Qatar Racing’s Kameko wins Gr2 Shadwell Joel Stakes

Doha: The Qatar Racing Limited-owned Kameko bounced back in the Shadwell Joel Stakes (Group 2), at Newmarket yesterday. 

The three-year-old trained by Andrew Balding had not won since his success in the 1,000 Guineas (Group 1) in a record time at Newmarket in May. 

Yesterday, Kameko chased the leaders in the Shadwell Joel Stakes and, despite looking a little lethargic in the first part of the race, he showed a good turn of foot in the last two furlongs to win by a half length in front of Regal Reality while Benbatl finished a further half length behind in third. 

Kameko was one of the two 3-year-olds in the race and, being a Group 1 winner, he had to give some weight to his elders. 

Oisin Murphy, the winning jockey, said yesterday: “There’s a lot of pressure on the fastest Guineas winner ever, but there were no options for him and I don’t think there have been many three-year-olds that could give weight to horses like Benbatl."

He added: "He’s definitely a miler and he might get an easy 10 (furlongs) on fast ground, but it would be nice to make him as good a racehorse as he can be. So much hard work has gone into him to keep him sound and organised. It’s a huge team effort." 

Murphy added: "Sheikh Fahad buys plenty of horses and breeds as best he can to find champion horses and now he’s found two.”