RIP Sheikh Ahmed bin Rashid Al Maktoum,

Mtoto

One of my first real memories, and loves, in racing and betting, blown away by some of it's wins.

Mtoto now he was a great horse, with a fabulous turn of foot at the end of a race.

Mtota became Britain’s dominant middle-distance horse in 1988 by winning the Eclipse again and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot, before famously finishing a narrow second in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe after encountering traffic problems. Or maybe in the Arc the RP could have more truthfully have said finished a narrow 2nd after a safety first sh*te ride by Michael Roberts.

Mtota?

Favourite Horse of all time, as has been said a superb turn of foot.Fond memories, RIP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0mjMYWszD8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZUAD2GTh1U

the two eclipse performances.

one of my favourites of all time.

jack the lad i knew as a bit of a bigmouth said mtoto was a machine and he was backing it all year. righto

im in mecca shop when he bowled in and asked for £600 on it to win eclipse?

they didnt want it and offered s.p. he blew up deluxe and after half an hours wrangling he got on. 13/2 i think

never seen anything like it and had £2 on meself

Did they Lays yours off,Busy

Great vids there jolly

Beating a couple of other legends into 2nd place, and two faves from memories, Reference Point and Shady Heights

youd have been in trouble if you were laying my bets at that time

i was under-age 

I see him Win the Eclipse, backed Bellotto.
Sure Mtoto got a good write up from T/Form after the Brigadier Stks.

And no one remembers Alnasr Alwasheek who won Craven and Dante under Steve Cauthen, trained by Michael Stoute

A plethora of top class over decades.

Remember backing his filly Noushkey in the Oaks @ 66/1 when 2ND
to Cecil's Ramruna.Won the Lancashire Oaks later in the year by half the track.

Was at Haydock the evening Mtoto won the Chipmobile Maiden Stakes -  both Alec Stewart and Sheikh Ahmed had travelled up and had nothing else of note on the card if anything at all. A few years later the said Chipmobile was engulfed in flames.

Gotta be said that without this guy and, even more so, his elder brother, plus a good few other sheikhs, our racing would surely have long gone to the wall.

They came into the game during the 1970's and replaced many of the English aristrocats who were slowly dying off and who had been the backbone of UK racing for a long, long time.

Sad to see the famous silks of so many wonderful summers from the 1980's now being passed on to descendants who may not prove to be as big on racing as their elders were.

But, having sadi that, the Abdulla operation has continued without the founder, so let us hope the same thing happens with the guy who left us today.

what an era the 70s to 2000 was