Hayes rates import highly

Trainer David Hayes put Our Aqaleem (pictured) in illustrious company when he likened Saturday’s impressive Flemington winner to At Talaq and Almaarad, two of the best horses to be imported to race in Australia by the Shadwell stables of Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid al Maktoum.

Hayes said that of the imported horses trained at Lindsay Park, only At Talaq and Almaarad have race performances the equal of Our Aqaleem.

“He’s an Epsom Derby placegetter, which proves his class,” Hayes said.

At Talaq (by Roberto (USA)) won the 1986 Melbourne Cup (3200m, Flemington) and three years later Almaarad (by Ala Mana Mou (IRE)) won the Cox Plate at Moonee Valley. Both horses were Group 1 winners in Europe before being imported to Australia to be trained by Hayes’ father Colin.

In Europe, At Talaq won the 1984 Group 1 Grand Prix de Paris (3000m, Longchamp) and Almaarad was taken to Germany by trainer John Dunlop to win the Group 1 Aral Pokal (2400m, Gelsenkirchen).

Sheikh Hamdan also owned David Hayes’ only Melbourne Cup winner, Jeune (by Kalaglow (IRE)), who won the great race in 1994. Jeune came to Australia as a multiple Group winner in England, over 2000m and 2400m, but had failed at Group 1 level. In Australia, he won four times at the highest level for Hayes.

It was a wonderful training performance from Hayes to win first up with Our Aqaleem, especially over 1600m, from a break from racing of 917 days (due to his twice fracturing his pelvis) – his last run in England was on July 31, 2007 when he finished a long neck second behind Yellowstone in the Group 3 Gordon Stakes (2400m) at Goodwood.

Before that Our Aqaleem placed third behind Authorized in the Group 1 Epsom Derby (2400m) at Epsom Downs – the margins were five lengths and two lengths. Unplaced in that Derby was Mahler (11^th), who was third to Efficient in the 2007 Melbourne Cup, and also Yellowsone (8^th).

I’ve had a look at the records, and I believe Our Aqaleem is on the road to become the first Epsom Derby placegetter to win a Stakes race in Australia – certainly in modern times. (Our Aqaleem raced in England as Aqaleem – his name required the prefix because of a New Zealand-bred galloper by Elsuive City (2005) with the same name).

It is his performance in the Epsom Derby that gives Hayes the confidence to predict his new horse, despite his long break from racing, has the talent to be a serious weight-for-age horse, especially at 2000m and beyond, and a possible 2010 Melbourne Cup contender.

“He’s an ideal (The) BMW horse,” Hayes said, resplendent in his boater, embellished by the BMW logo. The BMW is Australia’s only Group 1 weight-for-age race over 2400m (run at Rosehill in April), but first Hayes plans to run the Our Aqaleem second-up in the Group 1 Australian Cup (wfa 2000m, Flemington) next month.

Our Aqaleem, like At Talaq, Jeune and Almaarad, is relishing his new environment and the Australian-style of speed training that has helped him to be competitive over distances much shorter than he would be asked to race over in Europe.

Our Aqaleem is by Grand Lodge’s best son Sinndar (IRE) – winner of the Epsom and Irish Derbys and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in 2000 – a stallion who has been moderately successful at stud for the Aga Khan, while Our Aqaleem’s dam, Dalayil (by Sadler’s Wells (USA)), is a half-sister to top-flight juvenile Group 1 winner and good sire Alhaarth (by Unfuwain (USA)). The third dam Green Valley (FR) is best known as the dam of the French 2000 Guineas winner and top sire Green Dancer (by Nijinsky II (CAN)) and the top-class Group winning American handicapper Val Danseur.

Footnote: Doctor Fremantle (by Sadler’s Wells (USA)), fourth in the 2008 Epsom Derby behind New Approach, is one of about 20 horses imported to Australia with the Melbourne Cup as their mission. Doctor Fremantle, part-owned by the AFL’s CEO Andrew Demetriou, has settled in well at trainer Lee Freedman’s Markdel stables, at St. Andrews, on the Mornington Peninsula.