Cover image courtesy of Michael Costa Racing
Swapping the palms of southeast Queensland for the palms of Dubai, trainer Michael Costa is relocating to the United Arab Emirates later this year. It was big news in racing this week, and even bigger news for the young, deftly dressed and much-liked Gold Coast trainer.
“I live a very structured life,” he said, speaking to TDN AusNZ. “I wake up at the same time every day, have pretty much the same breakfast at the same time every day, and come to the same racetrack every day. If I was a racehorse, I think I’d be one of those home-track specialists where you’d walk me across the road, race me and then walk me home to my box.”
As such, Costa’s move to Dubai isn’t something he landed on lightly.
Michael Costa
He has accepted a contract to be the exclusive trainer for the ARM Racing operation of HRH Sheikh Ahmed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and he will be based at Jebel Ali racecourse which, alongside Meydan, is one of five tracks in operation in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
“It’s definitely put me outside my comfort zone,” Costa said. “But it’s also something I'm very excited about. It was first a business decision, but in other respects, to be able to go to a part of the world that’s within striking distance of beautiful places we can expose our three kids to, that’s something we wouldn’t be able to do here at home, simply due to the time and the workload of being an Australian racehorse trainer.”
"It’s definitely put me outside my comfort zone, But it’s also something I'm very excited about." - Michael Costa
Costa, his wife Melanie and three kids will live on-course at Jebel Ali in a villa. There’s a school, a cricket pitch and acres of open space.
“It’s far different from the schools I went to as a kid, that's for sure,” the trainer said. “The kids have been on YouTube researching all the things they can do in Dubai, so they’ll be taking in all the adventure as well.”
ARM Racing
Costa will move into a position previously held by Nicholas Bachalard since 2019.
He will train exclusively for Sheikh Ahmed, with an initial string of about 60 horses in training, plus a bloodstock division that will see yearlings flow through from Newmarket.
ARM Racing has campaigned such horses as Addeybb (Ire) (Pivotal {GB}), whose racetrack dalliances with Verry Elleegant (NZ) (Zed {NZ}) earned him so much exposure in Australia in recent years.
Addeybb (Ire) | Image courtesy of Ashlea Brennan
The yellow silks and black epaulettes are widely recognised now, but among others the Sheikh has campaigned are Mtoto (GB), who won a stack of Group 1 races in Europe in the eighties, and Tobougg (Ire), who won Group 1s in Ireland and France before a shuttle career that included Australia.
He also raced Iffraaj (GB) before that horse transferred to Godolphin’s blue.
Sheikh Ahmed built Jebel Ali racecourse in 1990, reportedly to the right-handed style of Epsom racecourse and, over the last 30-plus years, he has sent horses to Mick Channon and Marcus Tregoning, as well as tenured trainers like Dhruba Selvaratnam, a one-time assistant to Vincent O’Brien.
Jebel Ali racecourse | Image courtesy of Jebel Ali racecourse
In recent times, the Sheikh has moved to reinstate his racing brand in his own country, led by results and Dubai Carnival dominance, and the installation of a fresh, young trainer was where Costa came in.
“On a Tuesday night, and Tuesday is one of our busiest days with trackwork, I was off to bed quite early and I received a strange number call,” he said. “Usually it’s just a telemarketer when that happens, so I let it go to voicemail and I listened back to it. It was a Dubai Racing team asking me to call them back to discuss something.”
Costa returned the call to learn that a ‘prominent owner’ had been watching his progress on the Gold Coast, and that this individual was keen to make contact in person to discuss an opportunity.
“He wanted to see if I’d entertain the idea of having a look at his bloodstock band and going over to see it,” Costa said. “My initial thought was that we were pretty happy with the way things were going here on the Gold Coast, because I had clear visions of really tackling the next decade, so I left it at that at first.”
“My initial thought (about Dubai) was that we were pretty happy with the way things were going here on the Gold Coast, because I had clear visions of really tackling the next decade, so I left it at that at first.” - Michael Costa
Things sat there for a while, but after the Inglis Classic Sale in Sydney, Dubai was on the phone to Costa again with further nudges.
In the end, the trainer was on a plane to Dubai, which happened as recently as last week.
“We didn’t go there with the idea of seeing everything as brand spanking new,” he said. “We went there with the aim of asking the hard questions, but we were blown away by the facility and, more importantly, the people.
