“Some people looked at me like I'd lost my marbles,” admits Jamie Osborne. The trainer is back in rainy Lambourn following a couple of glorious days under the Middle Eastern sun. The potential moment of madness to which he refers came last October when he bid 160,000gns for the then-seven-year-old Emaraaty Ana (GB) (Shamardal).
The gelding already had 32 runs under his belt and an impressive track record for Kevin Ryan, which included victory in the G2 Gimcrack S., backed up later by his win at five in the G1 Haydock Sprint Cup. He had also won the Listed Rous S. a couple of weeks before heading to the Tattersalls Horses-in-Training Sale, so he was clearly still a competitive animal but one would naturally start to wonder, as he embarked on his eight-year-old campaign, about the general wear and tear that might come with being in training all those seasons.
That old fighting spirit was still very much in evidence, however, as Emaraaty Ana held on gamely to win Saturday's Dukhan Sprint on Saturday, a local Group 3 in Qatar worth just shy of £180,000 to the winner. His success was a rather large cherry on top of a fine 24 hours for the Osborne stable which began not that far away in Dubai with the second victory this winter at Meydan for another eight-year-old, Ouzo (GB) (Charm Spirit {Ire}). Both horses were ridden by the trainer's daughter, Saffie, who notched a notable landmark in becoming the first woman to ride a winner at Meydan.
“We can't quite believe our luck,” says Osborne. “It's nice when plans come off because most of them don't.”
He adds of Emaraaty Ana, “Buying a horse like that, you could potentially make yourself look stupid. I mean, I'm very fortunate that Ian and Claire Barratt have given me a bit of a budget to entertain them with and I felt that, at the money, he made sense as long as we could maintain him. And look, it's easy after the event, but I did say to them that he had the potential to win his purchase price back in Doha in February.”
Job done then, and we could see Emaraaty Ana back at Meydan next month.
“We're hoping he's going to get an invitation for the Al Quoz,” Osborne says. “Obviously he's going to have to up his game to compete in that, I still think there's a chance that he can improve again.
“Barratt Racing have given me the opportunity to actually spend a bit more money than I've had to spend in the past to give them some fun. Now, how do you spend it? What they're about is going to nice places and competing at a decent level. So if you spend your budget on yearlings, the odds are you'll be disappointed. If you are looking for higher-rated younger horses to go and do these nice international races, well sadly our budget didn't stretch that far.
“In doing this, we have to accept that we've been buying horses that clearly other people feel their best days are behind them. And they are probably right, but hopefully we can maintain them for a year or two to give the Barretts the fun that they would like.”
He continues, “I know some people looked at me like I'd lost my marbles by giving 160,000 for a seven-year-old, but if you think about it, there's so many £160,000 yearlings out there and not many of them are going to end up being rated 110. And, yes, you've got a different journey, you've got a huge amount of hope and excitement with those horses that they could have a successful career, but the reality is most of them don't.
“We're abandoning that hope that we're buying a champion and exchanging it really for a bit of reality. We accept that we're not buying a champion, but we're buying good horses. And as long as we can manage them, and keep them sound, and keep them wanting to do it, then there is some instant fun available with them.”
Osborne admits to having found the Horses-in-Training Sale frustrating last year as he regularly played the role of underbidder, and he points to how the expansion of the racing programme in the Gulf has driven prices up.
“If you just value them as a function of how much prize-money they can win around the world, it makes sense when you see what horses are going to race for in Saudi this weekend, and what they've been racing for in Qatar, what they can race for in Dubai. It's not a surprise that they're expensive,” he says.
“All the horses that we've got out there have come from very good trainers who have done very well with them: Kevin Ryan, Solid Stone came from Sir Michael Stoute, Ouzo came from Richard Hannon, we've got a nice horse called Sean out there that runs on Friday in the Singspiel Stakes. He came out of Germany, and he's been very well looked after and very well trained, he's seven.
“We're just probably doing things with them that the previous owners and trainers weren't really wanting to do. We've got the same horse, but if you just campaign them differently, you can find almost a new lease of life for them to compete. These are not English Group 1 races. A British Group race I think is the hardest race to win. So while some of these horses are competing in Middle Eastern Group races, they may well not compete in the British ones, but if we look after them and campaign them very much with a return to the Middle East in mind for next year, there's no reason why we can't go overseas.”
Ouzo is owned by The Other Club, a syndicate which comprises Osborne's wife, the artist Katie O'Sullivan, and a group of her friends.
