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Sunday, January 15, 2012

Qatar is playing the ponies, and winning big

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Qatar is playing the ponies, and winning big

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Cradling his iPad, Sheik Fahad bin Abdullah al-Thani, a member of Qatar’s royal family, casts his gaze on a bay colt.

The horse is coming up for bidding on a sunny October afternoon at Tattersalls auction house during Europe’s biggest yearling sale in Newmarket, England. Thani pushes his TAG Heuer sunglasses back on his head and flips through his iPad for details on the colt’s bloodline.

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Not long ago, a 22-year-old sheik in jeans and sneakers would have been the ultimate outsider at “Old Tatt,” a tradition- drenched institution dating from the mid-18th century.

Here, bidders are usually British, and the horses are still priced in guineas, an antique monetary unit that’s now equal to 1 pound 5 pence ($1.64).

Even though he started buying thoroughbreds less than 20 months ago after attending his first race, Thani knows what’s he’s looking for. “The temperament is important,” he says. “It’s mostly the pedigree and how the horse looks.”

As a newcomer to the world of thoroughbred horse racing, Thani was up against some of the biggest names in the sport, including Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai; John Magnier, the Irish owner of the biggest breeder of thoroughbred horses in the world, Coolmore Stud; and John Warren, Queen Elizabeth II’s bloodstock and racing adviser.

Given the money spent at Tattersalls and other auctions in 2011, the superrich who dominate the global market for thoroughbreds seem immune to shaky markets and the European debt crisis.

Thani peers at lot 49’s details on his screen: The colt’s a big draw at today’s sale; his father is Invincible Spirit, champion of seven races, sire to more 2-year-old winners than any other stallion in 2010.

Thani is determined not to go wild and bows out of the bidding. Warren snaps up the bay colt for 150,000 guineas.

With a relatively tiny budget and a newcomer’s luck, Thani, nephew of Qatari Emir Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, is making waves on the global horse-racing circuit — and not because he’s throwing around cash.

At Tattersalls, he spent 215,000 guineas on three untrained yearlings. That was a fraction of the 6 million guineas shelled out by Maktoum, the owner of the world’s richest stable of thoroughbreds.

Yet in less than two years, the young Qatari has pulled off a feat that Maktoum, 62, has not achieved in two decades of investing in flat racing.

On Thani’s first try, his stallion Dunaden won the prestigious Melbourne Cup in a dramatic photo finish: It took the judges 21/2 minutes to declare the victor.

“Those 21/2 minutes felt like three years,” Thani says.

The prize at the world’s richest turf race was worth it: $3.6 million. Not a bad return considering he scooped up Dunaden for $156,300 in 2010.

Part of a bigger branding exercise

Thani’s restraint has earned him the admiration of some of the most important figures in racing.

“It’s nice that he’s not rushed in and gone crazy,” Warren says several weeks later at Highclere Stud, his horse farm near Highclere Castle, where the TV show “Downton Abbey” is filmed.

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