Cavalor Trainer of the Quarter - Niels Petersen with UAE Oaks winner Queen Azteca

Article by Lissa Oliver

We are delighted this quarter to award our prize to Norwegian-based trainer Niels Peterson, in recognition of the success in Dubai of his three-year-old filly Queen Azteca. Given that even in late-March at the time of our interview it was 7°C in Norway, and 31°C in Dubai, Peterson faces a far greater challenge when sending horses over to the carnival than most international handlers.

“We are in the wrong place, really,” Peterson says of the Norwegian racing scene, “we are so far north, wherever we go to race, even in Norway, it’s a long way to travel.”

For many years he has been sending a select group of horses to Dubai to take advantage of the winter sun on their backs. “We take horses who have shown maximum ability in Norway, but in Dubai against better horses they are always struggling. We do spend the winter trying to win, but mostly it is so that we can take them back home to clean up, because the winter at home is so bad and they have the advantage. I did that a lot, so now I’m thinking it’s time to do something different.

“We’ve taken horses to Bahrain, Saudi, Qatar and Dubai, but in October it gets cold at home, we get frost in November and then we can’t train properly. So I’ve fetched the horses early, we arrived in Dubai 1st November and I’m here as a local now.”

The earlier arrival has certainly benefited Queen Azteca, who was a chance buy for Peterson on behalf of her owner. He had gone to Tattersalls to buy a colt with Dubai in mind, secured a “nice, but a little later-maturing colt than we’d hoped” and still had a bit of the budget left. “So I looked for a nice filly for the owner and saw Queen Azteca. I liked her a lot, she was a big imposing filly and with her Dirt pedigree I thought she might suit Dubai and be able to compete. Of course we had a plan, but to succeed with it is not always the case.”

The 30,000gns/€36,000 filly tried a mile for the first time at Jagersro and won comfortably, before wintering in Dubai. Runner-up in December on her debut there, she has since won the Cocoa Beach Stakes en route to the Gr.3 UAE Oaks, the most prestigious win of Peterson’s already impressive career. 

The 13-times Norsk Champion Trainer has sent out 15 Scandinavian Derby winners, but his goal is to a prominent name on the bigger stage. “I want my horses to go out and win big races. I’ve done everything I can back home, and I need a challenge. I want to make a real impact,” he told the press after the UAE Oaks and there is every chance that Queen Azteca is the horse to realise that dream a lot sooner than he might have expected.

At time of writing she is due to line-up in the Gr.2 UAE Derby and she has already received an invitation to the Gr.1 Kentucky Oaks, which is under serious consideration. “We’ll see after the race,” says Peterson.

He acknowledges a good team in support of higher ambitions and, not surprisingly, his staff like to travel and go away to a better climate during the winter. “We have been travelling a lot for a long time now and have good riders, including my sister who is my Assistant. It’s a good, solid team, they know how things work and how I like to do things, so I’m privileged in that sense.”