Varian suffers Rahiebb blow with stayer out for the season
By Racing TV
Last Updated: Wed 5 Aug 2026
Roger Varian is having to look ahead to next year with Rahiebb after being dealt the blow his Goodwood Cup third will miss the rest of the season due to a setback.
The son of Frankel was narrowly denied in the St Leger in his final outing at three and had laid down a statement on his four-year-old return, displaying his staying credentials in the Yorkshire Cup to set up a tilt at the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot.
Although failing to stay the extreme distance at the Royal meeting, he performed with much more encouragement at Goodwood to make the podium behind Scandinavia and Trawlerman.
However, that will sadly be the colt’s final action of the 2026 campaign and Varian told the Press Association: “He’s had a setback I’m afraid and unfortunately he won’t run again this year, but hopefully he will be back next summer.
“He’s still a young horse in his division and still relatively lightly-raced, I still think there will be some big days ahead with him and fingers crossed he comes back in as good a shape as he can be.
“It’s a bit of a blow for the rest of this year, but hopefully we have him to look forward to for next year.”
Prior to Goodwood, Varian had been keen to discover more about the Sheikh Ahmed Al Maktoum-owned four-year-old having appeared to not stay in the Gold Cup.
While Rahiebb appeared much more comfortable back down to two miles, there remain questions to be answered following a race that involved the loose Amiloc causing plenty of havoc.
Varian added: “I didn’t learn as much as I wanted to learn as it was a messy race and we kind of got stuck behind a couple as the race was developing and had to muscle our way out.
“The big two got first run on us and I’m not for a second saying we would have finished any better than we did but it was kind of a frustrating watch with the loose horse and other things.
“It didn’t feel satisfactory after the race even though I think he ran quite a nice race to finish third.”
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