LOVING FERGIE TIME
BY
RICHARD FAHEY will bid to provide Sir Alex Ferguson with further international success when Spirit Dancer lines up in the Howden Neom Turf Cup today.
The seven-year-old gave the former Manchester United manager (inset) and his fellow owners, Ged Mason and Fred Done, a day to remember when scoring in the Bahrain International Trophy in November and attentions were soon turned to securing more valuable prizes in the region.
Spirit Dancer tuned up for his crack at this $2million prize by finishing fourth in Meydan’s Jebel Hatta last month and his handler believes that will have put him spot on for this Saudi Cup night assignment.
“I felt he would need the run the last day and it looked that way as well,” said Fahey.
“He has had four or five weeks to acclimatise now. It’s all stuff of dreams, which is becoming a reality when we get to run on Saturday.
“It’s fantastic here, we are well looked after and the horse is happy. When you come on these trips, the most important thing is how the horse is - and the horse is in good order.
I’m very pleased with him and at the moment I wouldn’t swap my fella.”
Fahey admitted to being awestruck by the footballing great in the early stages of training for him, but now relishes the time they spend together comparing notes on how to prime star sporting talent for action.
“To be fair, when I first started training for him, I was a little bit humbled,” Fahey.
“I have some fantastic conversations with him and he has been to the yard three or four times now. He is just a wonderful man and you can see why he has been a success.
“It’s a humbling experience but it’s amazing, because even this (Thursday) morning we were discussing footballers and horses and Sir Alex was asking why we didn’t canter on the grass.
“I explained we race on the (grass) surfaces because if we were to train on them all the time, we wouldn’t have many horses left, so we tend to use the artificial surfaces - and he compared it to a very good football team whose training pitch was quite quick and a lot of the players were getting hurt, so there is comparisons with football and racing.”