Modern Games (foaled 17 April 2019) is a retired champion Thoroughbred racehorse. Bred in Ireland and trained in Great Britain, he was one of the best two-year-olds in the world in 2021 when he won four of his six races including the Somerville Tattersall Stakes in England and the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf in the United States. As a three-year-old he was victorious in the Group 1 Poule d'Essai des Poulains and Grade I Woodbine Mile and Breeders' Cup Mile, earning him honors as Champion Turf Male of 2022. He finished his racing career with eight victories, winning five Group/Grade One events and either winning or placing in ten graded races.
Background
Modern Games is a chestnut colt with a white star and three white socks bred and owned by Sheikh Mohammed's Godolphin organisation. He was sent into training with Charlie Appleby at Godolphin's British base in Newmarket, Suffolk.
He was from the twelfth crop of foals sired by Dubawi, whose wins included the Irish 2,000 Guineas and the Prix Jacques Le Marois. At stud, Dubawi has been a highly successful breeding stallion, siring major winners such as Ghaiyyath, Too Darn Hot, Al Kazeem, Makfi, Old Persian, Lucky Nine and Night of Thunder. Modern Games's dam Modern Ideals showed no racing ability but was a half-sister to the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardère winner Ultra. She was a great-granddaughter of Konafa who finished second in the 1000 Guineas and was the female-line ancestor of Bosra Sham, Hector Protector and Golden Sixty.
Racing career
2021: two-year-old season
Modern Games began his racing career in a novice race (for horses with no more than two previous wins) over a distance of about seven furlongs on good ground at Haydock Park on 1 July when he started at odds of 5/1 and came home fifth behind Mr McCann, beaten eleven lengths by the winner. Later that month he started favourite for a maiden race over the same distance at Newmarket Racecourse. Ridden as on his debut by James Doyle he was in contention from the start, took the lead approaching the last quarter mile and won "comfortably" by two lengths from the Queen's colt Saga. In his four subsequent races in 2021, Modern Games was ridden by William Buick. At Leicester Racecourse on 8 August the colt started odds-on favourite for a novice race but was beaten three quarters of a length by the previously unraced Cresta, to whom he was conceding nine pounds in weight. A month later Modern Games was assigned a weight of 131 pounds for a nursery (a handicap race for two-year-olds) over seven furlongs at Doncaster Racecourse and won "readily" by three and a half lengths from Sed Maarib after taking the lead two furlongs out.
On 23 September Modern Games was stepped up in class to contest the Group 3 Somerville Tattersall Stakes over seven furlongs at Newmarket and started 3/1 second choice in the betting behind the French-trained Trident (runner-up in the Prix Morny). Modern Games took the lead soon after the start and shook off the challenge from Trident before drawing away in the closing stages to win by two and a half lengths. After the race Appleby commented "He's not a big, imposing horse by any stretch of the imagination, but he worked particularly well on Saturday and our plan was to go and make it, and make them come at us... He's a neat, little horse... maybe we'll look at something like the Breeders' Cup because he's got natural pace and plenty of experience under his belt."