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See below for a brief insight into the history of Arabian Racing in the UK
By Paul Simmons

Arabian Racing, now in its 31st year, is one of the fastest growing amateur equestrian sports in the UK. It all started when in 1977 Mrs Val Whitehead, John & Anne Unwin sought Jockey Club approval for a programme of Arabian Horseracing to be staged.  Permission was granted for the Arab Horse Society to be the Registration and Racing Authority under Jockey Club Rules. 

The first Arabian racemeeting was held at Hawthorn Hill in 1978 and since then the sport has developed into one of the very few equestrian sports that caters for the true amateur who owns, trains and even rides their Arabian in its races and also the true professional who aims for Group and Premier handicap success. In fact many people start off as amateurs but end up with a whole string of horses.

In 1999 the Arabian Racing Organisation was founded, and in 2003 they became the sole organiser for Arabian Racing in the UK.  The programme is now run under the BHA Regulations for Arabian Racing.

During its 30 year history, many people have cut their teeth in the Arabian Racing world before going onto mainstream thoroughbred racing; the list includes up and coming trainers Paul Keane, Jennie Candlish and Paul D’Arcy, whilst on the jockey side Ben Hitchcott was Champion jockey in  2000 before moving onto life as conditional jockey in National Hunt racing.  Nicky Tinkler had a season Arab racing in 2002 where he rode 7 winners before he also moved onto National Hunt racing.  The list of champion owners include HH Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum whose blue colours are more commonly associated with thoroughbred racing – Gill Duffield is his principal trainer. Former top National Hunt jockey Bill Smith, who used to ride for the Queen Mother, trains mainly for HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum – the man behind Godolphin. Smith also trains for owners from Argentina and America.

A upcoming trainer is Sam Davison, who started off training for herself three years ago with just two horses.  In 2006, her first season as a professional trainer she had nearly 20 horses in training and finished third in the Easibed 2006 Arabian Trainers Championship behind Smith and Duffield; her biggest wins that year included Almost All for owner Linda Cross who won the ultra competitive Dubai Immigration Stakes on Dubai Day and WFA Leopard for owners Dublcheck Ltd. Davison also won two competitive maidens with potential superstars Sabden (owned by a syndicate) and Nokomys owned and bred by Jane Haddock. Next season looks set to bring more glory for this talented trainer.

There are many initiatives run by the Arabian Racing Organisation, who have been running Arabian Racing since 2002. These include 'try before you buy', where people can try racing at a couple of meetings at a reduced cost to see if they want to continue, there are handicaps for amateurs and moderate Arabians, who carry a maximum weight of 10st 7lb. There are also a number of Group races and Premier handicaps run on Thoroughbred cards.  ARO offers an excellent platform for young jockeys  to develop their riding skills in races on Thoroughbreds, or Arabians which require more driving and pushing than Thoroughbreds generally.

Barry Adams rode his first winner at an Arabian racemeeting at Exeter in July 2005.  He spent the summer of 2005 working for Bill Smith after Terry Biddlecombe approached Smith as he thought it would assist Adams to spend a summer riding in Arabian races to hone his skills before going back over jumps in the winter.  The race Barry won was part of the Novice rider series sponsored by Town & Country Farms in America, the winner of the series won an expenses paid working holiday at their base in Florida.  Leading Welsh based trainer Delyth Thomas regularly uses amateur jockeys and won this years Jebel Ali Gold Final with Fedor Du Bournais who was ridden by Cian Hughes an amateur based with David Pipe, Fedor was his first UK winner.

The biggest day in the Arabian Racing calendar is Dubai Day which this year saw crowds of over 16,500 attend at Newbury in August 2007. This meeting is the Arabian equivalent of Royal Ascot and boasts 3 Group races – Dubai International Stakes Group 1 PA, the Hatta Stakes Group 1 PA (Mares Championship), the Zaabeel Stakes Group 1 PA (Sprint Championship), the Jumeirah Stakes Group 2 PA (for Juveniles – 3yr olds only) and three highly competitive and valuable handicaps. This year the Tote reported a turnover of £100,000 and William Hill became the first bookmakers in the UK to take off course bets on an Arabian race meeting.

Highlights of 2007 

Welsh based Arab race horse trainer Delyth Thomas pulled off an incredible achievement when all five runners finished in the first six in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Stakes at Kempton Park. The race was won by Thomas’s smart gelding Final Fling (Djamel x FH Honey Mellon) who beat stablemate Noble Athlete (Dorwan Du Cayrou).

The race signalled the end of the UK Arab race season with owner/trainer Carol Legg’s useful gelding Mushammer (Passem Lotois x Kawzah Tiki) was crowned UK Champion Arab with four wins and four places from eight runs.

Champion trainer was the incredible Gill Duffield once again, and who ensured main patron HH Sheikh Hamdan was crowned Champion owner. Their leading performers were Anayid who won three races including the UK Breeders Cup; the amazing No Risk Al Maury unbeaten all season winning the Group 2 Qatar Racing & Equestrian Club Stakes, the Group 1 Shadwell Dubai International Stakes and the State of Qatar International Handicap Stakes; Furaat won twice including the UAE Equestrian and Racing Federation Premier Handicap Stakes and Paul De Faust who won the Qatar Racing & Equestrian Federation Stakes at Newbury.

Simon Walker narrowly beat Phil Collington to land the jockeys Championship from last years champion. They were level with twenty winners each at Warwick the final meeting, Collington briefly went into the lead when winning the opener on Kamilya but Simon Walker won the next two races on Fraternity and Earlsdon to land the championship.

Katie James won the novice jockey title with eight wins narrowly from promising young jockey Rhys Flint who rode the majority of Delyth Thomas winners this season and finishing a good runner up with seven winners in his debut season.

Top Horses

MADJANI – One of the greatest Arabian racehorses of the modern era

This incredible seven year old stallion is by leading French sire Tidjani out of the interesting Tunisian bred mare Salama by Sibawaih. He has won 9 out of his last ten starts coming second on his “off day”. These races are all at the highest Group 1 level but his real incredible achievement is in winning arguably the toughest Arabian race in the World the infamous Arabian World Cup or Group 1 Kahayala Classic at Nad Al Sheba. Madjani hasn’t just won this race, he has won three times in a row and is undefeated since 2005. His latest victory in this race is all the more miraculous as he injured himself before the race by bizarrely stepping on a golf ball.

In the 2007 running of the Kahayala classic Madjani was always handy under a confident ride from Richard Hills, but it was former UK Derby winner Robbie (by Makzan) who made his move first but was tracked relentlessly by Madjani who came clear in the final furlong to hold off Charh by 1 ¼ lengths, with top class mare Mizzna ¾ length back in third and a gallant Robbie fourth. UK based winning trainer Gill Duffield was understandably delighted with this ultra tough stallions hatrick of wins “he dug really deep. That’s what he’s all about and I love him”.

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