“The opportunity was far bigger than I anticipated and, after a few hard conversations with my wife, we decided we were going to take the leap.”
The ins and outs
Costa’s official contract with ARM Racing is for three years, with options to extend.
“It’s pretty hard to forecast what that looks like,” the trainer said. “But I’m not going there half-hearted. The stable at Jebel Ali was a prominent stable for decades, so there’s a challenge there to get the colours back to its prominence as the premier stable over there.”
Michael Costa | Image courtesy of Michael Costa Racing
The job ahead of Costa is something he’s taking onboard with all its challenges. He knows it won’t happen overnight, and neither is he migrating to Dubai all starry-eyed about his plush, new surroundings.
“There’s 60 horses currently but there’s a big bloodstock band in Newmarket,” he said. “A decent portion of those horses will look towards joining the Dubai team at the beginning of the Dubai season, which is around late October.
“Part of the role is to take control of the purchasing of bloodstock from anywhere in the world, and that’s quite a decent budget to target the best horses for the Dubai yard.”
“Part of the role is to take control of the purchasing of bloodstock from anywhere in the world, and that’s quite a decent budget to target the best horses for the Dubai yard.” - Michael Costa
In this capacity, Costa will be in his comfort zone.
He is a smart judge of yearling and a regular face around the sales circuit, and his people skills are overwhelmingly good. He is pleasant and approachable with impeccable manners, which will do him well with high staff numbers in Dubai.
“Currently on the racecourse, there is 73 staff, so that’s something I’m not quite used to,” he said. “When I was there recently, because it’s coming to the end of the racing season, there were 40 or so horses walking around the barn, and for the afternoon shift there were around 28 staff on.
“To give you some context, we’ve got a barn of around 65 here on the Gold Coast and we’ll run an afternoon shift of around six staff, so it’s a little bit different, to say the least. A big focus of mine will be on staff systems over there and how we can run a little bit more efficiently.”
None of Dubai’s extreme elements, like its heat and deserts, will bother Costa. Part of that is the Queensland local in him, but also the Greek in him.
“I can cope with heat, which is a good thing,” he said. “While I’ve got no doubt that it’s very different from the laidback Gold Coast, we’re lucky that Jebel Ali is in a beautiful area. It’s probably as close to Australia as you’re going to get in Dubai with its open spaces and natural beauty, so I can’t see any of that being much of a problem.”
Why Costa?
Costa has been on the Gold Coast since 2016. He had one of the more unusual passages into full-time training, coming as he did from a track-riding career into work as a senior Stipendiary Steward in Sydney before taking up a trainer’s licence.
He moved to the Gold Coast in 2015 and, last year, he celebrated a decade as a racehorse trainer.
In recent times, he’s had the excellent horse Phobetor (Dream Ahead {USA}) and the seven-time winner Purrfect Deal (Dundeel {NZ}), and he inherited the spicy stakes-winner Irikandji (Dundeel {NZ}) late last year.
Carefully, he is relocating his Gold Coast horses to new homes. It’s not his style to duck and weave his way out of Australia, and he sees his everyday obligation to his current owners as something still very important.
Costa is anticipating his arrival to Dubai will be in a few months, ahead of the new racing season in late October, but the dispersal of his yard will “take as long as it takes”.
His appointment to ARM Racing was widely reported around the racing world this week, and it was a hotly contested position with applications. If he had to guess what they were looking for and why they selected him, the trainer says it was down to a few things.
“They did their due diligence,” he said. “They asked many references from all around the world and we were given glowing references, and that just comes from compound interest.
“With every interaction, we’ve always had the intent of doing the right thing by people and getting that back ten-fold. Instead of going for a quick buck, it was all about building relationships and doing the right thing by people.”
“With every interaction, we’ve always had the intent of doing the right thing by people and getting that back ten-fold. Instead of going for a quick buck, it was all about building relationships and doing the right thing by people.” - Michael Costa
Equally, Costa said the momentum of his Gold Coast yard has been good. Its strike rate is healthy, and he added that the Dubai team was keen to install an Australian.
“Maybe they wanted someone young and up-and-coming who could build a long-term relationship,” he said. “I think all of these were the main pillars of the decision behind why we were plucked out of the whole world, which is crazy when you really think about it.”
