his stables after winning the Guineas in 2013.
If he thought that line of interrogation were awkward, how will he respond to questions about abducting his own daughter?
Ministers, police and prosecutors are under pressure to bring the ruler of Dubai to justice. Racing will be watching on, but from what distance?
The show goes on and Guiding can score at odds of about 40/1 in the Crowne Plaza Dundalk Race & Stay Apprentice Handicap (6.45) at Dundalk.
Tomorrow at Gowran, Bread And Butter looks tasty in the Xenon Handicap Hurdle (3.25) ahead of a big week for his trainer, Gavin Cromwell.
It will be a big week for racing too but nothing compared to this one, when racing’s relationship with Sheikh Mohammed changed forever, presumably?