Qataris invest heavily in British bloodstock

A fresh new breeze is wafting through British racing. Led by the enthusiastic Sheikh Fahad Al Thani, the Qatar ruling family is investing heavily in buying British bloodstock and, through their Qipco holdings, sponsoring the richest day’s racing in Britain.

At first British racegoers accepted the newcomers with a polite smile, seeing them as another bunch of mineral-resources-rich foreigners who would enjoy a few nice days out at Newmarket and Goodwood and then pass on to a new fancy such as founding theme parks or financing movies. But that is not how it is: the Qataris love their racing and are spending cleverly — a key example being the racing yard at Robins Farm near Chiddingfold to which Sheikh Fahad recruited Oliver and Hetta Stevens.

Olly’s business card proclaims him ‘Trainer/Director’, and as he explained to me about the heart monitors that the Robins Farm string wear attached to their girths, hooked up to a computer system that can allow owners to monitor their horse’s progress as they go, he noted simply: ‘Training has gone beyond standing at the top of a hill and saying “damned fine filly!”’

He was brought up in Newmarket, carriage-driving with his grandmother and riding her ponies. When he was still in short trousers the family would take tea with Henry Cecil and he used to get butterflies in his stomach, he admits, simply looking at the Warren Place string even during his own Cecil-style tearaway days in his late teens. Olly learned stable crafts with James Fanshawe and had the nonsense knocked out of him during a spell with Jessie Harrington in Ireland. ‘I was the spoiled boy from Newmarket and she let me down to earth with a bump, shouting “time and motion” at me and teaching me how to get twice as much done in a day.