At the time of writing, in mid-August, 2023, Modern Games has recently been retired from racing, as a four-year-old, having won eight of his 16 races and £2.78 million in prize money. Bred and owned by Godolphin, trained by Charlie Appleby at Moulton Paddocks, Newmarket and ridden, in all bar his first two races, by William Buick, he ended his career on a low-key note when beaten favourite in the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot in June, 2023. However, that was his eleventh consecutive appearance at the highest level and, all told, he won five Group 1 or Grade 1 races, although just one on British soil.
By the exceptional sire Dubawi, out of the equally exceptional broodmare Modern Ideals, from the family of Galileo, Modern Games opened his account, at the second time of asking, with a ready, 2-length win in a maiden stakes race at Newmarket in July, 2021. He subsequently won a nursery handicap at Doncaster and made a seamless transition to Pattern company when making most of the running to win the Group 3 Tattersalls Stakes at Newmarket. On his final start as a juvenile, stepped up to a mile for the first time, Modern Games readily won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Del Mar, California, for his first success at the top level.
Further success followed, in the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Poulains – the French equivalent of the 2,000 Guineas – at Longchamp on his three-year-old debut and, although beaten on his next three starts, Modern Games resumed winning ways with a comfortable, 5¼-length victory in the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile Stakes at Woodbine, Ontario the following September. Two months later, he made it 2-2 at the Breeders’ Cup when justifying favouritism in the Breeders’ Cup Mile at Keeneland, Kentucky and, the following May, did so again in the Group 1 Lockinge Stakes at Newbury.