Development Although Prince Khalid's father had owned horses, he had not kept them for racing. Prince Khalid's introduction to the sport came on a trip to
Longchamp with friends in 1956. Even so, he did not start owning race horses himself until the late 1970s. Prince Khalid's purchases of yearlings at that time heralded the start of the largescale investment in horseracing by owners from the Middle East that was to transform the sport. In 1977 Prince Khalid's first racing adviser, the former trainer
Humphrey Cottrill, bought for him four yearlings at the Newmarket sales. The following year Prince Khalid bought the top two lots in the Houghton Sales at Newmarket, although the top-priced yearling, Sand Hawk, for whom he paid a record 264,000 guineas, proved largely a disappointment; as would Convention, for whom he paid 1.4 million guineas in 1983. However, Cottrill and the trainer
Jeremy Tree had also paid $225,000 for a dark bay colt by
In Reality at the
Keeneland Sales of 1978, their single purchase, who as
Known Fact won the
Middle Park Stakes in the autumn of 1979 and then, after
Nureyev's disqualification, the
2,000 Guineas of 1980, following up his victory with a win in the
Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. His first winner of any kind had come the previous season, when Charming Native came home first at Windsor, while Abeer had provided his first victory at
Royal Ascot with her win in the
Queen Mary Stakes. In 1982 Prince Khalid had his first homebred winner with Fine Edge at Newmarket. His Juddmonte breeding operation soon produced
Warning, by
Known Fact out of the broodmare Slightly Dangerous, who became Europe's Champion Miler in the 1988 season. Remarkably, Prince Khalid went on to win all five British Classic races with homebred horses:
Quest For Fame, sired by
Rainbow Quest, won Juddmonte's first Epsom Derby in 1990, followed by
Commander In Chief (a son of Dancing Brave) in 1993, and finally the fourth-generation Juddmonte-bred
Workforce, who broke the course record at Epsom with the victory in 2010. Toulon won the
St Leger of 1991 and
Zafonic carried off the 2,000 Guineas two years later, as did
Frankel in 2011.
Reams of Verse won
The Oaks in 1997 and
Enable won The Oaks in 2017.
Wince won the
1,000 Guineas in 1999, followed by
Special Duty's victory in the same race in 2010. The winner of not just the 2,000 Guineas, but also of multiple Group One races, including the Juddmonte-sponsored
International Stakes at York, Frankel was bred by Prince Khalid through three generations via his mare
Kind. He is named after
Bobby Frankel, who had trained Prince Khalid's horses in America. Juddmonte also bred a clean sweep of French Classic winners. Sanglamore won the
Prix du Jockey Club in 1990 and New Bay won it in 2015, whilst Houseproud, Zenda and
Special Duty won the
Poule d'Essai des Pouliches in 1990, 2002 and 2010. Jolypha and Nebraska Tornado won the
Prix de Diane, in 1992 and 2003 respectively, and Raintrap and Sunshack were the winners of the
Prix Royal-Oak in 1993 and 1995, before American Post took the
Poule d'Essai des Poulains in 2004. Finally, there was victory for
Rail Link in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe of 2006, a success repeated by
Workforce in 2010 (making this horse only the sixth horse in history to win both the Derby and the Arc At the
Breeders' Cup in 2018, homebreds Enable and
Expert Eye won the
Breeders' Cup Turf and
Breeders' Cup Mile respectively.
Recognition In North America, Prince Khalid was the recipient of an
Eclipse Award as Top Owner in 1992, 2003, 2016 and 2017, and received five awards as the Top Breeder: in 1995, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2009. In 2003, Prince Khalid finished third in the American owners' championship. In Europe, Prince Khalid's 78 winners in Britain and 58 winners in France made him the champion owner in both those countries in 2003, and he was
British flat racing's champion owner again in 2010, with 74 winners and prize money of more than £3 million. He took the British title once more in 2011, when he had 63 winners and won more than £3.4 million in prize money. In 1983 he was made an honorary member of
The Jockey Club.
Trainers Prince Khalid's horses were initially trained mainly by
Jeremy Tree, to whom he was introduced by Humphrey Cottrill, and by
Guy Harwood, who trained
Dancing Brave. The circle of European trainers widened to include
Henry Cecil,
Barry Hills and
Criquette Head-Maarek, and now comprises
André Fabre,
Francis-Henri Graffard and Henri-François Devin in France,
Dermot Weld and Ger Lyons in Ireland and
John and Thady Gosden,
Sir Michael Stoute, Hugo Palmer,
Roger Charlton,
Charlie Hills, and
Ralph Beckett in England. In the US, his horses were for a long time in the care of
Bobby Frankel and are now with
Bill Mott,
Bob Baffert, Brad Cox and
Chad Brown.
Juddmonte Farms In 1982, Khalid bin Abdullah purchased Cayton Park Stud at
Wargrave in
Berkshire, renaming it
Juddmonte Farms. That property was sold in 2017. From the early 1980s he built up a collection of carefully selected mares, in the early days buying from
Robert Sangster. By 2011 these represented, according to Lord Grimthorpe in an interview given to the
Financial Times, "one of the greatest brood-mare bands in the history of breeding". The British arm of the Juddmonte operations came to include Estcourt Estate in
Gloucestershire, as well as Juddmonte Dullingham, Side Hill Stud and Banstead Manor Stud in
Newmarket in
Suffolk. There, Prince Khalid stood a number of leading stallions, notably
Dansili,
Oasis Dream, Frankel and Kingman (current). Juddmonte also owns Ferrans Stud and New Abbey Stud in Ireland, as well as Juddmonte Farm in
Lexington,
Kentucky. The Juddmonte Group's CEO is Douglas Erskine Crum. The studs in England are managed by Simon Mockridge, in Ireland by Barry Mahon (also European Racing Manager) and in the US by Garrett O'Rourke. Prince Khalid was responsible for the allocation of horses to trainers and for approval of mating lists. In a rare interview in 2010 he told
The Racing Post: "When I was at the sales I realised that it would be easier to buy horses and race them, but I got the feeling that this was not enough, that it would be more fun to do what people like the
Aga Khan and
Lord Howard de Walden did and build up your own families." He said that he had his stud book with him all the time. In 2017, the Juddmonte operation employed around 250 people and extended to 700-800 horses around the world, with a racing stock of about 250. ==Personal life and death==