When Enemy lines up in the Group Three Longines Red Sea Turf Handicap this weekend it will mean far more to trainer Ian Williams then just another race in a career that has spanned decades.
It will be the first runner he has had in Saudi Arabia and for the 6YO gelded son of Muhaarar it will be more than another race also – it will be his shot at a comeback to re-announce himself as a genuine stayer.
“I think the trip will suit him well. He stays well and he’d like a decent early pace so he can drop his head. Given a choice between a mile-and-a-half (2400m) and a mile-and-seven-furlongs (3000m), we’d probably always vouch for the longer trip,” Williams said.
He has been a consistent horse before running into a little bit of trouble.
“We didn't pay huge money for him. I think he was about 90,000 euros but he'd been a decent horse and he had a very good pedigree.
“But we thought there might be some improvement to come over time as he matured, he was a four-year-old at the time.
“We lost him a little bit after that and we really didn't know why. We ran him in the Goodwood Cup, I thought it'd be a race that would cut up because there were so many good horses in it. I thought they would all shy away from each other, well they didn’t, and it was probably one of the better runnings of the Goodwood Cup. But he didn’t perform as well as he could.
“William Buick rode him that day and said to me ‘Look Ian he was keen but I don’t think he really settles’. So we put him away for a little bit and planned for the Ebor.
“We thought we were going to the Ebor with a really good chance. David Egan rode him that day and he never really got going, David came to me and said that a mile and six was too short for him.
“So, we were in a bit of a quandary where I had two world-class jockeys telling us two different things. So we went back and looked at the horse and even though he has made no noises or ever been out of the ordinary, we took a view that we would get our local wind expert Ben and we had the horse radio scoped.
“Ben said there’s nothing wrong with him and I said there is definitely something wrong with him so we sent him again and eventually it was a hey presto moment that found there had been a collapse of his larynx and a few other things going on.”
The discovery and diagnosis allowed Williams and his team to work on getting Enemy back to the form he was in when they first purchased him.
“At that point we knew here we have a horse that's performing to 100 plus on every run but he actually is struggling with his breathing. So we had his wind done and his first race back was the mile-and-a-half handicap in Dubai in January.
“To be perfectly honest I thought he probably need his run because we'd missed his prep race in the UK due to the frost.”
The trainer was pleasantly surprised with Enemy winning in that return to the track in Meydan winning by a length.
“He went out and bolted up and it was a nice surprise and over a trip that we thought we'd be on the short side for him.”
After that performance the trainer knew that the Red Sea would have to be the next target and that’s what is next this weekend for Enemy.
Williams says Enemy enjoys racing in the Middle East and his form does not change much from how he performs at home in the UK.
“The nice thing is I think he’ll enjoy the fast surface in Saudi, but it's a flat track. And he has plenty of pace as well. So as long as he settles early in his races, he normally finishes well.
“He’s already accustomed to the heat and the time difference, so those are positive things.”
The race in Riyadh will also be the chance at revenge that Enemy has waited for since his contesting of the Ebor, lining up against the winner of that feature again here in Trawlerman.
“Well it would be nice to see how he goes this time against him as we ran rather well in the Ebor.
“Our other runner in the Ebor, Alfred Boucher, was just beaten by a head.
“So hopefully we can get a bit of action back from Trawlerman, and he can give us a better chance this time around.”
The G3 Longines Red Sea Turf Handicap is the fifth race on Saudi Cup night, which culminates in the $20 million Saudi Cup.
