Tweet
The celebrations at Makfi's shock 2,000 Guineas win at Newmarket on Saturday were probably drowned out by the groans emanating from former owners Shadwell Stud.
The decision to sell the then unraced Makfi in October last year came back to haunt his former owners after the horse - offloaded due to a `gut feeling' that he would never perform at the highest level - sprang a 33-1 surprise.
The French raider, trained at Gouvieux near Chantilly by Mikel Delzangles, stormed to a one-and-a-quarter length victory on the Rowley Mile and easily accounted for the Richard Hannon-trained pair of **** Turpin and Canford Cliffs.
Makfi was bred by Sheikh Hamdan's Shadwell Stud, but former trainer Marcus Tregoning and the Sheikh's racing manager, Angus Gold, took the decision to sell because of injury problems.
"He had been immature and had problems with his knees and joints," a crestfallen Gold told Reuters at the course.
"Marcus was never able to get a clear run with him. I saw Delzangles quoted earlier this week saying that Makfi shows nothing at home for him, and I can quite see why he said that.
"I feel pretty bad right now. I feel guilty. It's hard enough to make stallions and I've just gone and sold one."
Gold fronts up Sheikh Hamdan's worldwide racing operation in conjunction with Shadwell Stud, which creams off the best racehorses owned by the Sheikh after their racing careers and turns them into lucrative stallions.
But Makfi never had a chance to show how good he was on the track for the Sheikh.
Gold continued: "He had his hiccups and Marcus's gut feeling was that he wasn't going to be a good horse. Look, we have an awful lot of horses in training and it is my job to sell them if they are not much good.
"Makfi is obviously a horse that saves his best for the racecourse and he should have been running in Sheikh Hamdan's colours today. Congratulations to all of the connections of Makfi, they've done a great job.
Makfi sold for just 26,000 guineas at Tattersalls, a price that was recouped 10 times over by Parisian-based owner Matthieu Offenstadt when his pride and joy scooped the 227,080 pounds first prize.
"It's amazing, I can't believe it," said Delzangles, who was winning his first British Classic. "The owner wanted a son of Dubawi and I went to the sales and found him one - he was a good-looking horse.
"We were just lucky buying him, we didn't know much about him beforehand and we went there with a budget of 30,000 guineas."
(Editing by Justin Palmer
To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)
Powered by WizardRSS | Full Text RSS Feeds
