UPDATED 5:06PM, MAY 1 2021
Should Mutasaabeq maintain his unbeaten record in Saturday’s Qipco 2,000 Guineas, it will not just be for carrying the late Hamdan Al Maktoum’s blue and white epaulettes that he will evoke poignant memories.
The Charlie Hills-trained colt is not only a son of Ghanaati, whom Hills’ father Barry prepared for Classic success on this very weekend 12 years ago, but a great grandson of Height Of Fashion, who was bought by Sheikh Hamdan in 1982. In a sense, he is an exemplar of everything that one of the sport’s most accomplished owner-breeders set out to achieve.
Few are around now who remember how Sheikh Hamdan would have acquired Height Of Fashion – winner of not only the Fillies’ Mile but conqueror of the dual Gold Cup hero Ardross in the Princess of Wales’s Stakes – from the Queen.