Thursday’s fifth meeting of the 2020 Dubai World Cup Carnival at Meydan was highlighted by the $250,000 Gr2 Al Rashidiya over 1800m on turf and the $200,000 Gr3 Al Shindagha Sprint over 1200m on dirt.
Sponsored by Hamdan bin Mohammed Cruise Terminal, the Al Rashidiya, a course and distance prep for the $6 million Gr1 Dubai Turf , was won stylishly by Godolphin’s 2017 Royal Ascot victor Barney Roy.
Barney Roy in full cry (credit: Dubai Racing Club|Erika Rasmussen)
The SA breds Majestic Mambo and Light The Lights failed to feature and ran fifth and seventh respectively.
Meanwhile Gladiator King claimed his third lifetime Gr3 in the Al Shindagha against the best local sprinters.
Settling well behind horses as stablemate Loxley carved out legitimate fractions, Barney Roy swung wide turning for home and followed fellow Group 1 winner Dream Castle–last year’s winner with Christophe Soumillon aboard–to the front and proceeded to measure him for the win, ultimately pulling clear in the final furlong. In the end, he provided trainer Charlie Appleby and jockey William Buick with their first victories in the race. The final margin was 2¼ lengths, with another 6¼ back to Dream Castle’s Saeed bin Suroor-trained stablemate Mountain Hunter in third with Pat Cosgrave.
“He’s been off for a while, so he’s entitled to be a little bit fresh, but I suppose in many ways, that’s a performance you want to see from a horse with his previous form and his class,” Buick said. “Although Dream Castle, of course, has some form in the book. Good performance from a long layoff and he’s a horse with a lot of gears who will be prepped for something Dubai World Cup night, hopefully.”
“He’s a very lightly framed horse, so we don’t do much with him,” Appleby added. “He was fresh in the paddock and for the first half of the race, but once he got into it, I was always hopeful that his class would prevail and that is what we’ve seen at the end. That will hopefully take the freshness out of him now and hopefully we can work backward from the Gr1 Jebel Hatta on Super Saturday. All being well, it’s one step at a time. We’ll get Super Saturday out of the way and hopefully we can book ourselves a slot for Dubai World Cup night. Visually, from what we’ve seen there, you’d be quite happy to step up to 10 furlongs. He was just touched off in the 2017 Gr1 Juddmonte International at York Racecourse and is a class animal. It’s just nice to see him back to his winning ways this evening. Hopefully he’ll gain a bit of confidence there and we can tiptoe toward Super Saturday.”
Soumillon seemed pleased with Dream Castle’s return to form after five consecutive poor showings.
“He ran much better than last time,” he said. “He jumped out of the gate quite well. I think the cheek pieces helped him to be more concentrated today. When I came into the straight, I thought he would win easy, but when Barney went, he couldn’t accelerate with him. I think with a race like today, he should improve for the next one.”
Gladiator King – good win (credit: Dubai Racing Club|Erika Rasmussen)
The dirt highlight of the night was the 1200m Gr3 $200,000 Al Shindagha Sprint sponsored by DP World UAE Region, which produced a thrilling finish with Satish Seemar-trained Gladiator King and Mickael Barzalona overtaking USA invader Truck Salesman and Fernando Jara in the final yards.
Owned by Sheikh Rashid bin Humaid Al Nuaimi, the 4-year-old Curlin colt is now 2-for-2 in the UAE, after having taken the Gr3 Dubawi Stakes on opening night of the DWC Carnival. The final margin was one length, with another 1 ¼ lengths back to Ibn Malik and Drafted, who were separated by a nose and slowly closing on their aforementioned rivals.
