Fergie and Fahey hoping Spirit Dancer can deliver in Saudi Arabia

Saudi mission: Spirit Dancer, part-owned and bred by Sir Alex Ferguson and trained in Malton by Richard Fahey runs in the Howden Neom Turf Cup on Saturday in Riyadh - part of the Saudi Cup meeting. Picture: Tim Goode/PA Wire.Saudi mission: Spirit Dancer, part-owned and bred by Sir Alex Ferguson and trained in Malton by Richard Fahey runs in the Howden Neom Turf Cup on Saturday in Riyadh - part of the Saudi Cup meeting. Picture: Tim Goode/PA Wire.
Saudi mission: Spirit Dancer, part-owned and bred by Sir Alex Ferguson and trained in Malton by Richard Fahey runs in the Howden Neom Turf Cup on Saturday in Riyadh - part of the Saudi Cup meeting. Picture: Tim Goode/PA Wire.
Sir Alex Ferguson “never dreamed” that he would have a horse good enough to take on the best in the world on the international stage.

But in Malton-trained Spirit Dancer – a horse he bred – that is exactly what he is doing.

The former all-conquering Manchester United manager has become immersed in the racing world since his retirement, enjoying several high-profile victories in the National Hunt sphere.

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To date, his Flat exploits had not reached the same heights. But the Richard Fahey-trained seven-year-old Spirit Dancer has started to change all that.

Winner: Former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has transferred his winning touch from the football field to racecourse. Picture: Laurence Griffiths/Getty ImagesWinner: Former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has transferred his winning touch from the football field to racecourse. Picture: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images
Winner: Former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has transferred his winning touch from the football field to racecourse. Picture: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images

Winning the Strensall Stakes at York last summer earned him an invite for the Bahrain International Trophy, which he won, and he was last seen finishing a respectable fourth in the Group One Jebel Hatta at Meydan in Dubai.

He now runs in the Howden Neom Turf Cup tomorrow in Riyadh, a race worth almost £1million to the winner.

“One of the great advantages of having a really good horse is international racing. We never dreamed, when I bred Spirit Dancer, that he would end up getting as far as this,” Ferguson told The Saudi Cup.

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“We’re so excited about it and after Bahrain we are quite optimistic.

“He had a little problem when he was three years of age, he got over that and he’s just got better and better. He’s not had a lot of racing. That’s what Richard keeps saying, that he can race a lot more than he’s been doing. So we’re getting the benefit.

“Competing with the likes of Aidan O’Brien and the Japanese, you know you are up against the best, and we’re enjoying it.”

Ferguson’s racing interests stretch back almost 30 years now, and it is fair to say he is more involved than at any time in his life.

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“It was round about 1995 that I remember my wife saying I was going to kill myself because my whole day was absorbed with the (football) club,” he explained.

“One day, I said to my wife ‘shall we go to the races?’. She asked where that had come from and I told her it was her who said I needed to start doing something else.

“We were at the races one day when I met John Mulhern and Dessie Scahill and I got hooked. She once said ‘you want to buy all the right horses’, well, I’m trying!

“I got into breeding by accident, I was in Germany visiting Andreas Wohler and he put the idea in my mind, I bought a horse from him, the mare Queen’s Dream (Spirit Dancer’s dam).

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“A friend of mine then put the idea in my head about buying the stud in Hemel Hempstead. I said we’d have a go and it’s been great. They are fantastic people there, we had a foal there last week by Stradivarius, so it’s great.”

Spirit Dancer is co-owned by bookmaker Fred Done and Ferguson’s big friend, Ged Mason, with whom he is involved with most of his horses – and who initiated a rather painful celebration in Bahrain.

“Ged broke my rib celebrating in Bahrain, I won’t mind him breaking another if it means we win!” said Ferguson.

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