Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Charlie Appleby’s successes building
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It was 2013 and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai, would-be ruler of the racing world, had arranged a meeting with Charlie Appleby. Appleby, when he was employed by the English trainer David Loder, got involved with Sheikh Mohammed’s racing operation in 1998 and had worked inside it since, rising to become a head lad, then an assistant trainer, and now Sheikh Mohammed was opening the doors to a dream job – head trainer for Godolphin, one of the most ambitious and successful racing operations ever.
Yet taking that top job meant walking into the fire. The head trainer position had opened because 13 horses trained by Mahmood al Zarooni, Appleby’s direct boss, had tested positive for anabolic steroids. The tests had come on horses stabled with Al Zarooni at Moulton Paddocks, the training yard in Newmarket, England. Appleby would be taking over that very yard, training several of the horses that triggered al Zarooni’s fall.
“Nobody forgets history. What happened, happened,” Appleby, 43, said. “I’ll never forget the day I was given the position, and I was very grateful to be able to accept it. [Sheikh Mohammed] gave me all the confidence right from the start, just to get on with it, do what the team is good at – let the horses do the talking.”
The drug scandal, which lit up the English press for weeks, followed several fallow European seasons for Godolphin. But Sheikh Mohammed hardly could turn to an established trainer to pick up the pieces. Instead, he promoted Appleby, who had never trained on his own, a grinder, a worker bee, a man more comfortable behind the curtain than on the stage.
It has turned out to be an inspired choice. Five years later, Godolphin is humming, Appleby its engine. His 2018 season has been his best, including two wins on Dubai World Cup night, Godolphin’s first Epsom Derby, and 10 Group or Grade 1 wins with eight different horses. Appleby comes to the Breeders’ Cup this week with three live chances, especially Wild Illusion, who stands to give him – and Sheikh Mohammed – a second straight victory in the Filly and Mare Turf.
“Being in the operation as long as I have, when I was fortunate enough to be given the position, it wasn’t second nature, but I was very familiar with the operation. I knew how the mechanics worked. I knew how his highness Sheikh Mohammed – what his vision was,” Appleby said. “What was second nature was for me to walk into the yard the day I was named official Godolphin trainer just the same as when I was an assistant trainer and as a head lad. I knew the personnel, I knew the regime, I knew what was expected. I was just a matter of producing the winners.”
Appleby, based during the Dubai racing season in Al Marmoon Stables, won 62 races in 2013, 109 the next year, and 157 in 2015. His strike rate rose from 18 percent in 2014 to 23 percent in 2015. Appleby wasn’t being given the cream of the Godolphin crop – most of those still were going to longtime trainer Saeed bin Suroor – but he went about showing Sheikh Mohammed he could succeed in his role.
The 157 winners would be Appleby’s peak in a calendar year. Through Oct. 27, he had 118 winners in 2018, but his operation has been finely distilled: Appleby can’t say it directly, for that would be poor form within the constraints of Godolphin, but Sheikh Mohammed has upgraded his stock – and Appleby is paying him back for it.
The yard brims with talent across divisions, and Appleby has won this year at a
29 percent clip. The respected English racing analyst James Willoughby has created an intricate global trainer rankings system and as of September had Appleby pegged as the No. 3-rated trainer in the world, behind only Aidan O’Brien and Bob Baffert.
For bin Suroor and Appleby, there is no winter down time, and their operations require, to some degree, two sets of horses: one for the Dubai World Cup Carnival, which runs from January through the end of March at Meydan Racecourse, and another for the European flat season in spring, summer, and fall.
Appleby started strong at the Carnival this year and never let up, winning his first Meydan training title. He had live runners for the Group 1’s on the Dubai World Cup card but watched in dismay early on the program as his favorite for the $1 million Al Quoz Sprint, Blue Point, was scratched at the starting gate. But Appleby still had a talented understudy in the starting stalls, and Jungle Cat produced Appleby’s first World Cup night winner. His second came later that night in the Sheema Classic with Hawkbill.
“Going back to Europe, the team had a lot of confidence behind us. We had always felt it was our best juvenile team that were taking over for the winter,” Appleby said.
Among them was a colt named Masar, who had run at Del Mar in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf but lost his chance when jockey William Buick’s foot slipped out of the stirrup early on the far turn. Wuheida’s victory in the Filly and Mare Turf helped salve that disappointment, but Masar’s 3-year-old campaign got off on the wrong foot when he failed to handle dirt in the Al Bastakiya Stakes at Meydan. Appleby regrouped and aimed Masar toward the English classics, and in his first start this spring he won the Craven Stakes by nine lengths. That eye-opener made Masar favored for the 2000 Guineas, and while he could only finish third there, the Guineas provided a final step toward an even bigger prize, the Epsom Derby.
Horses connected to Sheikh Mohammed had won the Derby before, including New Approach, owned by his wife, Princess Haya of Jordan. But Masar is a fully formed Godolphin product, sired by New Approach and foaled by the Godolphin mare Khawlah. It was a breakthrough for both Sheikh Mohammed and the little-know Englishman he had brought into the fold.
“Going into the race itself we were confident the horse was fit and was well, and we felt he was good enough. It was just a question of if he’d stay, and he did,” Appleby said.
The day before the Derby, Appleby’s top 3-year-old filly, Wild Illusion, finished second as the favorite in the Epsom Oaks, but she has bloomed through the ensuing months. Wild Illusion won the Group 1 Nassau Stakes over 1 1/4 miles at Goodwood on Aug. 2 by two lengths and ran even better capturing the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera on Oct. 7 at Longchamp by one length over the sharp filly Magic Wand. Wuheida was at least a slight surprise winning the 2017 Filly and Mare Turf, but Wild Illusion would be no surprise at all this year.
“For me, she’d be the class filly of the race,” Appleby said.
La Pelosa already has shipped to North America once this year, winning the Natalma Stakes, and starts in the Juvenile Fillies Turf on Friday. Line of Duty, a progressive Group 3 winner, will try to give Appleby his second win in the Juvenile Turf following Outstrip in 2013.
Masar suffered a leg injury training toward the Eclipse Stakes in June, and the Derby was his final start at 3, but he’ll run again next year with the major European races at 10 and 12 furlongs, capped by the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, on his agenda. Appleby also trains Quorto, an elite 2-year-old who won the Group 1 Vincent O’Brien National Stakes in September. Quorto won’t start in Dubai, Appleby said, and will be pointed directly to the English classics.
Meanwhile, bin Suroor has scored two recent Group 1 wins in France with 2-yearolds Royal Marine and Royal Meeting, and suddenly the Godolphin blue is flying again. Appleby, his place as a major trainer secure now, has a plenty to look forward to in 2019, but there still is a remarkable 2018 to savor – and the three Breeders’ Cup runners.
“Ten months on now, it’s been one of those years. You look back on what you’ve done, and you don’t want it to end,” he said.