Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
THE IRISH ARE TAKING 0VER IN THE DESERT
THERE is plenty of Irish interest in the Saudi Cup festival this weekend, with the world’s richest race among the contests taking place over two days.
Trainers Joseph O’brien, Johnny Murtagh and Tony Mullins all have runners at King Abdulaziz Racetrack in Riyadh, while Kildare jockey David Egan is aiming to win the Saudi Cup for the second year in a row.
But one of the key people involved in organising the prestigious global event is also an Irishman – Tipperary native Tom Ryan.
He is the Director of Strategy & International Racing at the Jockey Club of Saudi Arabia having moved to the Middle East in 2019 to take up the role after 13 years working as the manager of Naas racecourse.
Speaking to The Irish Mirror ahead of the event, he explained: “We’re there now. Like a team getting ready for an All-ireland final, all we need is to do well on the day now.
“We’ll have 20,000 on both days. We’re probably 95 per cent sold-out now 48 hours out so it’s very close to a full ticket. We’re happy.
“This part of the world is a little bit interesting in that as well as improving the ability of running a horse racing event from an industry perspective at a higher level, the venue was built sort of 20 years ago for a small group of royalty I suppose to race against each other.
“It wasn’t technically built to deal with a lot of people so we had to develop the site as well as the core infrastructure for the horses as well, but it’s been a good challenge and a very interesting journey.”
Egan won the Saudi Cup in 2021 at the age of just 21 and will try to do so again on Mishriff for John and Thady Gosden again this year.
Ryan admits it was great to see a fellow Irishman win the feature race.
He added: “It was great. Obviously I would have dealt with his mother, Sandra Hughes, quite a lot in Naas when I was there and obviously her father Dessie back in the day. It was brilliant.
“From an Irish perspective, the stallion Make Believe (sire to Mishriff) stands in Co Kilkenny. There was a lot of Irish connection there.”
And there’s plenty of Irish involvement once again at the meeting this year.
Tony Mullins will aim to follow in his brother Willie’s footsteps by winning a race at the prestigious meeting after True Self won the Neom Turf Cup 12 months ago.
Tony runs his stable star Princess Zoe (inset), who landed the Group 1 Prix du Cadran in 2020 before finishing second behind Subjectivist in the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot last summer, in the $2.5million Red Sea Turf Handicap.
The mare will be partnered by young jockey Joey Sheridan.º