 |
|
| Staff Writer |
 |
With an impressive track record of 38 Royal Ascot victories, Saeed bin Suroor eagerly anticipates the marquee summer meeting. Recent triumphs with Real World at the 2021 Royal Hunt Cup and Dubai Future at the 2022 Wolferton Stakes demonstrate that the esteemed Godolphin trainer continues to excel on the global stage.
Following a less fruitful Dubai season, Bin Suroor has made a strong return to the UK with four turf victories, two of which were secured by the promising Wild Tiger. This talented contender aims to replicate Real World's success in the prestigious Royal Hunt Cup.
The addition of cheekpieces has proven to be a significant factor in the performance of this son of Frankel, as evidenced by his impressive win at Goodwood over 1400m following a successful comeback at Yarmouth.
“I enjoyed Real World winning the Hunt Cup. Then he went on and won a Listed, a Group Three and a Group Two. It meant a lot,” recalls Bin Suroor, who currently sits fourth among current trainers for winners saddled at the royal meeting.
“Wild Tiger is doing well and improved from his win at Yarmouth. He’s won two already this season and a mile will be fine for him so we'll take him to the Royal Hunt Cup.
“It is much harder trying to win 30-runner handicaps than the Group Ones, though!”
Saeed bin Suroor, a four-time Royal Ascot champion trainer, is set to showcase the exciting Summer Of Love, who recently made a remarkable return to action in a Kempton novice event over 1400m earlier this month.
He continued: “I’m looking forward to running Summer Of Love. She won recently at Kempton and she’d only worked four times, she wasn’t ready. She should run in the Buckingham Palace.
One might easily overlook the impact Bin Suroor used to have at Ascot every June, given his extensive list of winners at the royal meeting which includes some of the greatest horses in the sport, with Dubai Millennium unsurprisingly leading the way.
“The thing to remember about Ascot is it is the best quality horse racing in the world, it is the biggest meeting. People come from all over the world for it to see the best horses,” he adds.
“Dubai Millennium sticks out. He was a Dubai World Cup winner but to see him win the Prince of Wales’s like that was good, he was a class horse and produced the best stallion in the world in Dubawi.
“I like the stayers. Five times I won the Gold Cup. To win it, you have to have lots of stamina and lots of class, that’s why certain horses could win it more than once.
“It’s hard to win any race at Royal Ascot but the Gold Cup is very hard to win. It’s a special race and the memories will live with me for a long time. We were lucky we had those horses.”
Winning the most prestigious races at the world's top flat racing event for over three decades indicates that Bin Suroor's enduring success was likely not merely a matter of luck.