Ex-Godolphin stalwart enjoyed top-level breakthrough in own right with Vandeek’s Prix Morny success for father-and-son training partnership
Vandeek’s triumph in the Prix Morny at Deauville last month marked a return to halcyon days for Simon Crisford.
The man who was Godolphin’s public face for 22 years was associated with more than 100 G1 winners in the famous royal blue silks – but this was the first with his own name on the training licence.
Not on his own, however – and for Simon’s son Edward, it was an even more significant milestone. For the first time he could sup from a Group 1 cup, and the taste lingers.
“It was pretty amazing,” Ed relates. “Dad has been through it so many times before but to get it done together was a very special feeling. I was properly shouting the horse home at Deauville.”
It is three years since Ed joined his father on the trainer’s ticket at Gainsborough Stables, on Newmarket’s Hamilton Road. Simon had started out six years earlier, since when there have been some near-misses in the G1 quest to set alongside numerous Pattern-race triumphs.
For all the reflected glory of his Godolphin years, however, the breakthrough as a trainer was particularly rewarding. Ed initially joined Simon as assistant when the latter opened for business in 2015, having previously served as pupil-assistant to John Gosden for four years. The dynamic between them soon changed on Ed’s graduation.
Strong working relationship
“It’s a bit more serious now,” Simon says. “We share joint accountability with the licence and have developed a strong working relationship, rather than a father-and-son team. We are both shareholders in the business, so Edward had to step up. He had to gain the respect of both the owners and the staff.”
Visiting the pair at Gainsborough is like stepping back in time. Simon’s two decades at Godolphin were defined by the sense of order and purpose he installed. Whether in Newmarket or Dubai, he presided over meticulously-run stables redolent of a military cadet academy. Once complete, the cacophony of early-morning exercise gave way to an air of tranquillity as horses rested, when grooms were required to keep their voices down.
Crisford, 61, first encountered this husbandry when he worked as assistant to Sir Mark Prescott in the mid-1980s. Some years later he revisited it as Godolphin’s racing manager when he visited Andre Fabre’s Chantilly stables. To his way of thinking, there is no substitute for sound stable management.
“For anybody starting out, the most important thing is to have the right people,” he reflects. “Then you have to attract the right owners, who will bring the right horses. Being a successful trainer is all about owner power. That is absolutely key.”
Vandeek is evidence of that. The son of Havana Grey is owned by Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa’s KHK Racing. Through agent Anthony Stroud, the sheikh gave 625,000gns for Vandeek at last year’s Tattersalls Craven Breeze-Up Sale, making the colt of the most expensive recruits ever to walk through the Gainsborough gates.
Crisford’s entire ethos is that when a such a horse came calling, he had systems in place to get the best from him. Vandeek is now unbeaten in three starts. All his triumphs were gained over a brief, 30-day period, yet Crisford took him to Deauville with a deal of confidence.
“Each time it was the horse who took us to those races, rather than us taking him,” he says.
‘We couldn’t take any chances’
“He started in a maiden, then he won the Group 2 Richmond Stakes and then the Morny. But we couldn’t take any chances with an expensive horse like him. He had to literally drag us there.
“His temperament is so good, you can see in his eye whether he wants it or not,” Crisford continues. “It was a very strong Morny renewal so we couldn’t be overly confident, but we knew he was spot on and would run to his level, whatever that might turn out to be. We were expecting a top performance.”
Vandeek’s Morny triumph seems sure to fortify Sheikh Khalid, who has been upping the ante with his sales purchases of late. The sheikh is a member of the Bahraini royal family that has owned racehorses in Britain for more than 50 years – among them Ahonoora, that top-class sprinter from the late 1970s who went on to become an influential sire.
Crisford also landed last year’s Horris Hill Stakes for the sheikh with Knight, who chased home Angel Bleu in G2 company at Goodwood lasts month. “We were introduced to him by his cousin Sheikh Duaij, who we have trained a number of horses for,” Crisford says. The latter’s colours were carried successfully by A’Ali, a multiple Group-winning sprinter, and now by Carla’s Way, runner-up in the G3 Prestige Stakes at Goodwood last month.
A Sandhurst graduate, Sheikh Khalid caused something of a stir seven years ago when he took part in two mixed martial arts cage fights as an amateur; he is also a keen swimmer and a frequent competitor in equestrian events. “He is a very enthusiastic, strong person who enjoys his racing immensely,” Crisford attests. “He likes the challenge of competing at the top level.”
Vandeek will run next in the Middle Park Stakes, thereby keeping him at six furlongs, which is in line with the colt’s heritage. An overwhelming majority of Vandeek’s close relatives have done their winning over distances short of one mile, although Crisford, a keen student of pedigrees, is receptive to the prospect of trying to stretch the colt out further down the line.
