Town Moor thriller caps stirring battle for trainers' championship

Twenty years have passed since Saeed Bin Suroor sent out Medaaly to win the Racing Post Trophy at Doncaster. His victory marked a first juvenile Group 1 strike for Godolphin, which was still a fledgling operation back in 1996, but there was a far broader significance to the colt’s triumph.

The £97,489 earned by Medaaly allowed Bin Suroor to vault above Henry Cecil in the race for the British trainers’ championship. A £60,000 deficit transformed into a lead of nearly £40,000, and despite Cecil’s best efforts in the season’s closing weeks, he was unable to secure an 11th title. Bin Suroor was champion trainer for the second time in as many seasons with a licence.

“It was great to win it,” Bin Suroor reflects. “The boss [Sheikh Mohammed] was so happy for everyone in Godolphin. Even the media in the Middle East wrote about it a lot because this was something new. Our horses had gone to race in Britain from Dubai.”