One of the greatest stories in world racing will continue at Meydan on Friday when Kabirkhan makes his long-awaited return to the racetrack in his quest for back-to-back wins in the G1 Al Maktoum Challenge (1900m).
Doug Watson-trained Kabirkhan caused an almighty stir when he won last year’s Al Maktoum Challenge, completing an unprecedented rise from a Kazakhstan maiden to an international Group 1 win at one of the biggest racetracks in the world.
That’s right – he began his career in Almaty, the biggest city in Kazakhstan but not a city nor a country renowned for its elite thoroughbreds. Those trackside at Meydan earlier this week were asked what else they knew about Kazakhstan beyond Kabirkhan; the most common answer was Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen’s comic Kazakh journalist.
Watson himself was so unfamiliar with Kabirkhan’s home nation that he admits that he called the country “Kajikstan” last year. He has spent the off-season familiarising himself with the proper pronunciation, knowing that it would come up again and again in 2025.
The eight-time UAE champion trainer has been rewarded with two further Kazakh horses, Baloban and Arlan, who finished first and second in a local Group 1 in October. They will contest the G3 UAE 2000 Guineas (1600m) on Friday, hours before Kabirkhan aims to give him another big-race success.
Influence from the old Soviet bloc is not new in Dubai. One of the biggest owners in years gone by was Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov, but his licence was suspended amidst American sanctions in 2021.
Last year’s Golden Shaheen winner Tuz, who also runs Friday night, is another to have emerged from Russia while the Guineas was won by Russian colt Azure Coast in 2022.
However, Kazakhstan is a burgeoning thoroughbred nation that has emerged from nowhere as a nursery for future stars.
Established in 1930, Kazakhstan’s Almaty Hippodrome was considered one of three flagship racecourses within the Soviet Union along with Moscow and Pyatigorsk, both in modern-day Russia. But by the late 1990s, like so much of the former USSR, the track had crumbled into disrepair and was rarely used.
Racing returned in 2016, despite plans to convert the site into housing, and in 2019 it was added to Kazakhstan’s heritage register ensuring its long-term survival.
Kabirkhan’s win last year went viral, especially a video which compared his maiden victory at Almaty to his success in front of the monolithic grandstand at Meydan. Sensational drone footage of the Almaty race served to highlight the disparity between the track there and many racecourses around the world.
Limited thoroughbred breeding exists in Kazakhstan and most of their horses are sourced from the United States. Kabirkhan, who is the spitting image of his sire California Chrome, was foaled in Kentucky and was a US$12,000 purchase from the 2021 Keeneland September Yearling Sale.
He progressed through the grades from Almaty to the Russian tracks of Pyatigorsk, Nalchik and Krasnodar down near the Black Sea border with Georgia. He was second in the Russian Derby before he transferred to Watson in late 2023.
Now, horses are coming straight from Kazakhstan to the United Arab Emirates, as with the two UAE 2000 Guineas runners on Friday. The influx is set to continue too with rich Kazakh owners purchasing more than 50 horses worldwide in recent months.
As for Kabirkhan, a strong performance in the Al Maktoum Challenge will earn the chestnut a berth in next month’s US$20 million Saudi Cup. It would be the latest chapter in an incredible tale that shows that a good horse really can come from anywhere. ∎
