Living The Dream !!
Still ‘Living the Dream’ by syndicate owner Ian !
It must be every owners dream to win The Derby. The typical formula for success requires a huge amount of money and years of investment in breeding to come up with a special horse and even then you need a decent slice of luck. Given the amount of money involved at the top of racing today, particularly from the powerhouse owners and breeders like Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin, the Coolmore operation and the late Khaled Abdullah’s Juddmonte getting anywhere near a runner at Epsom in June is a bit like trying to win the lottery. However, for racehorse syndicate owners sometimes dreams can come true and the one thing that is for certain is that if you don’t try you’ve got no chance.
It’s still relatively early days for horse racing syndicate Surrey Racing, having only started in 2016. However, since that time it is fair to say that their focus on bloodstock and breeding in their purchases and their ability, helped by astute trainers and bloodstock agents, to find value in a very unpredictable marketplace, has allowed them for the first time to at least get to the early rounds of The Derby adventure.
Surrey Gold was a yearling bought by Surrey Racing. With the help of Hughie Morrison and Stroud Coleman, the son of Golden Horn out of a Dalakhani mare was bought at Tattersalls yearling sale in 2019 for 37,000 guineas. The prodigious racing record of Darley’s Golden Horn, coupled with his unknown ability as a sire, given he only went to stud in 2016, made his early offspring an interesting gamble that attracted all the top trainers, owners and breeders. Given this, 37,000 guineas at the time looked like exceptional value for money, if that term can ever be applied to a racehorse, with a later Golden Horn colt at the same sales being bought for 100,000 guineas. To also put it into perspective, in 2019 there were 29 Golden Horn yearlings sold at auction at an average price of £97,000, with the most expensive reaching £300,000. A Golden Horn yearling also previously sold for over £500,000 in 2018. Having got a horse with the pedigree to justify 'having a go', Clive, Steve and Hughie took the first step and entered him for the 2021 Derby. Entering The Derby is an interesting process in itself with horses being entered as yearlings, long before they even had a saddle on their back, let alone proved themselves worthy on the racecourse.
They were not alone in reaching the conclusion that a Golden Horn colt was worthy of an entry, but it did put them in very illustrious company, with very deep pockets. There were initially 27 Golden Horn yearlings entered for the 2021 Derby with some very big names attached to them. John Gosden, who trained Golden Horn, himself had eleven entries, nine of which are owned by Godolphin! Other owners of note include, The Queen, Sheikh Hamadan Al Maktoum (2), Khalid Abdullah, The Aga Kahn and King Power Racing. Interestingly seven of these are still unraced and only seven have won a race as a 2yo, of which Surrey Gold is one. Whilst the quality of the horses Surrey Gold beat on his third outing at the much maligned Wolverhampton is not yet proven, he did beat a potentially promising Godolphin colt, Bridesman, and his win was very encouraging, if unexpected, being over a mile and given the fact that both jockey and trainer viewed him as a relatively weak and immature baby and still nowhere near fully developed. Also, his breeding would suggest that he will be better over a longer distance, a view also shared by Rob Hornby after the race.
Last week saw the next payment due on Derby entries and connections have decided to continue and keep the dream alive. We are now down to nine from the initial 27, with John Gosden and Godolphin still holding three of the remaining nine entries.
To date Surrey Gold has done nothing wrong, he was always going to be a later developing horse, as are all of the Golden Horn progeny. There have only been eight 2yo winners in each of his 2019 and 2020 progeny, Surrey Gold being one of these. Interestingly, their wins have almost all come late in the season, from August onwards each year. Of the ones that won as 2yo's in 2019, all went on to an official rating over ninety as 3yo's, albeit to date, with only a few exceptions, they have not yet broken through at Group or Listed level. Realistically, the syndicate owners are still buying a lottery ticket, when it comes to The Derby, which probably also comes too early in the season for Surrey Gold. It will be very interesting to see if he has come on significantly over the winter, as he would need to, in his first race as a 3yo. Until then we can all continue with the dream and if all else fails there’s a good race at Doncaster on 11 September over 1m 6f that might just work instead!