His Highness Prince Karim Al-Hussaini, Aga Khan IV, who has died in Lisbon at the age of 88, ranks as one of the greatest owner/breeders of this or any other era, as well as one of the most significant religious figures of the modern world. He inherited the title of Aga Khan (commanding leader) on the death of his grandfather Aga Khan III in 1957 and then took control of the family’s bloodstock interests three years later when his father Prince Aly Khan lost his life in a car crash.  During the subsequent decades he oversaw the spiritual and temporal welfare of his estimated 20 million followers worldwide (the Ismaili Muslims, a denomination within Shia Islam) in an ever-changing world; and he built upon the racing success enjoyed by his grandfather and father, to the extent that the Aga Khan Studs remain a byword for excellence and triumph at the highest level.

Although only the fourth to hold the title Aga Khan, Karim was the 49th Imam (spiritual leader) of the Nizari Ismailis, being the 50th generation in direct descent from the prophet Mohammed through the latter’s daughter Fatima and son-in-law (and cousin) Ali, the first Imam. Although the position thus goes back to the seventh century AD, the title of Aga Khan was only officially recognised by the wider world after Karim’s great-great- grandfather Agha Khan Mehalatee, the 46th Imam, having travelled eastwards out of Persia, had presented himself to a British garrison in Girishk on ‘the North-West Frontier’ of the British Raj in what is now the Kandahar province of Afghanistan on Aug. 5, 1841, offering to pledge his and his followers’ loyalty to the British Empire.

Subsequent to Agha Khan Mehalatee becoming recognised as Aga Khan I, the family, by now well established in British imperial society in the Indian subcontinent, began to make trips to Europe, where in time Aga Khan III became not only a notable figure in British and French society but also a devotee of the turf. His first European bloodstock purchases were at Tattersalls’ July Sale in Newmarket in 1921 and he had his first runners the following year. The enterprise was an immediate success with his first 2-year-olds including the feature-race winners Paola (GB), Bombay Duck (GB) and Cos (GB), who became her owner’s first runner and first winner when taking the Queen Mary S. at Ascot on debut. His second crop of 2-year-olds in 1923 included a horse even more significant: ‘The Flying Filly’ Mumtaz Mahal (GB), a champion on the track and at stud.

By the end of the 1925 season, Aga Khan III had been champion owner in each of Britain, France and Ireland at least once; and once his first homebreds had started racing, he was soon established as a leading owner/breeder. Mumtaz Mahal played a key part in this process because many of the stars bred by him descended from her, including Mahmoud (Fr), Nasrullah (Ire), Migoli (Ire), and Petite Etoile (GB). In turn, she continued to play a key role in the operation after Aga Khan IV had taken over, thanks to such champions as Shergar (Ire) and Zarkava (Ire), the brilliant filly who ended her stellar, unbeaten career with victory in the G1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe of 2008 and was described by her owner as “the greatest reward a breeder could have”. She is now making a further ongoing contribution by her son Zarak (Fr), an extremely promising young stallion on the roster at Haras de Bonneval.

In the years following the end of the Second World War, Aga Khan III’s son Prince Aly Khan, a gifted sportsman whose notable race-riding ability was matched by his passion for the game, was giving his father plenty of help in the running of the family’s bloodstock empire. However, although Aly Khan was the ideal man to inherit a bloodstock empire, his playboy lifestyle caused his father to take the presumably difficult decision that he would not be a suitable leader of the Nizari Ismailis and that the title should thus skip a generation and go straight to Karim, the first of the two sons born to Aly Khan and his first wife, Joan Yarde-Buller, an English socialite. One of her sisters, Lydia, married the 13th Duke of Bedford and another, Primrose, married the 7th Earl Cadogan; and a nice racing family tie came about in the late 1980s via the smart miler Phountzi, a colt by Raise A Cup out of Pushy (GB) who was bred, like his smart dam and even more distinguished granddam Mrs Moss (GB), by the then Marchioness of Tavistock (now the Dowager Duchess of Bedford) who was the 13th Duke of Bedford’s daughter-in-law.  Michael Stoute trained Phountzi for Aga Khan IV until the horse reverted to the ownership of Lord Tavistock (later the 14th Duke of Bedford) towards the end of his racing career.

