“Anamoe’s one of the most anticipated young sires to hit the stallion roster for a long time”
James Cummings will today complete his sixth full season as Godolphin Australia’s head trainer, a high-pressure but coveted role within thoroughbred racing on a global scale.
Top-flight racing is what matters most to Cummings, Godolphin and the operation’s owner Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum, which is why Australia has played an increasingly important role in the international operation in its pursuit of elite stallions.
Nine-time Group 1 winner Anamoe (Street Boss) has been retired to the stud arm Darley in the Hunter Valley, the gamble to race him on at four paying off handsomely for the Blue Army, with the stallion adding six victories at the highest level to his already impressive CV.
Cummings was, of course, commander and chief of Anamoe’s illustrious 25-start career, one which included a Cox Plate (Gr 1, 2040m) victory in the 2022-23 season and an ATC Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) two years earlier.
Fourth-generation trainer Cummings, 35, marvels at Anamoe’s feats but he also took great satisfaction out of another Group 1-winning four-year-old stallion, Paulele (Dawn Approach), whose Winterbottom Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) success was enough for him to retired to Darley’s Northwood Park in Victoria this season.
In a wide-ranging interview with ANZ’s Business Of Bloodstock podcast ahead of the spring, Cummings reflects on season 2022-23, in which he trained 186 winners (including two deadheats) and accumulated prize-money earnings of almost $36 million, and he also outlines what may lie ahead for Godolphin.
The decision makers at Godolphin Australia elected not to travel Anamoe to Royal Ascot for the Queen Anne Stakes (Gr 1, 1m) in June and Cummings harbours no regrets.
“It goes without saying that, as the trainer of the horse, I have no doubt that Anamoe would have gone over there, having watched the race … and James McDonald would have had him camped just a few lengths from the lead,” Cummings tells the Business Of Bloodstock.
“The pace was looking like it was quite honest and he would have just been cruising up in them. Would he have been up for the fight? I can’t question my horse. I think he either finishes first or second.
“I really think he would have been prepared to run that well, but there was a decision to make and how could you argue against the commercial realities of, ‘how much was there for us to be gaining by taking him there?’
“Lots of colts end up being retired as tired horses off the track. Anamoe certainly won’t be in that list.
“He was one horse who we were brave with the decision to keep him in training as a four-year-old, he won seven out of nine races and he won six more Group 1s, and he’s one of the most anticipated young sires to hit the stallion roster for a long, long time.
“Perhaps maybe even going back to a horse like So You Think and, for our team, that is an incredibly exciting position to be in.”
Anamoe will stand for an introductory fee of $121,000 (inc GST).
Meanwhile, Paulele will stand his first year at Northwood Park in Victoria for a fee of $16,500 (inc GST).
The sprinter won the Kindergarten Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m) at two, the Rosebud Stakes (Listed, 1100m), Roman Consul Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) and Esikomo Prince Stakes (Gr 3, 1200m) at three prior to his withering Perth raid at four.
“We’ve had an amazing season and yet the win of Paulele in that Winterbottom is a right up there with one of the more exciting finishes of any race we’ve ever been involved in, let alone … the 11 Group 1s that we were able to enjoy or just the 56 stakes races or the number of metropolitan winners or wins anywhere in the country [this season], I mean, that was exciting as it gets,” Cummings enthused.
“For the horse to finish in devastating style, pick up the Perth horses and win that race is a massive compliment to Paulele, but it did reflect the impressive sprinting career that he’d already established over here in the east.”
With Anamoe and Paulele exiting stage left, Exceed And Excel (Danehill) turning 23 tomorrow and Lonhro (Octagonal) recently pensioned, a lot will rest on Godolphin’s suite of young sires, such as Microphone (Exceed And Excel) and high-profile shuttlers Blue Point (Shamardal) and Too Darn Hot (Dubawi).
The trio will have their first southern hemisphere-bred runners in the new season and the expectations are high and given how well Blue Point and Too Darn Hot’s first crop runners in the northern hemisphere have performed, their reputations have received a major boost.
Cummings revealed early feedback from track riders at Godolphin and whispers from rival stables with Blue Points in work had been positive.
“They look like absolute bullets and that can’t be terribly surprising for us, considering he was such a strong sprinter in that purple patch of form where he put in something like five wins in a row, he was just so impressive,” Cummings says.
“They are showing all the qualities of young stock that are forward and precocious, they’re in the hands of the riders. We’re getting good feedback regularly. They’re handling everything that my system’s prepared to throw them at this stage. And that is, to me, the cornerstone of their potential successes.”
The Too Darn Hots might not be as “early” as the Blue Points, but Cummings hasn’t been disappointed.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if I had to wait a little longer with them. Don’t get me wrong, I think we’ll get a few two-year-olds run by Too Darn Hot with the progeny that we’ve got through the stable so far,” the trainer said.
“But I just think if I take a little bit longer with them, I think my horses will be better off [later on] but they’ve grown well, they’ve developed the right way, they’re working with us and, look, I just think that that’s probably an interesting observation that’s occurred to us so far.”
The homegrown Microphone, who won four stakes races for Cummings in 2019 and 2020, has fewer representatives, siring 56 live foals in his first crop, and the trainer is optimistic about his first crop two-year-olds making an early impression.
“We love the way they’ve been moving. They’re heading in the correct direction and, look, if I had 20 of them I’d be able to tell you a lot more, but I only have a small number,” Cummings said.
“We’ll support him every year and we will give him every opportunity, everyone will, and I’d love to have a Microphone ready to go nice and early. There’s a few we’ve got marked, but it’s just a matter of whether or not they’re going to the ground running and make it that early because it is such a competitive environment when you consider the strength of the two-year-old sires that are on the Australian rosters.”
Later, Cummings reveals that the principles of his training regime has not changed that much during his time at Godolphin. He, of course, had the grounding of working for and training in partnership with his grandfather, the late, great Bart Cummings.
However, the pandemic has altered some aspects of his approach, particularly in respect to the monitoring of Godolphin’s young homebred horses born each year at Woodlands in the Hunter Valley and Northwood Park.
Feedback and insight provided by Godolphin Australia managing director Vin Cox and bloodstock manager Jason Walsh forms part of Cummings’ knowledge base.
“When I kicked off with Godolphin I really made it my intention to go and have a look at those [young horses] the first few years with Jason Walsh, who travels from Sydney to have a look at those young horses regularly,” Cummings said.
“The first thing is, what Jason can see is something that I can rely on a great deal and the feedback from the very capable farm managers in the two operations and their assistants is also very reliable material.
“Apart from that, Vin Cox will have a look at them and we’ll get members of the bloodstock team internationally that will fly over before carnivals and they’ll go through those yearlings and the veterinary teams will go through those yearlings. So, there’s no shortage of eyeballs that have been on those horses and, because of that, there’s a lot of information that I can sift through sight unseen of the actual horses.”