'Every time I've gone for one, there's been someone with bigger pockets!'

Age 57

Occupation Trainer

You’ve been present at the latest Tattersalls July Sale. How have you found it? It’s kind of a tough sale for people who fly in from overseas - you do your homework on 900 horses and then 300 of them are out, and on top of that 50 per cent or more this year were fillies, and I’m looking for colts and geldings. At least I had some time for socialising and enjoying some lovely British weather.

Somehow that sale has always worked out not that good for me, and October and the Craven Breeze-Up Sale have been better. I was very lucky to have bought a few at the last one, and they’re doing well in Dubai.

Which sales have provided you with most success? England has always been a good market but now we have a new thing for the last few years, the Godolphin sales in Dubai. The Darley and Godolphin horses come in, 60 or 70 of them, and I’ve had great luck with that. You can’t go wrong with the pedigrees, they’re awesome.

They’re not perfect horses, they’ve all been racing and have had their problems here and there, but we sort them out and they’ve done very well. The likes of North America, Raven’s Corner, a lot of my good horses came from there.

It’s a good system that His Highness (Sheikh Mohammed) started, to encourage the ownership there, and my clients and I are very supportive of it. I do also buy some from the American sales, the likes of Fasig-Tipton, Keeneland and Ocala.

What sort of numbers do you end up buying through the year? Normally about 20-odd are two-year-olds in training, and perhaps a similar number, or a little bit lower, are horses in training, maybe bought privately. I have a system by which we need to replace the younger stock and proven stock.

I try to encourage my clients to start with thinking about the Dubai Carnival level, because as we all know in racing, the percentage of those going up is less, and those going down is very high. At least with the Carnival they can enjoy it, and it’s financially viable.

What sort of horse do you look for? I have my type of horse. I don’t like small horses, I like ones with a bit of size and those which are forward.

I do go for the foaling dates, because our racing is literally six months, and you have to eliminate all the possible minuses. I methodically work on that if I have a choice, but a lot of the time it doesn’t work like that.

Trainer Satish Seemar shows a group of guests around Zabeel Stables in Dubai

Do you have some preferred stallions? For Dubai racing, I like to choose the American dirt-type horses but that doesn’t mean that they have to be bred like that.

Take a stallion like Dubawi, he can produce both dirt and turf horses. I’ve had a lot of luck with Dubawi and in my stable I nearly have 25 or 30 of them, out of 130.

I tried to go for a Frankel at the Tattersalls July Sale, I thought one would have been great on the turf and maybe a Dubai Gold Cup type of horse, but unfortunately he was withdrawn.

I like Shamardals, Speightstowns and some of the upcoming sires. I've liked the look of Night Of Thunder but every time I’ve gone for one, there’s been someone with bigger pockets! One of these days...

Do you enjoy the sales season? I used to train exclusively for the Maktoum family, but I have a lot of private ownership now, so my lifestyle has changed. It’s very interesting and I love it. You always have to have some of your own life, but wherever there’s a good horse, I’ll be there.

How is your stable star, North America? He's good. The horse does well in the Carnival, does well every time, but that World Cup day is something of a jinx for all of us. He’s a very honest horse but on the big day he's never had any luck. He’s beaten Thunder Snow by five lengths in a Group 1 in Dubai, but three more weeks down the line he couldn’t do anything.

We’ll see, he’s hopefully got another World Cup coming before he retires, and he’s a gelding so he can last a bit longer.

Can you give us any other horses to look out for back in Dubai? Since the end of our season I've bought quite a few, at least ten or a dozen older horses of about four years old, some from America and some from Europe, who are going to be my Carnival horses. One is Gladiator King, an American sprinter I bought who came very highly rated, he’s definitely a top-level horse.

Everybody wants to go for the UAE Derby route with three-year-olds but training youngsters is a very tricky game. You can’t keep pushing them, you've to be careful because for the clients it's an investment for now and for the future. If you’re not careful, you can ruin them by having this Derby dream.

I’m pretty straightforward with my owners and try to do the best I can.

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