“He's been a bit of a revelation, really, and I'm still unsure why,” Osborne says. “We failed to win with him for two years and he was running very consistently, getting placed in some very good races, and I was very worried about taking him to Dubai off 98, but he's found another leg since we've been out there this year. Maybe the extra little bit of trip has helped.
“There's one thing for certain, he isn't going to win the Hunt Cup now. He plied his trade around that 95 mark for two years, being slightly a victim of his own consistency, and now he's gone and won off 102, so it's fantastic for his owners who have enjoyed him immensely in spite of not winning for a couple of years, and now he's won three on the trot.”
He adds of the ownership group, “They certainly enjoy themselves wherever they go. I'd said to them before his first start, 'If you're only going to come out [to Dubai] once, come for his second start.” So obviously when he won first time, I thought I'd completely messed it up.”
He adds, “We'll get his little bag packed and bring him back here. He's still in the Lincoln off 98 plus a penalty. I wouldn't completely rule that out, but we'll just see how he comes back.”
Osborne's biggest win in Dubai came a decade ago when Toast Of New York won the G2 UAE Derby. He ended that same season by being beating just a nose in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic. Now 13, the son of Thewayyouare has an active life as a riding horse with the family of Osborne's right-hand man and fellow former jump jockey Jimmy McCarthy, who is overseeing the trainer's horses in Dubai.
Despite enjoying multiple top-level successes in his own career over jumps, Osborne admits to being a bit of a fair-weather racing man, making the Middle East at this time of the year an appealing prospect beyond just the prize-money on offer.
He says, “One of the downsides of being a jump jockey was that it happened in the winter. I suppose, to a degree, I've driven this concept motivated by my hatred for the British winter, but thankfully I've got owners that enjoy it too.”
Saffie Osborne is doubtless enjoying it too, especially as she had to curtail her season last November when seeking treatment for torn ligaments in her knee. It was still her best year to date, with 70 winners on the board and a first Group success in the Valiant S. aboard Random Harvest (Ire) (War Front). And before you start thinking she's a nepo baby, it's worth reading what her father has to say about her.
“She's been a liability most of her life but it finally looks like she's turning into an asset,” he says, though even down the phone it's easy to detect the smile on his face.
“She's had a tough few months. I'm not totally certain that if we hadn't had the nice horses in the Middle East that she would be back yet. But she worked very hard to get back and did what she had to do with her knee, and hopefully it'll keep improving as the year goes on, but she does have damage in there.
“Obviously, for Katie and me, doing what we're doing with her on board just makes it extra special.”
He continues, “There was a time when she was riding, she rode Alignak at Meydan for us a couple of years ago, and I was happy with her riding the horse, but she was just proficient. Now, I would say, without being biased, which is a difficult thing not to be, I think I would rather have her on the horses than anyone else now, from a professional point of view, and regardless of the pleasure that I get from seeing her riding for us. She's got the hang of it now.
“She's not afraid to get beat on a horse, which sounds stupid, but I think that's a very important thing that a jockey must have. The route she took on Ouzo, that could have ended up as a real hard-luck story, but if she'd come around them, she wasn't going to win. So you've got to be prepared to take that chance and sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn't, but she has the confidence to take that calculated risk. And maybe it stems from the fact that as her mother owns it and her father trains it, she knows she's not going to get jocked off.
“But on the other hand, I'm trying to regrow this business at the moment, I don't have enough horses. I would like to grow both sides of the business, both here and a travelling team for the Middle East for next winter, and if I thought her involvement was in any way going to be detrimental to the growth of this business, well I'm afraid nepotism would go out the window. I'm not going to employ her at the expense of the business.
He adds, “She's extremely driven and I think there's a chance that Saffie can really make it and she's almost certainly going to grow out of me, I hope. In which case, I'll just have to stand in line with everyone else.”
The next big test for Saffie Osborne comes on Friday in Riyadh, where she is one of 14 jockeys to have been called up for the Saudi Cup International Jockeys' Challenge. Ryan Moore is also in the line-up, as is Australia's Damien Oliver, who is making a brief comeback from his recent official retirement.
With a line that only a father could get away with, Osborne says of his daughter's participation, “That's a big step for a little girl.
“I think if she'd been involved in that competition last year, you'd be living in fear that she's going to be outwitted or out-jockeyed by that class of a rider that she's going to be competing against, but now I don't think that's a concern. I think that rule number one if you're going to be a good jockey is you've got to know how fast you're going and it seems that she's innately got that now. I'll be in Dubai watching with interest.”
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