At age 9, you’d expect a racehorse, particularly one as accomplished as Khaadem, to take raceday activities calmly in stride, old hat, perhaps setting a good example for the younger horses in the field.
Hardly. Khaadem is quirky, to put it mildly. The mercurial gelding is known to act up in the paddock, to be bad at the starting gate, and generally to keep his handlers on their toes.
“He’s been a strange character, but a lovable one,” trainer Charlie Hills said.
Khaadem will now be one of the characters taking center stage on Breeders’ Cup Saturday. His professional pre-race performance and last-to-first victory in the Grade 2 Woodford Stakes last Saturday at Keeneland punched his ticket to Del Mar for the Turf Sprint. The Woodford was his seventh stakes victory in a career highlighted by back-to-back wins in the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee at Royal Ascot in 2023 and 2024. Overall, he has won 10 of 42 starts and earned more than $2.6 million.
“He’s run some amazing races over his career,” Hills said of the longtime yard favorite. “He’s a terrific character. So proud to have him, and lucky to have him, too.”
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To be fair, Khaadem was dealing with plenty of new experiences when he made his first U.S. start in the Grade 2 Turf Sprint in September 2024 at Kentucky Downs. He was nigh-unmanageable some days during training hours, was extremely fractious in the paddock, and was surprised by American gate speed. He was off slowly and last of 12 early before rallying to finish second to Cogburn, who was near-untouchable in the division at that point.
Hills sent him back to Kentucky Downs for the same race this year, and the gelding handled the break better, sitting in sixth in a full field after the opening quarter before ultimately finishing third. But knowing the ground in Europe was likely to be softer this fall, Hills didn’t ship him back to his yard in Lambourn after that. Instead, he left the gelding at Keeneland, overseen by longtime acquaintance Ed Vaughan. Training on Keeneland’s synthetic training track, a much quieter environment compared to the main track, Khaadem gained confidence and settled in.
In fact, he appeared almost too settled on Saturday. On the biggest day of the fall meet, with fans leaning over the paddock railing, the gelding walked around quietly on a loose shank.
“I was a little bit worried about how quiet he was, to be honest with you,” Hills said.
Khaadem also was almost too quiet at the gate, where he has given handlers a handful in the past. Despite having to wait extra time while a horse broke through the gates and was re-loaded, he remained calm – so calm that be broke flat-footed and was off last under Frankie Dettori, who also had noted his quiet behavior.
“The hardest part is getting to the start and into the gate,” Dettori said Saturday. “He’s a 9-year-old gelding, but he can be a handful. For some reason, today he was calmer than usual. . . . He’s an old fox, and today he decided to put his best foot forward and he won as he liked. He’s a character.”
Indeed, Khaadem came with a furious last-to-first rally in the stretch for the victory on firm turf. He will remain in his familiar surroundings at Keeneland before shipping out for the Breeders’ Cup, where he’ll likely get the rattling quick ground he loves. Leaving his favored surroundings, his behavior will certainly be under scrutiny in the chaos of highly attended training hours and on a massive race day.
“He loves fast ground, and he’s not going to get that back home now,” Hills said of moving on to Del Mar.
Khaadem will add more international flavor to a BC Turf Sprint that is expected to include several entrants from Europe and Japan – but not the star international mare Asfoora. The Australian-bred, who won her third Group 1 of the season in the Prix de l’Abbaye, has been ruled out of a trip to Del Mar, with a winter break after her accomplishments and a 2026 campaign planned.
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