WHILE the eyes of the flat racing world this weekend will be on Saudi Arabia, spare a moment to reflect on the Listed H.H. The Amir Trophy, run for last weekend in Qatar.

A local Group 1, but a listed race in international catalogues, the £1.2 million first prize was enough to tempt one of the best horses in Hong Kong, the Irish-bred Russian Emperor, to compete.

The Douglas Whyte-trained six-year-old just got the better of a hapless Warren Point, mentioned in the review of racing at Meydan, and claim the valuable pot.

Previously trained at Ballydoyle, and winner of the Group 3 Hampton Court Stakes at Royal Ascot, Russian Emperor has boosted his career earnings to just over £4 million, a staggering figure. Most of this has been earned in Hong Kong, where he has won two Group 1 races, and he has also placed in many of their best contests.

Russian Emperor finished seventh behind Serpentine in the Group 1 Derby at Epsom on his final start for Aidan O’Brien. He is the sole Group 1 winner sired by Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) from a daughter of Fastnet Rock (Danehill), but that dam was a very special dual champion. Atlantic Jewel won 10 times, and four of these were Group 1 races. Most remarkable of all is that she only ran 11 times.

Heights

Atlantic Jewel was bought by Coolmore for A$320,000 at the Gold Coast Yearling Sale, a daughter of their own stallion. He was Fastnet Rock, winner of the Group 1 Lightning Stakes and Oakleigh Plate. Atlantic Jewel won just short of A$1.6 million in her racing career, but few could have predicted the heights she would scale when she won a maiden and two handicaps in just a month at three.

Her fourth start was a major step up in class, tackling the Group 1 Schweppes 1000 Guineas which she won by three lengths, beating the multiple Group 1 winner Mosheen.

Injury saw Atlantic Jewel side-lined for the first time in her career, but in late autumn she crowned her first season racing with victory in the Group 1 All Aged Stakes at Randwick. A tendon injury ruled her out of a four-year-old campaign, but she was not rushed off to stud, and returned to the track at five.

Atlantic Jewel did not have an easy return, the Group 1 Memsie Stakes at Caulfield marking her first run for 16 months. Nonetheless, she treated a top-class field with contempt, and a fortnight later added a Group 2.

This was just a week before she tackled the Group 1 Underwood Stakes and met defeat for the only time in her career, pipped by the Sydney Triple Crown winner It’s A Dundeel.

Swansong

Her career swansong came in the 2013 Group 1 Caulfield Stakes, and Atlantic Jewel won by four lengths on just her second time to run over 10 furlongs.

She moved to Ireland and matings with Galileo. Her first three runners by that champion sire are the winners Pacific Ocean and Russian Emperor, and the placed Fleet Commander who sold last October for 100,000gns to de Burgh Equine. Atlantic Jewel died from a haemorrhage in 2020 after giving birth to a colt by Triple Crown winner Justify (Scat Daddy).

Atlantic Jewel is the first foal from Regard (Zabeel), and that winning mare bred back-to-back Group 1 Schweppes 1000 Guineas winners, her daughter Commanding Jewel (Commands) victorious in the race 12 months after her sibling. Regard is one of nine winners from Nanshan (Nashwan), and her daughter, Regard’s half-sister Lady Beckworth (General Nediym), is the dam of the Group 1 winner I Am Excited (Snitzel).

Nanshan’s half-sister Embassy (Cadeaux Genereux) was the champion two-year-old filly in Europe in 1997, thanks to victory in the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes. She was replicating the win in the same race nine years earlier by her dam, Pass The Peace (Alzao). Embassy is grandam of the Group 1 Prix Maurice de Gheest winner King’s Apostle (King’s Best) and third dam of a pair of Chilean Group 1 winners, the own-brothers Flyer (Scat Daddy) and Fantasmagorico.