Born in Geneva on Dec. 13, 1936, Karim was thus still aged only 20 and an undergraduate at Harvard University when he became Aga Khan IV on the death of his grandfather on July 11, 1957. From his early days, he had been a gifted sportsman, excelling at tennis, rowing, ice hockey and football while at Harvard, from which he graduated with a degree in Islamic history in 1959. By this time of his graduation, he was already two years into his Imamate, the commitments of which meant that he had to abandon his plans to study for a post-graduate doctorate in history. He did, though, continue to enjoy his sport, most obviously going on to represent Iran in the downhill skiing in the Winter Olympics at Innsbruck in 1964. Racing, though, was not initially one of his passions, but he suddenly found himself the steward of the family’s bloodstock empire when his father was tragically killed in a car crash in Paris on May 12, 1960. His grandfather had started in racing on the basis that, “I wanted to do the thing thoroughly, or not at all”, and Karim clearly felt that he faced a similar dilemma when having to decide whether to maintain the studs. Happily, after a period of reflection, he chose to do so, taking the decision to immerse himself thoroughly in the greatest game of all, a decision for which generations of racing enthusiasts have every reason to be thankful.

Aga Khan III had initially made England the primary focus of his racing operations, although there had been horses in France too. From the early 1950s onwards, though, the bulk of the family’s horses had been trained in France (mostly by Alec Head). After a period of reflection in which he decided firstly if and then how he would take the family’s racing and breeding operations forward, in 1964 Aga Khan IV further rationalised the operation, focussing completely on France. He chose as his principal trainer Francois Mathet, who was already a proven conditioner of top-class horses. His patrons included the hugely successful owner/breeder M. Francois Dupre for whom he had trained numerous stars including Relko (Fr), winner the previous year of the Poule d’Essai des Poulains and the Derby. It was an inspired decision as over the years Mathet and Aga Khan IV built up a close friendship based on mutual respect. In an interview with Galop in 1978, Aga Khan IV said, “While I learned about breeding elsewhere and from others, everything I learned about racing I learned from him.”

After Francois Mathet died in January 1983 (only three months after saddling Aga Khan IV’s Akiyda (GB) to win the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe) his successor was another trainer with whom Aga Khan IV would built up a rock-solid partnership, Alain de Royer-Dupre. De Royer-Dupre, who had been training some of the Aga Khan IV’s lesser horses during Mathet’s final years, thus moved into the Aiglemont training centre (now occupied by Francis-Henri Graffard, who succeeded de Royer-Dupre on the latter’s retirement at the end of 2021) which had been completed in 1980 in Gouvieux, near Chantilly. This beautiful property forms part of an Aga Khan nerve-centre which also contains the headquarters of the Aga Khan Development Network, which is effectively a multi-billion dollar charitable corporation which is run for the benefit of the Nizari Ismailis, using and redistributing the tithe which the Aga Khan’s followers have traditionally paid to their Imam.

Even though the dictum of Aga Khan III had famously been ‘speed, speed and more speed’, he was at least as adept at producing fast horses who could stay, as his record in the Derby demonstrated. (He won the Derby three times in the 1930s including with the homebreds Bahram (Ire) and Mahmoud (Fr).  In time, Aga Khan IV, whose first top-class horses with Francois Mathet were the brilliantly fast 1968  Poule d’Essai des Poulains winner Zeddaan (GB) and his Poule d’Essai des Poulains-winning first-crop son Kalamoun (GB), would become primarily synonymous with high-class stamina. This was perfectly illustrated by the first truly great horse whom he bred, the 1981 Derby hero Shergar. By this time he had a string of horses in England, having appointed Michael Stoute and Fulke Johnson Houghton as his trainers there in 1978. Shergar joined the former’s stable as a yearling in the autumn of 1979, and the rest, including his 10-length romp in the 1981 Derby and the tragedy of his kidnapping, is history. That memorable 1981 season ended with Aga Khan IV champion owner of Great Britain, taking the title for the first time to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather (Britain’s champion owner 13 times between 1924 and 1952) and his father (Britain’s champion owner of 1959). He also ended the year as champion owner of France for the second year in a row.

