The DQ has been lucky for Juddmonte from the outset
Mandaloun is the latest Juddmonte Classic winner via DQ
By Frances J. Karon
It’s not unusual for Juddmonte to be in the news for winning prominent races. Just today, the farm’s homebred 6-year-old Laurel River (Into Mischief) won the Group 3 Burj Nahaar at Meydan in Dubai. That horse is trained by Bhupat Seemar, but he’d won the Grade 2 Pat O’Brien in 2022 when trained by Bob Baffert.
Another Juddmonte homebred son of Into Mischief was making headlines earlier this week with the announcement that the 2021 Kentucky Derby chart has been amended to officially show Mandaloun, trained by Brad Cox, as the winner of the race. This was after a lengthy legal battle concluded and the Baffert-trained Medina Spirit (Protonico) was demoted. It has taken so long to make this ruling official that Mandaloun’s first foals are already being born this year.
Mandaloun’s Derby is Juddmonte’s second U.S. Classic win, after Empire Maker’s Belmont in 2003. (Empire Maker is the broodmare sire of Laurel River and Mandaloun, just two of the four graded stakes winners by Into Mischief from Empire Maker mares.)
Although it may be a rarity overall for Classics to be decided post-race, it’s a circumstance that goes back almost to the very beginning of Juddmonte.
When Prince Khalid Abdullah made his entrance into horse racing and established Juddmonte Farms in 1977, one of his earliest acquisitions, for $225,000 at the now-defunct Keeneland July yearling sale in 1978, was a Florida-bred colt by In Reality from Tamerett (Tim Tam).
As Known Fact, that almost black colt, trained by Jeremy Tree, won the Group 1 Middle Park S. as a 2-year-old and, in 1980, won the 2,000 Guineas in dramatic fashion when Stavros Niarchos’s Nureyev (Northern Dancer) was disqualified from his neck victory over Known Fact and placed last for interfering Ogden Mills “Dinny” Phipps’s Posse (Forli, the broodmare sire of Nureyev), who crossed the post third. (You can watch the race beginning at the 1:30 mark here; Nureyev has a blaze and Known Fact is in a white shadow roll.) It was an interesting, and at the time highly controversial, disqualification, but just like that, Juddmonte achieved Classic success in its infancy.
Known Fact went on to be named champion miler in England that season, while Nureyev was champion miler in France despite officially winning only one of two starts, a Listed race at Maisons-Laffitte, in 1980.
When Known Fact retired to stud for Juddmonte—first in England, and later to Kentucky—he sired 53 stakes winners (7% to foals), including English champion 2- and 3-year-old Warning, Juddmonte’s first homebred Group 1 winner.
Perhaps the most incredible of Juddmonte’s Classic wins via DQ was not one but two provided by homebred Special Duty, a 2007 Hennessy filly whose granddam was by, of all horses, Nureyev. Trained by Criquette Head-Maarek, Special Duty finished a nose behind Jacqueline Quest (Rock Of Gibraltar) in the 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket, but stewards ruled that Jacqueline Quest had interfered with Special Duty. The latter filly was promoted to first to win that May 2, 2010, Classic.
On May 16th, Special Duty ran second to Liliside by a head in a tight finish of the French filly Classic Poule d’Essai des Pouliches. Liliside, coincidentally a daughter of Juddmonte’s American Post (Bering)—winner of the 2004 Poule d’Essai des Poulains—was demoted to sixth, and Special Duty had her second Classic win, both via disqualification.
Juddmonte is a leading breeder and owner many times over in the U.S., England, and France, and the Classic wins earned via DQ are a drop in the bucket for a farm that has won five editions of the 2,000 Guineas; three Derbies; three Irish Oaks; three Pouliches, including Special Duty’s; two each of the 1,000 Guineas, Oaks (one with the Nureyev filly Reams Of Verse), Irish 2,000 Guineas, Irish Derby, Prix du Jockey-Club, Prix de Diane; and one Kentucky Derby, Belmont, and Poulains.
[Our reader Mikael Armstrong reminded us in a comment below that Juddmonte’s Price Tag (Dansili), trained by Pascal Bary, was first past the post by 1 1/2 lengths in the 2006 Pouliches but was demoted to third for hanging right and interfering with the two fillies who finished directly behind her.]
Rainbow Quest (Blushing Groom), like Known Fact a yearling purchase for Juddmonte, won the 1985 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe—not a Classic but arguably the premier event on the French racing calendar—on the disqualification of Sagace (Luthier). He went on to become an excellent stallion from Juddmonte’s English base, siring 107 stakes winners (10% to foals), including Juddmonte’s first Epsom Derby winner Quest For Fame, and he’s the sire of Frankel’s second dam.
So if history, judging by the successful stud careers of Known Fact and Rainbow Quest, is any measure, Juddmonte winning a major race via disqualification is a harbinger of good things to come for Mandaloun.
Other notable wins Juddmonte has attained through disqualification are the 2014 Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere with Full Mast (Mizzen Mast) being moved ahead of first-past-the-post Gleneagles (Galileo) for Criquette Head-Maarek; and the 2001 Grade 1 Hollywood Gold Cup with Aptitude (A.P. Indy) for Bobby Frankel after Futural (Future Storm) had impeded Aptitude’s stablemate Skimming (Nureyev), another Juddmonte homebred. The pink, green, and white Juddmonte silks are something of a good luck charm when the result of the race is decided off the racetrack.
One horse bred by Juddmonte on a foal-sharing agreement with Coolmore and raced in the dark blue silks of the latter’s Mrs. John Magnier was on the other end of the stewards’s decision, when Powerscourt (Sadler’s Wells) was disqualified from first and placed fourth for interference in the 2004 Grade 1 Arlington Million, a race he won in 2005. Coincidentally, Powerscourt was produced from a Rainbow Quest mare, that second dam of Frankel.
Thanks a lot for a very interesting piece. May I just add another example when Juddmonte was on the losing end regarding DQ:s in classic races: Price Tag (Dansili) passed the post first in the 2006 Poule d'Essai des Pouliches (Gr1), French 1000 Gns, but was demoted to third at 33-1. All to the obvious disappointment of Khalid Abdullah who was already on his way to the podium. Price Tag did win a Gr1 later in her career though, when transferred to the US.
Rainbow Quest gave us G1 St. Leger hero Nedawi when brought to a daughter of the champion Dahlia. Nedawi sired Mr. Nedawi, a G1 winner in both Brazil and Uruguay.