‘It becomes an adventure’
“Whatever happens, the exciting thing about a horse like him is that you just don’t know where they will end up taking you,” he says. “That’s one of the best things about training horses. It becomes an adventure.”
Crisford’s professional life has been one long adventure, much of it at the right hand of Godolphin’s founder, Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum. He first encountered Dubai’s ruler on the Newmarket gallops, where the sheikh was supposed to meet one of his trainers to watch his horses working.
At that time Crisford was Newmarket correspondent of the Racing Post, which required him to make copious notes of the colour and markings of every horse so as to recognise them when they galloped.
Having noticed the sheikh standing in limbo, with no sign of his trainer as his horses approached, Crisford stepped in to identify each one as it galloped past. The sheikh resolved to hire him there and then, initially as assistant to his racing manager, Anthony Stroud.
Crisford was soon charged with bringing the Godolphin concept to fruition, starting in 1992. “At the time Dubai was just beginning to emerge as the sporting capital of the Middle East,” he reflects. “There was top-class power-boat racing, tennis and golf, so if Godolphin was going to contribute when horse racing started, it had to be successful.”
The idea was that horses hand-picked from the sheikh’s 44 trainers would join others acquired specifically for the task. These horses would congregate in Dubai in the autumn, from where they would be prepared to contest top-class races around the world. Before long, and despite the plan being roundly dismissed as folly, Godolphin was carrying all before it.
Golden memories
“Sheikh Mohammed never does anything by halves,” Crisford relates. “It was innovative, adventurous, acquisitive and bold, and it all seemed to happen in the blink of an eye. There are a lot of golden memories.”
Foremost among them are landmarks within the careers of Dubai Millennium, Lammtarra and Mark Of Esteem, whose contemptuous dismissal of Bosra Sham in the 1996 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes is the race Crisford enjoyed watching more than any other.
It was more than just a horse race. As a back-end two-year-old who had won his only start with brio, Mark Of Esteem was plucked by Godolphin from the stable of Henry Cecil, who also happened to train Bosra Sham. Mark Of Esteem’s departure so piqued Cecil that it provoked a rift that saw Sheikh Mohammed remove all his 40 horses from Cecil’s care.
“I know that Henry felt Bosra Sham was unbeatable but on that day I was never so certain that Mark Of Esteem would win,” Crisford recalls. “It was exhilarating to watch.”
For obvious reasons, Dubai Millennium’s Dubai World Cup victory in 2000 was another highlight. That horse’s career had been scripted by Sheikh Mohammed to culminate in him winning before a worldwide televised audience at the dawn of the new millennium – which had prompted the sheikh to change the horse’s name fully 18 months earlier.
Lammtarra’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes triumph in 1995 is indelible for a different reason. “That was definitely Frankie Dettori’s greatest-ever ride for Godolphin,” Crosford says. “Pentire headed him but Lammtarra came back at him. Frankie actually lifted that horse over the winning line. I don’t think any other jockey would have won on him that day.”
The odds are that Crisford would still be at the helm but for the doping scandal that rocked Godolphin ten years ago, when Mahmood Al Zarooni, Godolphin’s principal trainer, admitted using anabolic steroids on 15 horses.
Al Zarooni was banned for eight years, yet although he trained entirely autonomously from Crisford’s beat, Crisford was obliged to stand down after an in-house investigation overseen by Sheikh Mohammed’s then-wife, Princess Haya.
Widespread sympathy
There was widespread industry sympathy for Crisford, although the fallout did not exactly portray a man in disgrace. Quite the opposite: Crisford remained at the sheikh’s side at yearlings sales around the world.
He was also employed as a consultant, and when he decided to heed the calling he’d had in his mid-20s to train horses, one of his principal backers was the cadre of Sheikh Mohammed’s friends corralled under the Rabbah banner.
Many horses racing under this aegis are Rabbah homebreds or horses bred and handed down by Godolphin. All of which suggests Crisford had been far from ostracised, unlike Al Zarooni, who was swiftly dispatched into the wilderness.
But the wheel has now turned full circle. In June it emerged that Chesspiece, a Crisford-trained horse belonging to Rabbah, would thereafter race in Godolphin’s livery. The likelihood is that others will follow.
It surely amounts to a visible official endorsement, although Crisford, who bought the horse as a yearling in conjunction with Stroud, is reluctant to dwell on what was a profoundly unhappy chapter for him. “Chesspiece transferred into Godophin’s colours because he is the first horse we’ve had that was good enough,” he maintains.
