Sport

Sheikh rattles and rolls again on the Flat

Sheikh Mohammed and the Maktoum family dominated the 1998 turf Flat season on and off the track

Mon Nov 09 1998 - 00:00

Sheikh Mohammed and the Maktoum family dominated the 1998 turf Flat season on and off the track. Their threat to quit British racing unless finances improved hung over the whole campaign, with the announcement that David Loder will move to France to train their two-year-olds in 1999 sending further shock waves through the sport.

And a frenetic autumn buying spree, which saw the likes of Xaar, Saratoga Springs and top US two-year-old Worldly Manner added to the Godolphin team, further set the tongues wagging.

But it was on the course that the men from Dubai made their mark most emphatically.

Godolphin horses Daylami, Faithful Son and Central Park landed an unprecedented clean sweep of the places in the CoralEclipse Stakes at Sandown.

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Swain repeated his victory in the King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes at Ascot, followed up in the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown and third in the Breeders' Cup Classic.

And the royal blue colours landed Classic victories with Cape Verdi in the 1,000 Guineas and Nedawi in the St Leger.

Unsurprisingly, Godolphin were champion owners with Saeed bin Suroor winning his second trainers' title.

Former assistant trainer Jeremy Noseda got in on the act too, winning the Group One Cheveley Park Stakes at Newmarket with Wannabe Grand in his first full season with a licence.

But not everything went Godolphin's way.

The Epsom Classic fell to HighRise, owned by Sheikh Mohammed's cousin Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum and trained by Luca Cumani - but even that winner subsequently joined Godolphin. For the second year running all five British Classic winners failed to win again in the season.

But Kieren Fallon showed no sign of losing his winning touch.

He retained his jockeys' championship and ended the season with 202 winners, becoming only the fourth jockey to reach 200 more than once - after Sir Gordon Richards, Fred Archer and Frankie Dettori.

Others for whom 1998 was memorable include Carl Lowther, who won the apprentices' title and rode his first Pattern-race winner on Bolshoi.