Aga Khan IV won his second Derby in 1986 when the Michael Stoute-trained Shahrastani held off the late challenge of Dancing Brave. Kahyasi (Ire), also trained in Newmarket but by Luca Cumani, provided Aga Khan IV with his third Derby victory when scoring in 1988 (with his owner’s Stoute-trained Doyoun (Ire), winner a month previously of the 2000 Guineas, finishing third) but his fourth Derby winner was trained in Ireland. By this time Ireland had joined France and England as countries in which he was racing a significant string, with John Oxx having been appointed as his trainer there, receiving his first batch of yearlings in the autumn of 1988. Together they enjoyed a stunning run of success, headed by the Derby, Irish Derby and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe victories of Sinndar (Ire) in 2000.

Three years after Sinndar, Oxx sent out another Aga Khan homebred to take the Irish Derby but on this occasion the winner Alamshar (Ire) was wearing (as Kahyasi had done at Epsom) his owner’s second colours (the old chocolate and green hoops of the Aga Khan III) because the runner-up, the de Royer-Dupre-trained Prix du Jockey-Club winner Dalakhani (Ire), was felt to have the better chance. Such belief, misplaced on the day, became understandable in the autumn when Dalakhani provided his owner/breeder with the third of his four Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe victories. Alamshar, incidentally, must have earned a special place in his owner/breeder’s heart as Aga Khan IV, a keen sailor, subsequently named his new yacht after him.

In later years, Dermot Weld succeeded John Oxx as Aga Khan IV’s principal Irish trainer. The highlight of this partnership was the Derby/Irish Derby double of Harzand (Ire) in 2016 and the Breeders’ Cup Turf triumph of Tarnawa (Ire) in 2019. Harzand’s sire Sea The Stars (Ire), although neither bred nor raced by Aga Khan IV, has spent his stud career at Gilltown Stud in Ireland, maintaining a strong roster there to complement the one at Haras de Bonneval in France, where the Aga Khan home-bred Siyouni (Fr) has proved such a success.

Dermot Weld trained for His Highness The Aga Khan for many years | Tattersalls

Over the years, Aga Khan IV judiciously augmented the families which he inherited from his grandfather and father, initially by purchasing the studs developed by the late Francois Dupre and the late Marcel Boussac, and more recently the stud of the late Jean-Luc Lagardere subsequent to the latter’s death in 2003. The 1979 G1 Prix du Jockey-Club victory of Top Ville (Ire) was an early dividend from the Dupre purchase, while the 1982 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe victory of Akiyda was one of the first major dividends from the Boussac acquisition. Two years later the Prix du Jockey-Club triumph of the subsequently hugely influential stallion Darshaan (GB) was another notable triumph for the Boussac families. Top Ville and Darshaan were the second and third of the eight Prix du Jockey-Club winners raced by Aga Khan IV. The first, the Alec Head-trained Charlottesville (GB), took the race in 1960 less than a month after Aga Khan IV had suddenly become his owner on the tragic death of his father.

Siyouni and the 2022 Prix du Jockey-Club winner Vadeni (Fr) rank as two of the most notable products of the Lagardere families. Nowadays, the Aga Khan Studs’ broodmare band includes families from all three of these sources as well as those descending from the families developed by Aga Khan III. Siyouni, fittingly a winner of the G1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere, played his part in an extraordinary Arc weekend of 2009 when the Aga Khan Studs celebrated seven group winners across the two days.

