THE year 2020 will never be forgotten, by current and future generations. For the team at Juddmonte, it is also a landmark year. Forty years ago Juddmonte properly began as an entity with the establishment of the original in Wargrave, Berkshire following the acquisition of Cayton Park Stud and Pudders Farm. Three years ago this property was sold and the British breeding operation concentrated at Banstead Manor Stud.

It is also 40 years since Known Fact won the Group 1 English 2000 Guineas, following the demotion of Nureyev, to become Prince Khalid’s first classic winner – and one of only two he did not breed. Fast forward a decade and it is 30 years since Sanglamore and Quest For Fame won the French and English Derbies, and the Holy Grail was narrowly missed out on when Deploy was beaten less than a length by Salsabil in the Irish Derby.

Banstead Manor Stud, the headquarters of the Juddmonte European breeding operation, is also home to five active stallions, including a pair who are among the most successful in Europe – Frankel and Kingman. Situated on 360 acres at Cheveley, a few miles outside Newmarket, it stood its first stallion in 1988 when Rainbow Quest moved there.

A couple of years later he was joined by his close relation Warning, whose dam Slightly Dangerous was purchased less than a decade earlier. She was to become a cornerstone of the successful breeding operation at Juddmonte, being responsible also for Commander In Chief, Yashmak and Dushyantor.

The newly extended stallion yard welcomed its first new resident in 2013 when Frankel entered stud and the boxes now are occupied by five stallions who have just completed the 2020 season. The previously mentioned headliners are joined by the sprightly 20-year-old Oasis Dream, sire of 17 Group 1 winners and the broodmare sire of Siskin, Dansili’s son Bated Breath, a hugely popular commercial sire, and the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Expert Eye whose first foals were welcomed by breeders this spring. .

Alongside the stallion operation is the private stud farm. The magnitude of the successes enjoyed by Prince Khalid since he became a racehorse owner and breeder are staggering. Of the eight mares to have ever produced four or more Group/Grade 1 winning offspring, two were owned by Prince Khalid and are profiled elsewhere. .

Juddmonte comprises two stud farms in Ireland – Ferrans Stud in Co Meath and New Abbey Stud just outside Kilcullen in Co Kildare – and three farms each in England and the USA. It is there that the vast majority of Juddmonte winners are bred and raised.

Prince Khalid occasionally buys at the sales and a recent example of his team’s expert judgement was the yearling purchase, for $560,000, of Arrogate. His seven career successes netted almost $17.5 million and included the Grade 1 Travers Stakes, Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Classic, the Group 1 Dubai World Cup and the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup. Sadly, the world’s richest racehorse earner died this year.

So many good horses have carried the distinctive silks of Prince Khalid (which differ slightly in France where they have pink epaulettes rather than a sash). The first to do so was Known Fact who won the Middle Park Stakes in 1979 and the following year gave his owner the first of his 12 British classic victories when winning the 2000 Guineas. Dancing Brave, Zafonic and Frankel have also won the same classic, while Quest For Fame, Commander In Chief and Workforce won the Derby at Epsom.

In France Prince Khalid has been successful six times in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, twice with his homebred Enable, and he has won many major races elsewhere around the world. One of the few prestige events to elude him has been the Kentucky Derby, coming close twice with Aptitude and Empire Maker, and his homebred Tacitus ran third last year. It is one for the wish list.

Juddmonte is one of the leading breeders in the world and has to date bred 111 individual Group/Grade 1 winners of 217 Group/Grade 1 races, a number that few can match.

While only a handful of owners or breeders in history have achieved the levels of success enjoyed by Prince Khalid, he has celebrated them in typically modest style. He is a man for whom his horses do the talking, and that ethos extends throughout the organisation.