Crisford back in spotlight, but not with Godolphin

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Simon Crisford’s last Dubai World Cup came in 2013. For 20 years, Crisford had served as an adviser, spokesman, and racing manager for Godolphin. Godolphin’s architect was Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum. Crisford and trainer Saeed bin Suroor for most of those two decades were the operation’s public faces. Crisford stood front and center for five Godolphin World Cup wins, starting with the great Dubai Millennium in 2000.

When Godolphin and bin Suroor won another World Cup in March 2014 with a moderately talented 7-year-old named African Story, Crisford was gone. The month before, he’d parted ways with Godolphin in the wake of a doping scandal uncovered in England the year before that had claimed the job of rising Godolphin trainer Mahmoud al Zarooni. It was alongside al Zarooni that Crisford appeared in 2012, when Monterosso won Godolphin’s final World Cup of the Crisford era.

Now Crisford, 60, is back in World Cup business – as a head trainer.

It is a highly unlikely scenario that a former racing journalist should take out a training license in England at age 52. The chances of such a trainer making his way to a $12 million, Group 1 race are infinitesimal. And inflating those astronomical odds is the World Cup horse himself, a 6-year-old named Algiers, a one-time turf horse owned by Hamdan Ali Alsabousi whose first group stakes win of any sort came on dirt during his 5-year-old season in the Grade 3 Jebel Ali Mile here in Dubai.

This is no vanity entry. With British bookmakers early this week, Algiers was a general 7-2 chance, the clear second favorite behind Country Grammer. Trained for first dozen starts of his career by the legendary André Fabre in France, Algiers was sold and came to Crisford and his son, co-trainer Ed Crisford, late in 2021. They brought this turf horse, by Shamardal, to Dubai, and tried him on dirt. His Jebel Ali Mile victory came in his second start here. And after being gelded last summer, Algiers has gone far higher this winter. He won Round 1 of the Al Maktoum Challenge over a one-turn mile by 6 1/2 lengths and came back in Round 2, a two-turn, 1 3/16-mile contest, to win by six. Ridden by his World Cup jockey, James Doyle, in both those starts, Algiers was forced five wide around both turns in Round 2 on Feb. 3 and still cruised home.

“He’s been here all winter and he’s acclimatized. He actually much prefers this type of training to the training we do back home in England,” Crisford said. “The most unusual thing is when he started running on a dirt track, he was an absolute natural at it. The gelding last summer, that was a help. He was always a bit stuffy in his wind and on the heavy side. But the most significant thing in his transformation is the surface.”

Crisford’s transformation into a trainer was surprisingly seamless. Well before he joined Godolphin, Crisford had been an assistant trainer in England, and he had backing at the start from the Maktoum family in Dubai. His first year out, Crisford had 22 winners from 85 starters and by season’s end his stall count, rentals at the yard of longtime trainer Clive Britain, was up to 75.

“I don’t think you can ever think anything other than its going to go well, and I was always hopeful everything would work out,” Crisford said. “In life, you have to try. If you don’t try, you won’t know. All the Maktoum family supported me. I was very fortunate.”

The Crisfords now rent 111 stalls on Hamilton Road in Newmarket at Gainsborough Stables, as well as running the string in Dubai. Their client base has expanded to include owners like Coolmore and Peter Brant.

“Every year our quality has sort of improved,” he said.

In a 2016 story published in Thoroughbred Racing Commentary, Crisford said he expected his son, who worked four years as an assistant to trainer John Gosden, would take over the operation. Plans have changed. “I am 60 right now and I’ve never been so hungry in all my life. I’ll keep going as long as I can.”

How far Algiers goes on dirt, Crisford isn’t certain. The gelding has won over a longer trip on turf, but dirt racing demands more stamina. Algiers comes into the race fresh by design. He worked well within himself breezing in company Monday morning at Meydan, a racing surface he loves.

“I’ve done things the back way round. Having been a racing manager and now a trainer. What I would say this is incredibly exciting for a wonderful group of owners,” Crisford said. “One thing I can tell you: He’s s a very, very good horse on dirt. But he’s not Dubai Millennium.”