The sustained success of the Aga Khan Studs in the 21st century has not, of course, depended solely on the strength of the broodmare-band. Shrewd mating plans were a hallmark of the Aga Khan IV’s breeding operation, and not by merely taking the obvious option. As he was the overseer of huge sums of his followers’ money, it was clearly prudent for him, just as it was for the late Queen Elizabeth II, not to be seen to be spending large sums on racing. Consequently he always aimed for his bloodstock operation to pay its way, and one key component in this strategy was the use of value-for-money stallions. Judicious use of inexpensive sires such as Ile De Bourbon (to breed Kahyasi), Key Of Luck (to breed Alamshar), Priolo (to breed 1999 Poule d’Essai des Poulains winner Sendawar) and Zamindar (to produce Zarkava) were classic examples. Desert Style (Ire) was another unfashionable stallion whom he used to great effect.  He used him to breed 2006 G1 Prix de la Foret winner Caradak (Ire) while his daughter Princess Zahra bred the top-class Desert Style filly Mandesha (Fr) whom Alain de Royer-Dupre trained to win three Group 1 races in her colours in 2006.

Many owner/breeders keep their operations financially manageable by retaining their fillies but selling their colts. Aga Khan IV, however, was always happy to race both genders and was able to do so in a cost-efficient way. Selling the colts once they had raced proved to be a plentiful source of income. An obvious example was Daylami’s sale to Godolphin after his 3-year-old season in 1997, during which he had become the sixth of his owner’s seven Poule d’Essai Poulains winners (all but one of which were homebreds, the exception being the brilliant Blushing Groom (Fr), who was bought for 16,500 guineas as a foal at Tattersalls’ December Sale in 1974 and was a rare example of a horse raced by Aga Khan IV which he had not bred).

Daylami wins 1999 Breeders’ Cup Turf | Horsephotos

Daylami went on to win a further six Group/Grade 1 races including the Coronation Cup, King George VI And Queen Elizabeth S., Irish Champion S. and Breeders’ Cup Turf in 1999, earning himself Cartier Horse of the Year status. Blushing Groom, of course, had done plenty to balance the books thanks to his syndication for $6,000,000 after his Poule d’Essai des Poulains victory and before his non-staying third place in the Derby. This syndication saw him heading across the Atlantic to Gainesway Farm in America, where he became a champion sire.  Another very different but equally notable Aga Khan alumnus was the redoubtable Karasi (Ire), successful for Australian trainer Eric Musgrove in three runnings of the Nakayama Grand Jump Steeplechase in Japan after starting off with Michael Stoute.

It was rare for Aga Khan IV to geld his colts and keep racing them himself as older horses but he understandably made an exception with one of the most special stayers of the modern era: Vazirabad (Fr), winner of 15 of his 23 starts between May 2015 and June 2018, when he signed off with a close second to Stradivarius (Ire) in the Ascot Gold Cup, narrowly failing in his bid to follow in the footsteps of the John Oxx-trained Aga Khan home-bred Enzeli (Ire), who won the great race in 1999.

Aga Khan IV bred a second Gold Cup winner from Enzeli’s family thanks to Estimate (Ire) taking the race in 2013.  However, that mare’s finest hour came in the colours of Queen Elizabeth II, as she had been a gift as a yearling to Her Majesty from the Aga Khan. This act of generosity followed nicely on from the kindness of Aga Khan III, who gave the then Princess Elizabeth a horse called Astrakhan (Ire) as a wedding present in 1947, the filly going on to provide her new owner with her first win on the Flat when scoring at Hurst Park.

Aga Khan IV and Queen Elizabeth II (who granted him the title ‘His Highness’ in 1957 when he succeeded his grandfather, who had also been thus honoured) always seemed to be kindred spirits, both passionate owner/breeders for whom the highest standards were the norm. Their friendship was perfectly illustrated when she was his guest in a private lunch when she visited Gilltown Stud during her historic state visit to the Irish Republic in 2011. It must have given him great pleasure to receive the Gold Cup from her after Enzeli’s triumph in 1999, and also thrice to win the King George and Queen Elizabeth S., the great race named after her parents, with Shergar in 1981, with Alamshar in 2003 and with another John Oxx-trained homebred, Azamour (Ire), two years later.

