Cream of the Crowley crop

PA Sport Reporters
August 31, 2020 5:22 am

From Lord Shanakill to Battaash – the best of his 2,000 winners.

Jim Crowley’s win on Modmin at Goodwood was the 2,000th of his career in Britain – initially over jumps but more significantly on the Flat. Here, PA Racing picks out a selection of the best horses the former champion jockey has ridden:

Battaash

Crowley’s “horse of a lifetime”, Battaash has cut a swathe through the sprinting ranks over the last four seasons, with 2020 representing his best year to date with King’s Stand and Nunthorpe wins on his slate. The duo have four Group One triumphs to their credit – and as Battaash is a gelding, Crowley will surely be hoping their story is not yet at an end and further glory lies ahead.

Ulysses

Crowley added two of the glamour races of the calendar to his CV in 2017 through the Sir Michael Stoute-trained Ulysses, as the Niarchos family-owned chestnut won the Coral-Eclipse and Juddmonte International. Crowley rode Stoute’s charge just five times – but what an association it was, because in addition to Sandown and York they were third in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes and second to Enable in the King George as well as finishing third to the brilliant mare in the Arc.

Lord Shanakill

Trained by Karl Burke, Lord Shanakill was a landmark performer for Crowley in many ways, and his victory in the Prix Jean Prat was a first for the rider at Group One level. Third in the St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot to Mastercraftsman, he went on to Chantilly where he got the better of Oiseau De Feu by a head. The pair had won the Mill Reef Stakes at Newbury the previous year, and found only Intense Focus a whisker too good in the Dewhurst.

Mohaather

Winner of the Greenham Stakes at the beginning of his three-year-old season, things had not gone to plan for Mohaather before he gained a confidence-boosting success in the 2020 Summer Mile, under Dane O’Neill. Unfortunate previously with a troubled passage in the Queen Anne at the Royal meeting, his return to Ascot confirmed his ability – and he then rubber-stamped his class with a swooping victory in the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood, with Crowley back on board. Sadly, that was to prove the last racecourse appearance for Marcus Tregoning’s colt, who was retired after X-rays uncovered bruising in a fetlock.

Madame Chiang

Madame Chiang may not feature right at the top of Champions Day winners, but she was a smart performer at her best. That was shown in the Fillies And Mares Stakes of 2014, and the following year David Simcock’s charge went on to be fourth in the King George, with Crowley again in the saddle.

Eqtidaar

Another trained by Stoute, he was something of a shooting star and a horse that was unable to fulfil the promise he showed in winning the Commonwealth Cup of 2018. But that said, he was the best on the day in question, and no one can take the Group One success away from him.

Ertijaal

Huge run from Blue Point on his return but the classy Ertijaal is not for passing over at @DRC_Meydan pic.twitter.com/KsDCS6gDeJ
— Ascot Racecourse (@Ascot) February 22, 2018

Crowley and Battaash found Blue Point to be their nemesis on occasion – but Crowley did get the better of Charlie Appleby’s star in Meydan in February, 2018, when he partnered Ertijaal to victory at the Dubai Carnival. Crowley won on him four times – and, very much like Battaash, he was electric on his day.