Michael Costa, who recently left Australia to take over the reins at Sheikh Ahmed’s Jebel Ali operation, in an interview with Laura King
UAE: With stunning views of the Dubai skyline and its own racetrack, Jebel Ali Stables is training heaven – but this season there is a new face at the gates.
Michael Costa has taken over as trainer at the 32-year-old establishment, which is owned by Sheikh Ahmed Bin Rashid Al Makoum, the younger brother of Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed whose famous yellow-and-black silks have been
carried with distinction in Europe by the likes of Mtoto, Tobougg, Ameerat and Addeybb.
Sydney-born Costa, 35, represents a new direction for the yard, which recently parted company with Frenchman Nicholas Bachalard at the end of his three-year contract. Bachalard, who has returned to Saudi Arabia, enjoyed Classic success for the team, saddling Mouheeb to win the G3 UAE 2000 Guineas at Meydan in 2021.
Rather than replace Bachalard with a locally established name, the Jebel Ali management team cast the net far and wide, a series of recommendations landing them on Costa, who well recalls their initial approach.
‘I thought it was a prank call’
“It was a Tuesday evening and that’s our busiest day in Australia, with gallops, so we usually go to bed quite early,” says the trainer, already seeming very much at home at his new base.
“I received a strange call asking if I’d consider a role and at first, I thought it was a prank call, or a telemarketer. Initially I said I thought I was probably a bit ‘too Australian’ for the job. Things were going really well back home, with plenty of winners, and we had a nice house in Surfers Paradise and a good life.
“I put it on ice and about a month later I got another call from the manager, Mohamed (Al Shehhi), who said: ‘Look, the boss is really keen to get you over here.’ So I came over for eight days and by the seventh day we’d committed to the role.”
It wasn’t an easy decision for Costa and his wife Melanie, who have an expanding family with sons Harvey (seven), Hunter (five) and Hugo (two) are soon to be joined by a sister. Costa was also his own boss, with a burgeoning Gold Coast yard from which he had sent out nearly 300 winners. Not bad for a man with no background in racing.
“I started training with one tried horse ten years ago and from there built it up to 110 horses”, he says. “In the last two seasons we finished with the top strike rate in the whole of Australia [20%], and we were also in the top three trainers in the country for our yearling purchases against the results we got. Most of our stock were either tried horses from other stables, or in the Aus$30-60,000 range, so not expensive, but in the last 24 months we really hit the straps.”
Costa’s 287 winners include four at Pattern level. “The biggest success, personally, was winning the Grafton Cup [with Purrfect Deal], because I lived in Grafton for a year,” he says. “Winning the Missile Stakes [with Phobetor], the first Group race of the season, was probably the biggest win overall.
‘We’ll win some good races over here’
“When you train a winner for owners and it’s their Melbourne Cup or Kentucky Derby, even if it’s just a maiden, then that joy is something that I’ll probably miss. But we’ll win some good races over here, so I’m excited about seeing how that feels.”
Things will be very different at Jebel Ali, where he has some expensive bloodstock to work with. Sheikh Ahmed has made some big investments; his team recently going to $370,000 to secure a West Coast filly at the Ocala Spring Sale, along with a $170,000 McCraken colt and a $90,000 son of Midnight Lute.
They are on the way from the US, while Costa will also travel to the UK to receive some of Sheikh Ahmed’s horses from trainers there. By the time the UAE season begins on October 28, he expects to have a string of around 60-70. It's the stuff that most trainers can only dream of, but Costa has got here the hard way.
“I grew up in Western Sydney which was a very horse-dense population and I just immersed myself in horses from the age of about five,” he explains. “I started riding track work when I was about 14 and then studied equine science and did equine acupuncture. I was a steward for four years as well, before becoming a foreman for a few yards.”
Now he’s in charge of a huge team of staff, from grooms to riders to track maintenance, which will ease the transition, as he’s on a steep learning curve when it comes to UAE racing. Much of the domestic season takes place on dirt – a surface unfamiliar to most Australians.
“I knew very little [about Dubai racing] when I got the call,” he says. “I watched the World Cup replays on YouTube and Australian sprinters when they raced here, but that was about it. It’s funny, when you work in racing you end up watching less racing, because you spend so much time with the horses, having that laser focus.”
Willing team
That focus is currently seeing him start work at 3.30am to beat the heat. Thankfully he has a willing team, several of whom have been with the operation for more than two decades. He will also be able to draw on the experience of dual UAE champion jockey Richie Mullen, who is expected to return as retained rider for a second season.
“My approach has always been to surround myself with the best people and the staff I’ve got here are just unbelievable,” he says, speaking in his office at 8am when most of his team have finished for the morning.
“They’ve welcomed me with open arms and it’s not just that they’re nice; they’re extremely talented. All the riders could have been lead riders for me back home, plus all the ground staff; their work ethic and their positivity has been huge. The staff commitment, their skills and the backing of the boss gives you full confidence that there should be no other results than greatness.”
They’re big words, but Costa has an easy confidence that shouldn’t be mistaken for arrogance. He plans to get his horses fit, first and foremost, and has already made some important decisions, adding training aids, rehoming 15 horses and gelding 13 others.
“We’re putting in two treadmills, plus an arena with a few jumps for schooling, so a few things to keep the horses mentally entertained, as well as getting them physically right,” he explains.
“One challenge, with being across the other side of the world until July, was that we didn’t want to start the season with hold-ups, with horses which needed gelding which were never going to be stallion prospects. We’ve got limited boxes here and we should have the best horses we can for those boxes.”
‘Always one that will surprise you’
Costa is still getting to know his new horses but hopes to find a few suitable for the Dubai World Cup Carnival, which kicks off on January 6. “The stable star has been Mouheeb, so it will be interesting to see how he comes back this season,” he says. “There’s also beautiful horse called Shamikh, a three-time Jebel Ali winner, plus a lot of unraced horses so there’s always one that will surprise you.”
Costa flexed Sheikh Ahmed’s buying power in Australia, too, purchasing New Zealand G3 winner Carolina Reaper who will head to the Carnival. “She’ll be heading into quarantine in Australia shortly,” he says of the four-year-old. “She’ll kick off at the beginning of January in the fillies and mares’ races and then we’ll see if she can match up with the boys come Dubai World Cup day.”
Sheikh Ahmed’s operation is high-profile in the context of Dubai’s close-knit racing scene and winners at Jebel Ali are raucously celebrated by the large crowd. It’s a job that isn’t without pressure.
“I think the first year is about getting the winners and turning it around and then I’ll have a better idea in a few months about which horses can compete at a higher level,” says Costa. “When all the horses arrive I can gauge what we’ve got and be able to set some targets as we go.”
From Surfers Paradise to downtown Dubai, Michael Costa has already come a long way. In just a few short months it will be time for the results on the track to do the talking.
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