Phil Foden’s Najidi Storm makes unwanted Goodwood history

Every now and then the sport of horse racing throws expert opinion, fan supposition and punters’ guaranteed bankers an absolute curveball, and to use a golfing parlance, sends them right into the water, drowning and with their ball never to be found again.

They are the kind of controversy and thoroughly unexpected shock that every one loves.

The stuff that anecdotes are notoriously made from, and go down in clubhouse lore with the ad infinitum repetition – and at the recent Goodwood meet, the storied British course added another one to their famous ranks.

Najidi Storm makes unwanted racing history

Utter disbelief descended as Najidi Storm – 1-33 – went down in horse racing history as the shortest priced loser ever in the British records books, and it was all thanks to a horse co-owned by Manchester City and England star Phil Foden, and named after his son.

Trainer Harry Charlton saw his Juddmonte owned three year old colt, Najidi Storm, head into the event with today’s racing odds and a price that suggested he simply could not lose under jockey Lewis Edmunds, but hindsight shows that nothing could have been further from the truth.

One major bookie was offering a hugely tempting 1-500 in running, and then it all went a little bit wrong.

Struggling on the sodden ground given all the much needed recent rain in the area, Najida Storm was looking very tired and was eventually overturned in one of, if not the, ‘biggest upset ever’ as 10-1 Wreck It Ronnie taking the finish.

Named after his virally famous son ‘El Wey’ and jointly owned by Gary Gillies, the horse was not expected to do that well, particularly given the favourite – fathered by the legendary Frankel and a half brother to former St Leger winner St Logician – who arrived in Sussex himself on the back of a debut win full of continued promise.

Shortest priced losers

Having become ultimately bogged down in the mud and slowed, Najida Storm now joins the illustrious company of previous shortest priced losers in the historical books, with the prior record shared by two horses, most recently the William Haggas trained Doom.

Doom was turned over at 1-25 back in September 2023 when ridden by jockey Tom Marquand at Rippon.

The unwanted record, and wooden spoon equivalent, was shared with Royal Forest who was previously beaten at the same odds at an Ascot event 78 years ago.

Jockey Kieren Fox will have been incredibly delighted with his days work.

Wreck It Ronnie had been beaten at Kempton in a combined 22 and a half lengths in his first two races, finishing sixth and seventh, at Goodwood it was a full coin flip.

He looked like he was relishing the ground, hitting the front eight furlongs out and then sticking with the pace well in a three runner over 1m2f.

He never really looked like he was ever in any serious trouble in the straight, and subsequently went on to scoop the £10,500 winning prize pot for trainer Charlie Pike.

The horse will now have even more name recognition given Foden’s ownership involvement and the headlines that this win has generated, so it will be interesting to see how the horse performs moving forward to future meets.