A FEW weeks ago, following a trip to Turkey for the International Racing weekend, I called on Irish trainers to support the meeting and to send runners for 2016. At the time I said, thanks to information supplied by the weekend’s organisers, that any runner from this country would be the first to travel. Wrong.

I was delighted to hear from Michael Kauntze, now an equine litigation consultant and based near Gorey, and he reminded me that he had blazed the trail 22 years ago. The horse in question was Shrewd Idea and together they landed the Bosphorus Trophy, than a local Group 2 race that carried the not inconsiderable winner’s prize of £39,735. The colt had started his racing career in Ireland with victories in a maiden and a nursery, both at Gowran Park.

Naturally this led me to have a look back at the race and the winner, a son of Alleged. Shrewd Idea was bred by Sheikh Mohammed but ran in the colours of Saeed Manana. We are very familiar with the racing colours of Saeed Manana and his most recent big race winner was Night Of Thunder who won the 2000 Guineas last year and will join the Darley stallion roster in 2016.

Most of Saeed Manana’s major winners have been trained by the soon-to-retire Clive Brittain and include Group 1 winners Rajeem, Warrsan, Menhoubah and Luso. They first teamed up for a major race win with Heart Of Arabia who won the Group 2 Richmond Stakes back in 1988, while Saeed Manana’s Thetford Forest won the Grade 1 Sun Alliance Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham in 1992 when trained by David Nicholson.

Shrewd Idea moved on from Kauntze’s yard and for a short time was trained by David Loder before joining Jorge Salas for whom he ran second in the Group 1 Prix du Cadran at Longchamp. Prior to that he was Group 1 placed from his Ashbourne base when running third in Germany’s Aral-Pokal.

Shrewd Idea is from the family that in recent years produced the Irish Derby winner Trading Leather, while other top-class runners around the world stemming from the Le Fabuleux mare Tananarive include the champion filly Mrs Penny, the Grade 1 winner and sire Unaccounted For, the classic winning champion Hatoof and the Grade 1 winner Irish Prize.

By the way, Shrewd Idea was ridden by Michael ‘Muis’ Roberts and Sheikh Mohammed’s then first jockey was crowned champion in Britain in 1992. Prior to that he had been champion in his native South Africa on 11 occasions and he is associated to this day with many well-known performers, including the likes of Mtoto, Barathea and Indian Skimmer. He now trains in South Africa.

Michael Kauntze pulled up stumps on his training career, which had lasted more than two decades, in 1996, and he is instantly associated with the brilliant Kooyonga about whom I have written in this column in recent times (see The Irish Field August 1st, 2015). His other notable winners included Misty Valley, Royal Ballerina and Danish.

His decision to retire from training was taken as a result of a number of factors, but one of these was recounted some years ago to Michael Clower and concerned the owner of Kooyonga, Mitsuo Haga.

“Haga came up with his immortal remark that I had made him famous in Europe, but he wanted to be famous in Japan, so he wasn’t sending me any more horses.” Such loyalty!