Who Tried To Beat Baaeed?

Horse racing is a mind game – that’s what makes it great.

There will always be those who try to go against the general consensus, and it can be worth doing, but all who have tried to beat Baaeed in his 10 races to date have been the poorer for it.

Despite bringing a perfect nine-of-nine record into the Juddmonte International in York on Wednesday, there were still those yet to be persuaded by Baaeed. ‘He doesn’t hit anything’ or ‘It’s a bad division’ were often trotted out when he landed another group one over a mile.

At the start of the season, William Haggas did not pre-declare his intention to reinforce Baaeed at York and with the previous season going perfectly according to plan, confidence in the camp was high.

However, the first time over a longer 10 stadia raises its own questions – despite his brother Hukum having won nearly a three-quarters mile – and what’s more, Haggas has recently had to withdraw two runners from two Group One days – Maljoom from the Prix Jacques le Marois and Alenquer from that very same Running – because of dirty scopes.

To put all this in perspective, Haggas’ wife Maureen suffered a bad accident while galloping, breaking two vertebrae in her neck.

“Most of all, it’s a relief. He’s such a good horse and he proved it today, he showed it to everyone,” said Haggas.

“I was hoping he would do something like this, but waking up at 1.30am this morning in a cold sweat because the tack had already returned to his quarters by the time he got to the start, I thought, ‘What the hell the? I will do it, but everything worked out in the end!”

Haggas has tended to evade comparisons to Frankel, another undefeated stallion who showed his signature performance in the field 10 years ago, but they kept coming.

“He delivered a special performance today. It’s very difficult, especially when you have another horse in the race, to try to record everything, but to me he looked quite spectacular,” he said.

“I told Jim (Crowley) beforehand we have to enjoy this horse because next year when we see someone else win the Juddmonte we will dream.”

However, like Frankel, we never seem to see Baaeed go over a mile and a half, with the Champion Stakes at Ascot almost certainly being his next race.

“I think the race crowd showed their appreciation today. Everyone loves a good horse and I hope they all come to Ascot too. I’ve never had a desire to run at the Arc – unless Sheikha Hissa (owner) and Angus decide they want to go there, it will be Ascot,” Haggas said.

“I think he has a lot of class. He’s a very talented horse but there was never any talk of him racing next year – he can’t, he has to go out and start making some money doing what we’d all like to do.”

You can count on one hand the number of times horses were clapped during the last furlong at York, Frankel was the prime example again, but they could indulge as much today as Baaeed’s superiority – six and a half lengths on the line.

“When the crowd started clapping, so did I. Rarely does one see a horse at a high-level race on the bridle that looks like it could go at any time. He could have waited longer. He’s just good,” Haggas said.

“We’ve had some wobbles lately, some dirty scopes and at the moment we’re having a few issues, but we have a lot of horses and if we’re diligent we’ll make sure we don’t run away from those who are struggling.”

Have you seen the latest SPRINT yet?

Angus Gold has worked for Shadwell, the brainchild of Sheikha Hissa’s late father Hamdan Al Maktoum, since 1987 and just two years later Nashwan won the 2000 Guineas, Derby, Eclipse and King George, but even he believes Baaeed is now the pinnacle of Shadwell -tree is .

“How good would this horse have been if we had put him on the right trip? What did the coach do! joked Gold.

“How can you compare yourself if you’ve never ridden a horse? I got pulled over by Willie Carson the other day when he heard me say I thought he was better than Nashwan and Willie was like ‘how can you say that’ but I just felt like he had a little more boots .

“Willie came to me today and said he thinks he’s better than Nashwan! I know it’s 30 years apart, but it’s pretty special. Mishriff is a top horse and beating him like that is very exciting. I certainly won’t say I’ve been involved in a better one. For me, the Arc is the greatest race in the world. So if anyone wants to take part I certainly won’t put them off, but it just happened so I won’t say no when we did. I haven’t discussed it. We went one step further today but the plan was always Ascot if everything went well.”

Crowley used to be a showjumping jockey, of course, but since the code change he’s been a champion on the flat, riding Baattash and Baaeed in his role as Shadwell’s retained driver.

He said, “You dream of finding a horse like that. I never thought I would ever find a horse like this when I turned to the Flat, I was just so lucky to be in the right place at the right time. I wanted him to do something like that. I just stretched it a bit today. There was no point giving this horse a tough race this season if it was unnecessary.

“Everything was towards today and it was perfect.”