Kadyrov’s horses (Updated)

Ramzan Kadyrov has lots of hobbies. He’s shown reporters his collection of wild animals. This report details his convoy of fancy cars. But the leader of Chechnya maintains that he lives a very humble life. According to his 2010 income report, he lives in a 36 square meter apartment in Grozny and made just $131,000. And owns no cars.

Today comes a report from the Thoroughbred Times, a Kentucky-based paper devoted to horse racing. Kadyrov’s love of thoroughbreds is well known, but now we have a nice list of all the horses he’s said to own.

In many ways, Kadyrov has patterned his international operation after Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin. His horses winter in Dubai, summer in Britain with Gary Moore, and target international prizes with Herman Brown.

Aside from Gitano Hernando, other notable horses he has purchased internationally include Fort Vogue and Galileo’s Galaxy from South Africa; multiple British Group 2 winner Bronze Cannon; 2009 Argentine Derby winner Storm Chispazo; Mourilyan, who was third for him in the 2009 Melbourne Cup (Aus-G1); Bankable, who won a Group 3 race in Meydan this spring; Grade 2-placed Racecar Rhapsody, who was fourth for trainer Ken McPeek in the 2008 Preakness Stakes (G1) before running fourth in the Russian Derby a few months later; and Ascot Group 3 winner Mikhail Glinka, a former Coolmore colt who was sixth in the Russian Derby last year.

Last week, officials in Dubai freed and then deported two men convicted for carrying out the 2009 murder there of Kadyrov enemy Sulim Yamadayev, RIA-Novosti reported. Maksudzhon Ismatov, a Tajik, and Makhdi Lorniya, an Iranian, were convicted last year of carrying out the killing and sentenced to 25 years in prison. “But a court reduced their sentences to 27 months, which ended this month, after Yamadayev's brother, Isa, patched up his differences with Kadyrov, whom he had accused of masterminding the attack,” The Moscow Times reports. They were both deported to their home countries.

Lorniya’s profession? He was Kadyrov’s horse trainer in Dubai.

UPDATE: After reading this post, the author of the Thoroughbred Times piece, Sid Fernando, pointed me to this post on his blog where Nicolas Iguacel, an assistant to Kadyrov's Dubai-based South African trainer Herman Brown, says the detained Iranian was not linked to the stables, but was an embassy employee who worked as Kadyrov's assistant while the Chechen leader was in Dubai.