Thunder Snow is key to realising Godolphin’s quest for Kentucky Derby
The first week in May is always magical for fans of the equine athlete. You could not ask for a better line-up of high-class races than the English 1000 and 2000 Guineas and Kentucky Derby, which take place thousands of mile apart.
Needless to say, several horses with Dubai connections figure in all three historical events.
However, it is the UAE Derby victor, Thunder Snow, whose has generated the most suspense.
Not least for Team Godolphin, who has fuelled hopes of the Dubai-owned stable realising its global ambition.
No race emphasises the stable’s ongoing pursuit of international success more than the Classics and races like the Kentucky Derby.
Godolphin’s philosophy, since the stable was founded in 1994, has always been to be competitive at the highest level on this planet.
No frontier is too far. No race too difficult to win, no challenge refused.
It does not matter that they have yet to win America’s greatest race and hasn’t stopped them from trying.
It never will, head Godolphin trainer Saeed Bin Surour once told me, stressing that every year, efforts are made to find a horse capable of meeting the challenge.
It is well known that Godolphin is the brainchild of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, VicePresident and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. His Premier League team. His flagship and one that represents the very passion for the horse that runs in his blood.
Shaikh Mohammad’s quest for prizes like the Kentucky Derby runs very deep, to even before he formed Godolphin. In 1992 a horse called Arazi, which he co-owned, finished eighth behind Lil E. Lee in the race that they call the ‘Run for the Roses’. it
When he launched Godolphin, with stables based in Dubai and Newmarket, England, the strategy was to winter horses in Dubai before flying them across the Atlantic to challenge for the Derby. Few of them ran prep races on American soil.
Best effort
It was an approach that worked with the great Lammtarra who hopped off the plane and won the Epsom Derby in 1995.
But it has yet to pay off for Godolphin who are regularly represented in the American showpiece. The best effort by a Godolphin horse came from China Visit who would win the UAE Derby before gaining a sixth-place finish in 2000.
Thunder Snow, last month’s UAE Derby hero, is set to pick up the gauntlet when he takes on the might of America on Saturday and supply Godolphin with the global power that they so passionately seek.
Bin Surour, who masterminded Lammtarra’s Epsom Derby coup has once again been entrusted with the enormous task of taking a horse straight from Dubai to the highest international success.
Thunder Snow is his seventh runner in the great race, but Bin Surour believe that he deserves his place in the contest.
During a recent conversation with the much-decorated trainer in Dubai, he had confessed to me that the hunger to win great races like the Kentucky Derby, the Epsom Classic and the Melbourne Cup were still very high on his agenda.
“All you need is the right horse,” he said. “A horse that can travel, adapt, handel the pressure and give his best on the day. His very best. That’s all you need… and a little luck in running.”
Only time will tell if Thunder Snow is such a horse. And as the saying goes, you’ve got to be in the race to win it.