With our correspondent and world traveler Bob Kieckhefer, BH Daily launches this new column focused on the growing interconnection between North America and the rest of the racing world. The aim of this column is to look at international racing from an American perspective and, along the way, perhaps grow some interest in racing overseas.
In the weeks ahead, BH Daily plans to launch several new columns aimed at bringing more clarity to our complicated industry.
When Sheikh Mohammed created the Dubai World Cup (G1) in 1996, he set in motion a chain of events that stirred the cauldron of international racing. That innovation, along with advances in transportation, wagering, and information technology, as well as the escalation of purse money on offer, opened a door that has led a huge increase in American participation on the global scene in events such as the Dubai World Cup and the Saudi Cup (G1).
Of course, Cigar's victory in the inaugural World Cup didn't hurt that transformation.
On the flip side, the growth of the Breeders' Cup World Championships into an event that justifies the name has resulted in a dramatic upswing in foreign interest in American racing.
That's all obvious. But it's just the tip of the iceberg. Changes in the international racing landscape have opened new opportunities everywhere. Consider, for example, the interrelationship among the Kentucky Derby (G1), the upswing of dirt racing in the Middle East, and the global bloodstock market. It's no secret that Churchill Downs Inc. loves to have international participation in its premier race. The Japan Road to the Kentucky Derby and the companion Euro/Mideast Road speak to that. And the dramatic third-place finish posted in the 2024 Run for the Roses by Forever Young put an exclamation point on the result.
(It's a story for another day, but heightened attention to the rich Middle Eastern races and the United States Triple Crown has also led to some meaningful changes in the structure of Japanese racing.)
But the interweaving of these global events goes well beyond the on-track results. Six Speed, winner of the UAE Two Thousand Guineas (G3) on Fashion Friday Jan. 23 in Dubai, is a prime example of how breeding and ownership benefit from new opportunities. Six Speed is a Not This Time colt bred by KatieRich Farms in Kentucky. He sold for $50,000 at the 2024 Keeneland September Yearling Sale to Margaret "Mags" O'Toole.
O'Toole works closely with Eddie O'Leary buying weanlings and yearlings to pinhook as yearlings or breeze up as 2-year-olds in the United Kingdom. That's how Six Speed showed up in the 2025 Tattersalls Craven Breeze Up sale, a common enough destination for American-bred youngsters.
"Six Speed was really Eddie's baby," O'Toole said. "We've been doing this for quite a while now but a lot has started to change. Dubai opened up and Saudi and now Bahrain is going great guns.
"It used to be that we looked for horses with a turf pedigree. But the money they run for there now means that we have been able to bring over a lot more different horses."
That concept was borne out when Six Speed caught the eye of one of Dubai's top trainers, Bhupat Seemar, who at Tattersalls Craven took him for just more than the equivalent of $300,000. From there, Seemar tells the tale.
"The ownership that owned him before, they're friends of mine from college," Seemar said. "They've had two horses with me and they've both won good races. They sold him and now I'm glad that the new owners—they're from the U.S. and they probably bought him with an eye to the Kentucky Derby. So it's great when someone has that much faith."
Those new owners are Brunetti Dugan Stables, Black Type Thoroughbreds, Steve Adkisson and Swinbank Stables. And, of course, they can see Louisville, Ky., on the horizon. It's still a long shot, of course, that Six Speed can get past the next step on the Derby trail, the UAE Derby (G2), where a win almost certainly would lock up a Derby starting spot.
But what Six Speed already has accomplished focuses attention directly on the market for U.S.-bred horses with dirt pedigrees to head across the Atlantic and provide profit and opportunity in this new racing world.
Is that a trend? Well, of the 16 3-year-olds who went to post in the UAE Guineas, 10 were bred in the U.S., including the first seven finishers. The runner-up, Devon Island, races for Godolphin and remains a candidate for the UAE Derby.
Devon Island, a Practical Joke colt, was bred in Kentucky by Erv Woolsey and Ralph Kinder, sold for $62,000 at the 2024 Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Fall Yearling Sale, and took the same transatlantic journey as Six Speed but even more profitably, returning the equivalent of $731,176 for Ballybush Stables at the 2025 Arqana May Breeze Up Sale.
After years of trying to win the Kentucky Derby with horses trained in Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed finally landed the trophy with a Kentucky-bred, homebred colt when Sovereignty won in 2025. Perhaps the trail from Kentucky to Europe to Dubai and back to Kentucky will prove another avenue for success.
News and Notes
There couldn't be much clearer indication of the globalization of racing than Forever Young's trophy case. Within the space of a few days, Forever Young was crowned Japan's 2025 Horse of the Year and received the Eclipse Award as best older dirt male in the U.S.
He became the first exclusively dirt runner to achieve Japan's highest award and overcame a bias on the part of some Eclipse Award voters against candidates with only a single North American race. His dramatic triumphs over Romantic Warrior in the Saudi Cup and Sierra Leone in the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) convinced Japanese voters. In the U.S., Eclipse voters in the older dirt male division opted for Forever Young at 117 votes to 50 for Sierra Leone.
