Sir Alex Ferguson bids for one more title with Spirit Dancer in Bahrain

Sir Alex Ferguson, one of the greatest football managers of all time, is more likely to be seen at a racetrack than in a tracksuit nowadays as he indulges in his other great passion in life: horses.

He is currently in Bahrain where the horse he co-owns, Spirit Dancer, a son of the legendary Frankel, competes in the kingdom’s showpiece race, the $1 million International Trophy on Friday afternoon.

This is the first time he has been back to Bahrain since 1986 when, having just taken over as manager of Manchester United, he brought the squad to the Gulf to train and play a Bahrain Select XI to celebrate the birthday of a member of the Royal family.

And Ferguson has nothing but praise for the transformation he has witnessed in the Kingdom in the intervening years. He is loving the experience.

“It has been fantastic here," Ferguson said on Thursday morning while watching his gelding being exercised. “The facilities are great and I think that in five or six years this will be one of the top places in the world for racing.”

Such praise and endorsement from a sporting legend will be music to the ears of the organisers, the Bahrain Turf Club, of a race which in only five years has risen to Group 2 status and for this renewal has attracted its best ever field from around the world.

Ferguson recalled he was drawn into racing as a young boy, remembering Saturday mornings with his father studying the form. “That was when the seed was set,” he explained.

He began to take it seriously rather than just a hobby about 25 years ago when there was an international break in the football season.

“I said to my wife Cathy, ‘Why don’t we go to the races?’,” Ferguson said. “She replied, ‘Where did you get that from?’.

“We went to Cheltenham and