Essential Quality could be Godolphin's best shot at Kentucky Derby glory

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – “The Kentucky Derby is a more difficult race to win than I first believed,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum mused to ESPN in 2001.

The ruler of Dubai, whose Godolphin operation has won many of the major events the world over and has earned multiple Eclipse Awards in the U.S., couldn’t have known how right he was. Two decades later, he is still looking for his first Kentucky Derby win, despite the amount of effort and resources committed to the goal. Godolphin has sent 11 horses to the Derby since 1999, with none finishing in the top three.

This year, unbeaten juvenile champion Essential Quality will carry the Godolphin blue into the Kentucky Derby off a victory in the Blue Grass Stakes, one of the final traditional preps for the Run for the Roses. The homebred colt is the best chance yet in the classic race for the outfit, which has shifted its approach to targeting it over the decades. Recent Derby prospects have taken a route through some of the traditional U.S. prep races, rather than preparing in Dubai, where Sheikh Mohammed built Nad al Sheba and then Meydan and elevated his brainchild the Dubai World Cup into a major international event since its debut in 1996.

“I think Sheikh Mohammed is, and rightfully so, extremely proud of Dubai, and what the Dubai World Cup has come to mean, and the international stage it represents,” said Jimmy Bell, president for Godolphin’s American operations. “Of course you would like to see that Dubai connection over here. But at the same time, he’s very supportive and very enthusiastic for the American operation. And having his homebreds perform the way they are, especially Essential Quality, it’s so gratifying.

“Make no mistake – the first Saturday in May is a big deal. We’re just grateful to be on the road there with a horse we think can be very competitive – and being a homebred on top of that.”

The first Kentucky Derby starter in the Godolphin blue was Worldly Manner, whom Sheikh Mohammed privately purchased for a reported $5 million after he won three of four starts as a juvenile in California. He shipped the colt to Dubai, where Worldly Manner did not race as a 3-year-old prior to returning to the U.S. in spring. He did participate in two private trial races staged by Godolphin; no crowds were present, although music and recorded crowd noises were piped in to attempt to prepare him for the atmosphere of Churchill Downs. Dubbed the “mystery horse” of the 1999 Derby, Worldly Manner loomed a threat in upper stretch, but faded to finish seventh.

The following year, the UAE Derby was added to the Dubai World Cup undercard, providing a formal 3-year-old prep race in the jurisdiction. China Visit won the first edition of the race, with Godolphin stablemate Curule third. The two traveled to Churchill Downs to finish sixth and seventh, respectively, in the 2000 Derby. Express Tour and Essence of Dubai, the winners of the next two editions of the UAE Derby, went on to finish eighth and ninth for Godolphin in their Kentucky Derby runs. In 2009, UAE Derby winner Regal Ransom and runner-up Desert Party – who had been a graded stakes winner in the U.S. as a juvenile – were eighth and 14th in the Derby for Godolphin.

But also in that winter of 2009, while Regal Ransom and Desert Party were training in Dubai, a colt was born for Sheikh Mohammed’s Kentucky operation who would come to be a different sort of Derby candidate for Godolphin. Alpha, by 2006 Preakness Stakes winner and Eclipse champion Bernardini, was Grade 1-placed as a juvenile. Instead of shipping him to Dubai after that season – as had been the case with stakes-performing U.S. juveniles such as Worldly Manner, Express Tour, and Desert Party – Sheikh Mohammed left the colt in the U.S. with trainer Kiaran McLaughlin. Part of the reason for that was a switch in surfaces. While a dirt track had been utilized at Nad al Sheba, in 2010 racing in Dubai moved to Meydan, which opened with a synthetic Tapeta surface.

Alpha won the Count Fleet and Withers stakes in New York, and was second by a neck in the Wood Memorial. Although he was 12th in the 2012 Kentucky Derby, the change in philosophy stuck. Frosted, a Grade 2-winning juvenile for McLaughlin, went on to win the 2015 Wood Memorial. He was fourth in the Derby – Godolphin’s best finish yet – and then went on to be second in the Belmont Stakes as American Pharoah swept the Triple Crown.

In 2017, Godolphin shipped in the globe-trotting Thunder Snow, a Group 1 winner in Europe as a juvenile who generated buzz after winning the UAE Derby. However, his performance in Kentucky can’t truly be counted as a mark against preparation. The colt left the Derby starting gate bucking and crow-hopping, and was pulled up in the early stages. The following year, Godolphin returned with another race candidate prepared in New York, with Enticed winning the Gotham and finishing second in the Wood before running 14th in the Derby, a race Bell said requires “probably a lifetime” of work to achieve success in.

“They’re living, breathing animals,” Bell said. “So many things get so close, yet so far away.”

Essential Quality, like Frosted, is a son of Tapit. He has another tie to the stable’s previous Derby runners: His jockey, Luis Saez, is now represented by McLaughlin as agent, after McLaughlin’s retirement from training.

The colt is out of Grade 3-placed Delightful Quality, a Godolphin homebred by the operation’s late stallion Elusive Quality. Sheikh Mohammed’s cultivation of the family began with Delightful Quality’s dam, the Storm Cat mare Contrive, who was a $3 million purchase at the 2005 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky fall selected mixed sale, shortly after her daughter Folklore won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies to secure a championship.

A victory in the $3 million Kentucky Derby for Essential Quality would be priceless in terms of rewarding faith in these bloodlines and Godolphin’s pursuit of this goal, and in the future stud value the operation would be poised to enjoy. The colt has already earned more than $2.2 million while winning all five of his starts, including the Grade 1 Breeders’ Futurity and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, both contested at Keeneland, to secure an Eclipse. This year, he picked up where he left off while checking a few other things off his list of accomplishments. He proved he could handle a sloppy track while winning the Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn, then proved he could prevail in a battle while winning the Blue Grass by a neck at Keeneland. Trainer Brad Cox characterizes Essential Quality’s prep season as having had no missteps, a key component of a successful Derby run.

“Zero. Zero,” Cox said. “He’s a solid, solid, solid horse. He hasn’t missed a beat.”

Bell, however, admitted to his own heart missing a few beats during the stretch run of the Blue Grass, as Essential Quality outgamed Highly Motivated.

“Watching that dogfight, it just shows you that he’s got a lot of fight to him,” Bell said. “He’s got so many different dimensions. ... He’s just got that will to win, that fight. [The Blue Grass] was a grow-up type of race for him. He really got tested, and hats off to the runner-up – he wanted to win, too. It was just a great dogfight to the wire, and the good ones just somehow get there.”

The heart rates of everyone on the Godolphin team the world over will be up on Saturday, seeing if Essential Quality can get there.