She was a bit of a spoilsport, really, that tenacious little Dubawi filly Arabian Queen. There was Golden Horn, cruising through a mighty season which included victories in the Derby and the Eclipse prior to York, and then Jeff Smith’s filly interrupted the flow with a storming run down the Knavesmire to become the first filly to win the G1 Juddmonte International Stakes since One So Wonderful.
Wonderful she was, as Arabian Queen continued a terrific partnership between Smith’s Littleton Stud and trainer David Elsworth before also becoming an important broodmare in her own right.
Her three Black Type offspring to date are headed by this season’s G3 Strensall winner and G1 Nassau runner-up See The Fire.
From Champion sprinters to star stayers, Smith’s colours have been carried aboard a panoply of top-class horses. They are silks beloved of followers of the sport over the last half-century and behind the success on the racecourse there is much to admire about Littleton Stud. For at the heart of this quintessentially old-school English owner-breeder operation is a quality which, in modern-day life, can sometimes be hard to find: loyalty.
“That’s the essence of Jeff,” says David Bowe, Littleton Stud’s manager for 22 years. Perhaps it’s loyalty that has led Littleton to send 18 mares to Darley in the past three seasons alone. “He waits on things. He lets the trainers take their time. Sometimes we might bring them home, give them a rest, try them over a different trip. And we often get more out of it than we’ve thought at the start, which is lovely. But it is always a discussion between Jeff and the trainers.”
He adds: “I think it’s fair to say that Lochsong wasn’t easy, and I think Ian Balding was probably frustrated with her. Jeff just left her alone. Her home work wasn’t encouraging, and all of a sudden the penny dropped.”
The career of that brilliant speedball was made all the sweeter for Smith as she was by the Littleton Stud stallion Song. Her dam Peckitts Well would go on to produce another winner of the G1 Nunthorpe, Lochangel, the year after Lochsong. The family continues to serve Littleton well – Lochsong’s great-grandson, Fast Track Harry, was Jeff’s latest winning debutant when taking a Newbury maiden in fine style at the end of September.
He’s bred for speed, being by Darley’s World Champion sprinter Harry Angel out of a mare by antipodean force of nature Exceed And Excel.
Then, at the other end of the distance scale, there was Persian Punch, the war horse trained by Elsworth. Not a homebred, admittedly, but as dear to Smith’s heart as any foaled at Littleton, and one who would carry with him the hearts of the racing nation through his admirable career.
Bowe recalls: “He’d been bought as a yearling by Elsie, and Jeff thought ‘I’ll have a go’, though I think he would freely admit that even he thought that Persian Punch was a bit big. But what a wonderful horse he turned out to be.”
It was another big horse who had got the ball rolling for Smith. Chief Singer, bought by him with the horse’s trainer Ron Sheather, won the Coventry, St James’s Palace, July Cup and Sussex Stakes from Smith’s Park Lodge Stables, and on that trainer’s retirement, the ever-loyal owner continued his association with Park Lodge’s next incumbent, James Eustace. He still has horses with James’s son Harry.
“I think that’s the key to it,” says Bowe. “Since I’ve been there, we’ve only added to the list of trainers, not subtracted.
“Jeff’s relationship with the trainers is different in that they’re friends, really. Ian (Balding) trained for him and there was never any dispute about Andrew then training for him. It just was a natural progression, and the friendship is as good with Annalisa and Andrew.”
It speaks volumes that Smith has managed to imbue a sense of team spirit among that naturally competitive bunch of trainers.
“I’ve never before seen a situation where each trainer is as happy to see a winner in Jeff’s colours as they would if they had trained the horse themselves,” Bowe says.
“Over the years we have only changed from father to son and we’ve taken on a couple of new trainers, the newest being Clive Cox, other than Harry Eustace. Continuity, that’s what it’s about.”
