We are seeing the beginning of the end at Godolphin
Sheikh Mohammed’s axing of sponsorship and exit of key men should be a wake-up call to racing
The splendour of the Dubai World Cup this Saturday will be a reminder of the investment Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum has made in horse racing around the world since 1977. But oh, what a precarious entity patronage is. There on a whim, but gone, inexplicably, at the stroke of a pen.
Horse racing authorities around the world are now grappling to understand the mind and deeds of the ruler of Dubai. He may have been the most enthusiastic racing supporter since Charles II, but nothing, even with Middle Eastern backing, lasts for ever.
The recent announcements that his interests will cease to sponsor the marquee Group One Irish and Yorkshire Oaks was almost certainly the beginning of the end as far as his scale of involvement in horse racing is concerned. But while the sponsorship withdrawal may have caught the headlines, it was the departure of key men in his organisations that is much more significant
One thing is certain. The Sheikh did not get out of bed and think, ‘Those Oaks sponsorships are really annoying me; but I’ll carry on with everything else.’ Clearly the departure of both Andy Wiles, the global corporate director of Godolphin and Darley Stud, as well as Bobby Brittain, marketing director of Godolphin, is a huge wake-up call to racing authorities.
They are two serious operators who will have been working on major projects. Projects that, one would assume, are now surplus to requirements. So, there must be big cutbacks in the pipeline.
So what, many will wonder, has gone wrong? Perhaps the answer is, nothing. Perhaps the issue is that if you create something as enormous as Godolphin and Darley Stud, you also create a succession problem. And as wealthy and as powerful as the Maktoum family are, perhaps Sheikh Mohammed feels that trying to pass on such an empire to one of his children is just not practical; so wise to wind things down in an orderly manner.
But that is a line of thinking that will send shivers down the spines of the world of breeding and racing because Sheikh Mohammed is not the only one in this boat. If one looks under the bonnet at the equine powerhouses of Prince Khalid Abdullah, Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum and the Aga Khan, the same lack of succession appears to be in play. The Aga Khan’s daughter is knowledgeable and engaged, but would she really maintain things at their current level?
None of which is good news for racing at a precarious time. To get a quick snapshot of the sort of cold the Flat-racing industry could catch overnight, one has only to look at who sponsors the 36 Group One races we stage.
Sheikhs from the Middle East [Dubai, Qatar and Bahrain] support 18, eight at Royal Ascot are not sponsored by choice, four are sponsored by bookmakers and two by industry stalwarts, but only four by what I would term commercial sponsors.
Some might say that as long as we continue to produce and sell our bloodstock around the world, there is not really a problem. But that is the situation that New Zealand found themselves in, with a migration of their best bloodstock to Australia, in particular. They are now contemplating ripping up 20 of their 48 racecourses if they implement the Messara report, which was compiled at the request of the New Zealand government.
The reality is that if the genes of our domestic bloodstock are not validated on home soil against the best horses in the world, their relevance and value will soon dissipate. Sheikh Mohammed has provided both the horses and sponsorship for the past 40-odd years. But racing now needs to look beyond him.
Godolphin and Darley are basically fantastically big train sets, but there comes a time when toys have to be dismantled. In this case, it may take 10 years, but that is what I believe we are seeing the start of.