To ask a buyer to spend seven figures on an unproven Thoroughbred at any auction is a weighty ask. For many horses offered for public sale, it's rare that even in a lifetime of racing they will earn back their asking price, let alone pay dividends to their connections.
But, sometimes, you have to spend big money to get big results. Few understood that principle better than Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who purchased Malathaat for $1,050,000 for his Shadwell Estate Co. at the 2019 Keeneland September Yearling Sale. On April 30, that filly rewarded her late owner's faith and pocketbook when she fought all the way to the wire at Churchill Downs to become the 147th winner of the Longines Kentucky Oaks (G1).
Malathaat is now unbeaten in five starts and her purse earnings now equal $1,125,150. Trained by Todd Pletcher, Sheikh Hamdan first saw the filly in 2019 on the grounds of Keeneland at the consignment of Denali Stud, who offered the filly on behalf of Stonestreet Bred & Raised. A daughter of two-time Horse of the Year Curlin , the filly's pedigree was one that was hard to ignore, as she is the daughter of the A.P. Indy mare Dreaming of Julia, a Stonestreet homebred.
"She was one of those that when we go in June to Stonestreet to see the horses we are going to be selling for them for the first time, she took two steps out of the barn and just immediately captivated your attention and drew you in," said Conrad Bandoroff of Denali Stud.
"She was every bit of a million-dollar filly.
"With pedigree and her physical, she had such class and an air of quality about her. She was a queen in every sense of the word, and she's obviously lived up to her price tag. She was a lot of fun to be around. She had a pretty head to her with big ears, and she would stand at the barn and just pose. It was easy to pick her out from the consignment."
Speaking late Friday afternoon, Shadwell Farm manager Rick Nichols said Sheikh Hamdan—who owned and operated breeding and racing operations in the United States, England, and Ireland—knew what it took to make a champion. He often attended the September sales in person along with his team and, according to Nichols, had a particular system for choosing what he wanted from the catalog. If one watched closely enough, it was easy to tell when he set his mind and heart on buying a certain horse.
"His reaction was this. We would show him a yearling, and he'd have his catalog. He wouldn't say anything a lot of times. Later, he might tell me what he liked about her or what he didn't like about her," said Nichols. "And he would drive consignors crazy, because when he saw a good horse, it didn't take him very long to look at it. They'd bring it out, and he would kind of glance at it and tell them to put it away. They would think, 'Oh, he didn't like it.' Well, that meant he really did like it, because it didn't take him long to figure out a good horse."
Nichols said the tell-tale sign for Sheikh Hamdan was that he would take his catalog, lick his finger, and fold down the selected catalog page to ear-mark the horse.
"We always referred to that as she was a 'finger licker,'" said Nichols. "That means he liked her."
That Sheikh Hamdan would purchase Malathaat was kismet for Pletcher, who had hoped to buy the filly himself at the sale along with a partnership group.
"I loved the filly at the sale," said Pletcher. "I was having trouble—it's a lot easier to get someone on a colt than a filly sometimes, even with one that has as great a pedigree as she does. And I kept trying different owners: This filly is going to be expensive, but I really would like to try and buy her. Ultimately, we put together a partnership that wasn't quite able to get there."
Malathaat was originally slated to join the barn of longtime Shadwell trainer Kiaran McLaughlin, but when McLaughlin announced his decision to retire in 2020, Shadwell passed their band of current and future runners to Pletcher.
"I remember three or four days after the sale, I saw Kiaran McLauglin and I said, 'Kiaran, are you going to get that Dreaming of Julia filly?' He said, 'I think so, yeah.' And I said, 'Man, great, I love that filly.'
"When I met with Rick (Nichols) and his team at Shadwell before we started training, I saw the filly was on the roster. I was really hoping she would come our way."
To date, Malathaat is the only one of Dreaming of Julia's six reported foals to be sold at auction. The mare produced a full sister to the newly minted Oaks winner in 2020.
