ONE of the biggest racing and breeding operations in the world, Shadwell Estate, founded by the late Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, is set to be significantly scaled down in the coming months.

The reorganisation is set to begin with an offload of a “substantial” amount of yearlings, mares and horses in training at various sales towards the end of the year, in order to create an added “focus on quality and competition at the highest level of the sport.”

A statement released by Shadwell on Thursday read: “A number of horses in training and homebred yearlings will be sold this autumn, while its broodmare band will be further reduced through dispersals at key auctions over the coming months.

“The family wish to stress that they remain extremely passionate about the sport and through the chairmanship of Sheikha Hissa, herself an accomplished horsewoman, are committed to ensuring that their father’s legacy endures for many years to come. They intend to retain a significant number of homebred foals and will continue their global stallion operations.”

The restructure will have a significant impact on Irish breeders and the sales industry, though the last line in the above quoted text did remove doubt somewhat on the future of Derrinstown Stud, one of three international studs for Shadwell.

It is unknown whether Shadwell will be active at the various upcoming yearling sales, while it is understood the number of horses to be sold, and at which sales venues, is still to be finalised.

Shadwell has raced 167 individual horses with 12 different trainers alone in Britain this year, while Kevin Prendergast and Dermot Weld have combined to run 26 individual horses in the famous blue and white colours in Ireland this season.

The announcement of the significant scale down doesn’t come as a big surprise given that Shadwell had already moved to trim down its operation this year, while the summer departure of Richard Lancaster, who was stud director for over 20 of his 35 years at Shadwell, was seen as significant.

Prior to his death in March, Sheikh Hamdan had been a huge supporter of Irish bloodstock, and was particularly active at the Goffs Orby Sale for many years.

End of an era

Goffs CEO Henry Beeby told The Irish Field yesterday: “It’s sad news in many ways because it’s the end of an era. Sheikh Hamdan was a wonderful supporter of Irish bloodstock and we were very lucky at Goffs that he was a great supporter of us. He turned up at nearly every Orby Sale that we can remember and was a supporter through his agents at our November Foal and Breeding Stock Sales in particular.

“It’s one of those things that people will say it’ll never be the same again and in many ways it won’t but I’m old enough to remember when we said what will we do when Robert Sangster never buys another yearling and the world moves on. It’s the circle of life sadly.”