Estimate joined the broodmare band at the Royal Studs after her retirement. Mares from the Aga Khan Studs’ bloodlines are cherished items at studs all round the world, with the fillies and mares in the Aga Khan Studs’ drafts at breeding stock sales invariably attracting plenty of attention. Many breeders have produced top-class horses from Aga Khan families. Both Hascombe Stud and Lanwades Stud have developed their own branches of the Mumtaz Mahal family and each has produced a Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner from it: Golden Horn (GB) and Alpinista (GB), respectively. Two recent Melbourne Cup winners also come from long-standing Aga Khan families. Sarvana (Fr), dam of the 2022 winner Gold Trip (Fr), was bred by Aga Khan IV and has as her sixth dam But Lovely (Ire) who won the Prix Vanteaux in 1958 for his father Prince Aly Khan; while the 2021 heroine Verry Elleegant (NZ) is notable for the fact that both her sire Zed (NZ) and her dam Opulence (NZ) descend from Mumtaz Mahal.

His Highness The Aga Khan greets Dalakhani after his Arc win | Scoop Dyga

As befits a religious leader, Aga Khan IV was a man of impeccable manners who lived by a strict moral compass. To the racing world, his clear understanding of right and wrong was illustrated by the high-profile defences which he mounted on the rare occasions when his horses failed dope tests but he did not believe them to have been given any prohibited substance.  After the Mathet-trained Vayrann (Ire) won the G1 Champion S. at Newmarket in 1981, he tested positive for an anabolic steroid. Mathet having given an assurance that the horse had not received any steroids, the Aga Khan’s lawyers mounted a formidable defence, the upshot of which was that, in a ground-breaking judgement, the Jockey Club eventually decided not to disqualify the horse on the grounds that he may have produced the drug himself, and that in the Rules of Racing the definition of a prohibited substance included the description of it as “… a substance which originates externally …”.

Next came the shock of Lashkari (GB) returning a positive test for ethorpine (elephant juice) after finishing fourth in the 1985 GI Breeders’ Cup Turf, a race which the horse had won the previous year. Alain de Royer-Dupre was adamant that Lashkari had received no ethorpine and the Aga Khan’s lawyers were eventually able to prove that this was a false positive, caused by the incompetence of the testers at Cornell University.

Four years later things did not go so well after Mumtaz Mahal’s descendant Aliysa (Ire) passed the post first in the Oaks at Epsom and then tested positive for camphor. Michael Stoute assured Aga Khan IV that the filly had not received anything which might have contained this amount of camphor and a long-running legal battle ensued. Eventually, Aliysa was disqualified and the Aga Khan IV consequently withdrew from British racing for four years, only to return in 1994.  Five years later, though, two of his horses trained by Luca Cumani failed dope tests which their owner did not dispute and, “dismayed”, he removed all of his horses from the stable. He subsequently ceased to have horses trained in Britain altogether.

He maintained his string in Ireland, along with France, and continued to be a staunch supporter of the Irish racing industry, particularly as a generous benefactor to the Curragh racecourse, in the same way that he has been a great supporter of Chantilly.

The death of Aga Khan IV, who held citizenship in Switzerland, France (where he was honoured with the title ‘Son Altesse’), the United Kingdom and Portugal, represents a grievous loss to the Nizari Ismailis and leaves a big hole in the world in general, his religious significance illustrated by the fact that on Feb. 27, 2014 he became the first faith leader ever to address the Joint Session of the Parliament of Canada. He also leaves a chasm in the racing world, in which he has been one of the most respected as well as one of the most successful figures of the modern era. It is to be hoped that his daughter Princess Zahra, who has clearly inherited both her father’s passion for the sport and his deep understanding of bloodstock, will maintain his studs; while his eldest son Prince Rahim is expected to become Aga Khan V.