Good news for Addeybb as William Haggas plots Sydney return

The globetrotting horse has won prestigious Group One races in Australia for two successive years – results made even more remarkable by the strictness of quarantine rules in lockdown.

And the 2020 Qipco Champion Stakes winner has been integral to the emergence of Tom Marquand as one of the world’s best jockeys.

Yet, while Haggas indicated that Addeybb would head to Sydney for a third successive winter, a blood clot on the horse’s hock, and which then became infected, scuppered the plan.

Yorkshire-born Haggas was fearful for his future at one stage but thankfully Addeybb, a four-time Group One winner, including the 2020 Champion Stakes at Ascot, has made a full recovery.

“He’s marvellous, he’s in good shape,” said Haggas.

“We had a real scare, we thought we were going to lose him in November but he’s fine now.

“Hopefully we’ll have him ready to return in the summer.”

Meanwhile, the Haggas-trained Alenquer, victorious at Royal Ascot last summer, lines up in today’s Betway Winter Derby at Lingfield under Cieren Fallon, the newly-promoted first jockey to Qatar Racing in the wake of champion jockey Oisin Murphy’s 14-month ban.

The field is headed by John and Thady Gosden’s Group One winner Lord North on a day of international racing that is very much the precursor to the 2022 summer campaign.

It sees the Gosden-trained Mishriff – winner of last year’s Juddmonte International – bid to defend the Saudi Cup that he won so spectacularly under David Egan.

Held on a dirt track, it is now the world’s richest race and Mishriff will, again, face a formidably strong American challenge headed by Mandaloun and other horses who compete more regularly on this type of surface.

But riding plans for the Riyadh meeting were having to be altered yesterday after St Leger-winning jockey William Buick, first jockey to Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin operation, returned a positive PCR test.

Egan comes in for Buick’s ride on Copano Kicking the Riyadh Dirt Sprint. Egan also gets a spare ride on Happy Power in the Turf Sprint due to James Doyle switching to Naval Crown.