SEVERAL of Kia Joorabchian’s horses will have a new trainer in the coming weeks after they switched to Raphael Freire from Dominic Ffrench Davis.
Brazil native Freire, who has been a key cog in the Amo Racing operation for the last few years, will train a big team of Joorabchian’s runners in Lambourn in the yard next door to Ffrench Davis.
The pair of them have been working closely together for the last couple of seasons while Freire has been waiting for work visa issues to be ironed out and for racing chiefs to process his application.
Among the horses to have been switched to Freire’s care is the unbeaten Enchanting Empress, who is a 14-1 shot for the Albany Stakes at Royal Ascot on Friday.
And, provided he returns to the track after suffering an injury last month, Group 1 hero King Of Steel is also likely to be trained by Freire.
It is a huge blow to Ffrench Davis, who has won several big races for Amo over the last two seasons, particularly as the horses who are now trained by Freire will only be moving a couple hundred feet round the corner.
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Ffrench Davis said: “It hasn’t actually been decided how many will move to Raph at the moment. But I expect he will get the majority of them.
“It’s been great fun over the last couple of years and I’ve loved taking some very nice horses racing on the big days.”
When asked if it was a particularly bitter pill to swallow on the verge of Royal Ascot, where he will still have Maxi King running in the Amo colours for him, Ffrench Davis said: “It is what it is. I knew when I took this job on that it wasn’t going to last forever.
“I still get on well with Kia, we have a good working relationship, and I would be hopeful of Amo’s support again at some point in the future.”
Joorabchian has been no stranger to moving his horses between different yards over the years, and just last month he removed his runners from Roger Varian in Newmarket.
However, he insists it was not his decision which horses were moved to Freire once he was granted his licence by the BHA and that the two trainers had sorted it out among themselves.
Freire, 28, was a jockey in his home country before moving to Scandinavia in his early 20’s, where he trained for several years in Norway.
A Brazilian bloodstock agent introduced Freire to Joorabchian, who sent him a horse to train in Oslo, and he has been a key cog in the operation ever since.
He has had one runner under his name in Britain in the past, saddling 50-1 shot Hotline Bling in a Group 3 at Glorious Goodwood in 2022, with the horse finishing fifth.
He is part of a big Brazilian contingent who work for Joorabchian, with Robson Aguiar running a yard for the owner in Ireland where Amo’s horses are pre-trained before being sent back to their trainers at the start of each season.
Amo Racing had two winners at Royal Ascot last season and, while they are likely to have a big squad again this week, they don’t appear to have as many obvious chances with Ralph Beckett’s Poniros their shortest-priced runner in the King George V Stakes.
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