Jamie Lynch: The light and Dark in Godolphin’s Vision

What do you call an Englishman in the knockout stages of the World Cup? A referee.

What’s the expectation of a promising two-year-old bought for big bucks by Godolphin? A reappearance the following season in a Nottingham conditions race in October.

Tried and tested jokes that became tired and testy tropes, succumbing to Poe’s law, the modern theoretical phenomenon that says it’s impossible to parody a certain subject in such a way that someone won’t mistake it for the genuine article.

But then this summer happened, when England were 22 minutes away from a World Cup Final. Same jersey, same sort of odds to progress, and same sort of quality to pick from, but England were very different, inside out: a revolution in the outlook of those within and a recognition from those on the outside looking in.

Preconceptions were challenged, perceptions were changed and potential was championed, as potential champions. The parallels are profound with Godolphin, likewise being a former global superpower whose star dimmed over time, for a long time, until the recent renaissance which has generated greater heat, greater light and greater influence: a revolution in the outlook of those within and a recognition from those on the outside looking in.

It may not, nor ever again be, the ascendant animal it once was, but, compared to the last decade, Godolphin, like England, seems different. What has made it different is the interesting part.

The catalyst for this line of enquiry was the news of Godolphin purchasing undefeated two-year-old Dark Vision, and not only him, as one further along its curve, three-year-old Vintager, was also recruited at a premium price this month. Such a sky-high supermarket sweep wouldn’t have raised anything other than a chuckle between five and ten years ago, when expensive assets invited cheap shots at Godolphin’s apparent aim of bandwagon-buying their way back to the bigger time.

That purchasing power has never gone away, but it felt like a muscle less flexed in the new era of Godolphin, making this mid-season spending spree a trademark play from a bygone book, more an omen from history than a blueprint for the future. That’s the perception, or my perception to be precise, but what’s the reality of Godolphin’s transfers and transactions in modern times?

With caveats about the difficulties of siphoning every scrap of relevant data, given the size and scale of the operation, we (and by ‘we’ I mean, as ever, @UTVilla) were able to pin down almost all of the Godolphin acquisitions in Europe over the last five years, by process of researching various records of sales and ownership changes.

The variations in type of transfer can be split into three main categories, as per the table below: those already owned by Godolphin, or its associates, that were absorbed into the Newmarket stables from other jurisdictions (Take Control column), and the horses that were bought and brought under the Godolphin banner after revealing their talents on the track, sub-divided into those that were immediately transferred to Appleby/bin Suroor (Take One For The Team) and those who stayed with their original trainers (Take Ownership). 

Taking it section by section, the experiment with using other areas/stables as something of a pre-school centre – which was once pursued vigorously by David Loder’s ‘nursery’ in the early-2000s – looks to have been shelved completely, with no such examples in either 2016 or 2017.

More interesting, and more stark in terms of returns, is the regulation recruiting of brighter prospects, separated into those immediately moved, like Vintager (from David Menusier to Charlie Appleby), and ones like Dark Vision that are left where they are (Mark Johnston in this instance). The two double-figure numbers tell two different tales, as the ten that were straight-away switched to either Appleby (four) or bin Suroor (six) for 2016 managed just one pattern-race success between them subsequently, and that was only a Group 3 (Scottish in the Strensall Stakes).

Compare that with the previous year, in the other column, when as many as eleven premium-priced thoroughbreds were left in the shop store following the transaction, with great reward, as there were five Group 1 winners amongst them (Belardo, Night of Thunder, Pleascach, Jack Hobbs and Ribchester, though the first trio had already won at that level), as well as multiple Group 2 scorer Toormore. The four the following year didn’t yield much, but the seven stay-at-home acquisitions for 2017 included Barney Roy and Harry Angel, besides Royal Ascot winner Atty Persse and Jimmy Two Times, two times a Group winner in France.

The fact that only two of the purchases in 2017 were brought in-house, and then probably only with the Carnival in mind (both Bravo Zolo and Kidmenever were ready-made for it), suggests the powers that be at Godolphin now know where the power might be, in leaving the work-in-progress to the original artist rather than painting, or repainting, by numbers.

However, the most striking aspect is less in the detail and more in the round. If the question was how many horses-in-training have Godolphin bought in Europe since 2012, surely the spread would have been set well over 100, far away from the answer of under 50.

It’s what’s going on in the background that’s most meaningful to the Godolphin regeneration and the reason for the relatively small number (49) of equine mercenaries being sought. The fundamental focus within Godolphin appears to flipped, out with the old and in with the new; outsourcing talent the old way and internal trust the new, trust in the two, because the two game-changers for the revamped Godolphin are a super-sire and a hot-shot handler, Dubawi and Charlie Appleby.

During the fallow years, the major fault-line in the Godolphin process was in the transitioning from two-year-old potential into three-year-old achievement, a missing link which meant that many a promising blue flower failed to bloom, whether it was one of their own nurturing or one hijacked at a high price from another garden, hence the well-worn joke that became Poe’s law.

But have a look at the graphic below for a snapshot of how, why and who has bucked that trend, showing the delivery of goods from two to three of each of Charlie Appleby’s last four crops.

Not only is the median rating of the juveniles increasing year on year but, moreover, their development as three-year-olds is advancing in line, impressively so, the average rating of this year’s classic crop hitting 94, which is only 6 lb below Aidan O’Brien’s group. Appleby is a class-converter, the rate and rating of each generational push proving the point, setting him apart, making him one of the twin peaks on which Godolphin is building its new empire.

If Appleby is a sculptor, Dubawi is the classic clay. In 2009, debuting as a stallion, Dubawi stood for £15,000. In 2018, for the second year running, that figure was £250,000. This summer, he became the first British-based sire to produce 100 individual Group winners. And he’s Godolphin’s.

In 2016, Appleby ran fifteen Dubawi two-year-olds, to bin Suroor’s fourteen. In 2017 it was twenty-four to twelve. The trust in Appleby has earnt him the privilege of Dubawi and emboldened the faith in the team, no wonder when the pairing has this year produced, amongst others, Wild Illusion and Quorto, both towards the top of their generation/division.

Godolphin will always be financially fishing for developing stars in the wider world like Dark Vision, because of their resources and because of their ambition. That approach can make a difference, but a home-grown army can make an empire.

Hard as they tried, and high as they spent, Godolphin had a long while where they couldn’t find the keys to the kingdom. In Dubawi, they now have a gateway, and Charlie Appleby is fast becoming a skilled key-cutter. Their combined light is the true vision, rather than a Dark Vision.