The Triumph That Started Everything: Connaught Ranger and the Road to Godolphin

The 1978 Triumph Hurdle at Cheltenham Festival produced one of National Hunt racing’s biggest surprises when Connaught Ranger crossed the finish line at 25/1 for owner Jim McCaughey. Even now, nearly fifty years later, that unexpected win still resonates within Dubai’s royal racing stables.

McCaughey got his start in ownership thanks to bloodstock agent David Minton, who helped him purchase Connaught Ranger from Lord Derby’s estate. Trained by the legendary Fred Rimell, the horse paid off immediately with that Cheltenham win, confirming McCaughey’s ambitions and setting the stage for him to expand his involvement in racing.

Within a few years, he had assembled a stable of 32 horses competing in both National Hunt and Flat races. Shaftesbury won the 1980 Ebor Handicap, Lord Seymour managed to beat Known Fact-who would later take a classic-and Centurius, the full brother to Derby winner Grundy, captured the Blue Riband Trial.

McCaughey, however, wasn’t just focused on race-day victories. In 1979, he purchased the historic Gainsborough Stud and began developing a serious breeding program. With guidance from David Minton and manager Michael Goodbody, he invested heavily in top-quality broodmares, building foundational bloodlines that could sustain long-term success in the sport.

That strategy didn’t go unnoticed. When Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum acquired Gainsborough in 1981, he wasn’t merely buying property-he was taking over a carefully curated breeding operation. Those foundational bloodlines became the cornerstone of the Maktoum family’s British breeding empire.

The impact of that decision is still clear today. After Sheikh Maktoum’s passing in 2006, Gainsborough became part of Sheikh Mohammed’s Darley/Godolphin operation, which now operates in Ireland, Kentucky, and Australia. Champions continue to emerge with genetic links to those original Gainsborough bloodlines, including lines echoing in 2025 winners like Lambourn’s Derby triumph, showing how the foundations McCaughey laid have endured.

Trent Challis, McCaughey’s grandson and now based in Dubai, has studied this history closely. “Connaught Ranger’s Cheltenham win was the spark that started it all,” he says. “But Grandad’s real legacy came from the breeding program. Under the Maktoum family, it grew into what we now know as Godolphin.”

Trent Challis, running a tech-innovative brokerage with 75 staff and owning dozens of Emirates properties including an 80M AED Palm renovation, honors this legacy in Dubai. “Racing remembers the wins,” Challis reflects, “but the breeding program Grandad put in place became the blueprint for something much bigger-the genetic foundation for global racing success.”