Qatar Oaks and Derby days: an eight-win Wathnan bonanza

Derby weekend in Qatar, with two days of championship races for Classic generation Purebred Arabians and Thoroughbreds, including special divisions for locally bred horses. All in all, a festival of sporting combat, all played out at Al Uqda racecourse.

Wathnan Racing saddled no fewer than 14 horses across the two afternoons. Terrific tussles and runaway leaders resulted in eight victories, and a handful of placed horses. The undoubted highlight? Well, it came as the sun was setting on Friday evening, in the $500,000 Qatar Derby, an international Black Type event with local G1 designation for three-year-old thoroughbreds.

Wathnan fielded four in the race they had won last year with the swooping late surge of Jeff Koons. The pick of the bunch, having won the trial race here at Al Uqda at the beginning of December, was Supercooled, the mount of stable jockey James Doyle. A colt very near the top of the three-year-old crop in France – sixth in the Group 1 Poule d’Essai and third more recently in an especially hot Longchamp Group 3. The big concern for trainer Alban de Mieulle was his wide draw – something which had hampered last year’s best Wathnan hope, Make Me King. But, sitting last off a hot early pace, Supercooled and Doyle swooped rapidly through the field in the home straight, the powerful chestnut lengthening his stride to draw clear for a resounding and particularly impressive triumph.

Supercooled, a son of leading European sire Lope de Vega, looks capable of taking high order amongst horses of all ages in the Middle East over the coming months and seasons – and, with his mid-May foaling date and substantial make and shape, he’s likely to continue to progress.

Among Wathnan’s other victorious horses was Khisah Bu Thaila in the Local Thoroughbred Derby for horses bred in Qatar. The Cracksman colt had made a winning debut in the Middle East over 1,200m back in January – but had not run since, and this race was over 2,100m. As things transpired, he won with any amount in hand and will be a force to reckon with, even in open competition.

The three year-old Pure Arabian Derby, run over a skinny 1,400m for the young horses (the principal Arabian classics are for four-year-olds), was won with a scintillating burst of speed by the petite Wathnan filly Chdia. Small in stature she may be, but – after this 6.5-length cakewalk – her reputation could not be any taller.

The pick of Wathnan’s three winners on Oaks day was, perhaps, the exciting if mercurial American import RB Mary Lylah in the Purebred Arabian Oaks. Winner of eight of 10 starts in her homeland, including beating the colts in the Texas Arabian Derby, all of her victories came at 1,700m or less. This Class 1 affair, her Qatari debut, is run over 2,100m, and the question was, could jockey James Doyle hold her speed in check to enable her to stay the distance. The answer was… only just! The filly pulled hard for her head through the early part of the race, before striking the front seemingly full of energy. Drifting to the middle of the track she briefly threatened to throw away her advantage, hanging towards the crowd as if losing concentration. Doyle, however, managed to hold her together and she crossed the line still more than a length to the good over French raider Norma Al Maury, who came here with Group 1 form from Arc day in Paris. RB Mary Lylah is a star in the making, still with lots to learn despite her long experience. Remember the name.

Away from the classic generation, the Middle East’s top two-year-old race, the Al Rayyan Stakes, drew horses with excellent Group race form from the top juvenile tests of Europe. Wathnan’s assault – diminished before the start with the withdrawal of the English-trained Goodwood winner Artagnan – was nonetheless formidable. Rebel Diamond, who had completed a hattrick in Ireland in an October Listed race, was a class apart, winning in the style of a very useful sprinter in the making. The form is rock-solid: Wathnan’s Shadow Army, a Group 2 runner-up in France, ran on from the back to be third, the pair divided by Billboard Star, another with Group 2 form in Britain. Rebel Diamond is another who promises to have a distinguished career sporting the peacock blue and gold silks of the Wathnan stable.