Sheikh Fahad dreaming of Kentucky Derby glory with Keeneland yearling buys

After finding brilliant but star-crossed European Horse of the Year Roaring Lion at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale in 2016, Sheikh Fahad Al Thani has returned this year with a bold new goal - to buy a potential Kentucky Derby winner.

With that target in mind and encouraged by his American wife, the former Melissa Margolis, Sheikh Fahad bought the second of two seven-figure colts during Wednesday’s third and final session of Book 1, going to $1.2 million for a Stonestreet Farms-bred son of Medaglia D’Oro.

Agent Ben McElroy, who was sitting with Sheikh Fahad, his adviser David Redvers and California-based trainer Simon Callaghan, signed the ticket for the colt, who was consigned by Gainesway as hip 472.

McElroy also signed for a $1.05m Pioneerof The Nile colt out of a half-sister to champion Classic Empire during the sale’s opening session on Monday.

“Sheikh Fahad is upping his interest in racing in America," said Callaghan. "He’s spending more time in California, so he wants to go after some of these high-end colts and go down the road of the Derby, we hope.

“I think his Californian wife has something to do with it,” Callaghan replied when asked what had spurred Sheikh Fahad to take such a serious interest in American racing.

The Medaglia D’Oro colt is the first foal out of Grade 2 winner Keen Pauline, a daughter of Pulpit, and will race under the Qatar Racing banner, according to Callaghan, who indicated that he currently has about nine horses for Sheikh Fahad’s stable.

“He’s by a top stallion," Callaghan said of the Medaglia D’Oro colt. "I thought, physically, he was one of the top horses in the sale. We knew he was going to be around $1 million and we’re lucky to get him. I think he’s going to be a good horse."

The Pioneerof The Nile colt is the first foal from the stakes-winning Twirling Candy mare Uptown Twirl and was bred by Three Chimneys Farm. He was offered as hip 174 by Taylor Made Sales Agency.

After that colt was secured, Sheikh Fahad said during a Keeneland-coordinated video interview: “We’ve been very, very lucky at this sale since I came here nine or ten years ago. Every year we’ve bought a few and every year they’ve been running well.

“He looks like a proper classic colt,” Sheikh Fahad added of the son of Pioneerof The Nile. “We're trying to find a two-turn, proper horse. To me, he looks like, hopefully, a Derby horse.

"The pedigree was outstanding, the physical was beautiful. Simon Callaghan, who is going to train him, loved him.”

Last year, Callaghan and Qatar Racing teamed up to send British-bred Out Of The Flames to win the Mizdirection Stakes at Aqueduct.

In early 2019, their Irish-bred True Valour, a five-year-old son of Kodiac, triumphed in the Grade 3 Thunder Road Stakes on the turf at Santa Anita Park.

Roaring Lion, who succumbed to colic in New Zealand last month after being shipped to Cambridge Stud for a first season of shuttle duty, was a $160,000 Keeneland September purchase. The son of Kitten’s Joy won eight of 13 starts, including four consecutive Group 1 races in a brilliant stretch last year, and earned over $3.5m.

McElroy also signed for three other colts during Book 1 of the current September sale, spending a total of $1.8m for sons of Candy Ride, Uncle Mo and War Front.

The War Front colt, bred by Evie Stockwell, is a full-brother to Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner and young stallion Hit It A Bomb as well as to European highweighted juvenile filly Brave Anna, who won the Cheveley Park Stakes.

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