Doha Cup - HM Alchahine

DOHA CUP (PRIX MANGANATE)

Deauville - 4th August 2026

One of a pair of Group 1 race for the Arabian-breds on Tuesday’s card at Deauville, the team of Helal Alalawi and Mme. Jean-Francois Bernard won this race for the 2nd year in a row as HM Alchahine added the 2026 Doha Cup to the victory of RB Kingmaker 12-months ago. Having been a late non-runner in the Qatar International Stakes at Goodwood last week, he was re-routed to Deauville and supplemented for this €50,000 contest. In a winning time (2:12.00) that was over 6s faster than the 3-year-olds in the earlier Al Rayyan Cup, HM Alchahine confirmed his dominance by coming from last to first under Cristian Demuro in the final 500m. Closing furlongs of 11.87 and 12.57s (Source: McLloyd) are relatively quick, even on some of the firmest ground that I can remember seeing at Deauville in August. HM Alchahine is one of those rare Arabian-breds that has the ability to quicken his stride on demand and once brought to the outside of the field, he always seemed likely to get to the front as he clocked a top speed of 60.6 km/h to win by just over a length. The 2nd placed Laffan (Rohaut) won the Al Rayyan Cup on this card 12-months ago and added the G1 Qatar Arabian Trophy des Poulains to his CV at Saint-Cloud in October. He bounced back to form after a below par run in Qatar in February and lost little in defeat here. However, Hm Alchahine was giving 1.5 kilos away to Laffan and gave him a fair head start in the home straight too, so it wouldn’t be a simple assumption that this form could be reversed.

HM Alchahine spent a lot of the last 2 years bumping heads with Al Ghadeer. Beaten by the Al Shaqab star in the G1 Qatar Arabian World Cup at Paris Longchamp, he has been carefully campaigned to pick up some alternative targets, away from Al Ghadeer and now that Francois Rohaut’s great Arabian has been retired, the way is clear for HM Alchahine and based on this performance, he does now appear ready to take his place at the head of the Arabian-bred rankings. This was a 3rd Group 1 success for the 6-year-old son of Al Mourtajez and I will be very surprised if he is not able to add to that before the year is over.