There may yet be more strands to the story, because Chesspiece has the St Leger as his next target. It would be quite something if the son of Nathaniel could land a Classic for the old alliance.
“He is a big, raw horse who needs a hard-run race and a bit of cut in the ground, which we’re hoping to get a Doncaster,” Crisford says. “He is not the finished article but he will stay well. We see him as a Cup horse for next year.”
Pivotal month
September has the makings of a pivotal month for the stable. Two weeks after Chesspiece tilts at the St Leger, Vandeek steps out in the Middle Park Stakes on September 30. And on that same day, some 4,000 miles from Newmarket, Algiers returns to the fray in the G3 Ack Ack Stakes on dirt at Churchill Downs.
Algiers looked the likely winner for much of the Dubai World Cup in March until he was collared by Ushba Tesoro inside the final furlong. The six-year-old heads to Churchill aiming to book a place in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile in November – by which time West Wind Blows should have arrived in Australia, where his options include the Turnbull Stakes, Caulfied Cup and Champion Stakes.
And from there, the father-and-son axis will turn their attention to the 2024 winter carnival in Dubai, where the Crisfords maintain both a satellite yard at Millennium Stables and the house they spent so much time living in during numerous winters in the emirate.
These are exciting times for father and son. It has taken Crisford time to set up the mechanisms he knew would provide the springboard for a successful training venture. He has recruited and nurtured owners with resources to send him the requisite raw material. And with Ed firmly ensconced alongside him, the benefits are there to be reaped.
Not that he takes anything for granted. “The older I get, the more meticulous I have become in ensuring the stable is well organised,” Crisford says.
“It keeps everyone’s heads clear; they all know their purpose. You are only as good as your last winner, and nobody knows what tomorrow will bring. A key lesson you learn in life is that you’ve got to think of each day as a new start.”
Ed Crisford: ‘I’ve never once thought I’d prefer it if Dad wasn’t there’
Ed Crisford says: “Having been pupil-assistant to John Gosden for four years, I wanted to find a job as a full-time assistant when Dad decided to start training (in 2015). We discussed it, I came aboard and it worked out pretty much from day one.
I arrived at John Gosden’s thinking I knew the game; then you realise very quickly you’ve got no idea. I Iearnt so much there, especially from Barry O’Dowd [Gosden’s assistant], a brilliant horseman who kicked me into shape. I wouldn’t have been any help as assistant to Dad without that experience.
But even when I joined Dad, I wasn’t ready to be a trainer. Suddenly you are making entries for horses and you become more involved quite quickly. So not much has changed since I joined the ticket. What has changed is that I am dealing with owners more and doing media work at the races, which Dad always maintains is very important.
I’d feel confident now if I had to strike out on my own, rather than work alongside Dad. While I know he’s not thinking about retiring, I have a good enough relationship with our owners to take the business forward if I had to, but the beauty of a joint licence is that it works so well. Generally, Dad is extremely relaxed.
Not all fathers and sons get on well but we always have done. If I was still an assistant I might feel I needed to go somewhere else, or try and kick Dad off the perch, but it’s a pretty simple arrangement that works well. We make the decisions together. I’ve never once thought I’d prefer it if Dad wasn’t there.
When I got into my teens Dad would mark my card in the days when Godolphin would have four winners at Meydan and I’d think: ‘this is great’. He was a good tipster, although growing up, I wasn’t into betting that much.
We used to play a bit of golf and tennis together, which got pretty competitive at times. We’d have a few quid on it and a beer afterwards, but you always want to win, don’t you? I’m not sure which of us is more competitive because we are both that way. I think you’ve got to be if you want to do well in racing.
I was pretty obsessed with racing as a kid but it was only when I was 15 or 16 that I suddenly knew what I wanted to do. I’d been riding out for Mark Tompkins in the school holidays and when my school days ended I didn’t even bother filling out the UCAS forms for university.
I think mum and Dad already knew which way I was heading. They tried to put me off for a while but when you try something else outside racing you soon realise how much you want to get into it.
When I was young, Dad was involved in G1 races every week with Godolphin. I grew up thinking that was just normal. I was five years old when Lammtarra was around and 10 when Dubai Millennium won the Dubai World Cup. I used to go to the stables a lot and they were amazing days. Sometimes it didn’t seem like reality.
So now, knowing how hard it is to win any race, winning that first G1 with Vandeek was hugely exciting. It makes it more personal to have done it with Dad, and it was great for the staff here. We are only as good as our team because we can’t do everything. We need their eyes and ears on the ground.
Obviously, we are now hoping to win more G1 races over the next few years. At the same time, we are well aware how lucky we are to have Vandeek. He could have gone anywhere, really. It’s down to us make the most of him.”
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