Sheikh Mohammed and more recently Godolphin have had an exceptional record in Melbourne’s premier two-year-old race, the Blue Diamond Stakes.
Godolphin has three wins in the Group 1 race, winning with Earthquake (2014), Lyre (2019) and Daumier last year while Sepoy won in Sheikh Mohammed’s colours in 2011.
Next Saturday’s race is likely to see the Godolphin Royal Blue colours worn by three runners – Barber, Zulfiqar and Exploring– as James Cummings chases his first win in the race.
All three two-year-olds enter Saturday’s race in peak condition as last start winners.
Barber is undefeated in three starts, winning twice in Sydney during the spring before scoring firs-up in the colts and gelding’s division of the Blue Diamond Prelude (1100m) at Sandown on February 11.
“He looks pretty bombproof,” Cummings said.
“I like Barber as a two-year-old, he was a gun yearling who always progressed and improved.
“At every stage he’s got better and better, is undefeated, had two runs before Christmas, won the Golden Gift, which was a high-pressure race.
“Jamie Kah said that, while he may not have won by a long way, he gave her the ride in the race that he was never going to be beaten.”
Like Barber, Zulfiqar has had three starts and enters Saturday’s race as a two-time winner.
Zulfiqar was the first horse born of Godolphin’s current crop of two-year-olds and will be having his second run for the campaign having won first-up in the Group 3 Chairman’s Stakes (1000m) at Sandown on February 4.
“He was strong in the Chairman’s Stakes and has enjoyed the week-and-a-half he’s had since then,” Cummings said.
“He’s got the blinkers on, he’s professional and he’s going to take some getting past.”
Exploring is the only filly of the trio and like Zulfiqar is a two-time winner from her three starts.
A debut winner at Flemington on New Year’s Day, Exploring took out the filly’s division of the Blue Diamond Prelude (1100m) at Sandown on February 4.
“She now goes into the Blue Diamond with the experience on the track, as a last-start winner,” Cummings said.
“She has three runs under her belt this campaign, so we don’t have to do too much with her now.”
