Godolphin-trained horses finished one-two in the first turf stakes of the 2018 Dubai Winter Carnival, with Benbatl beating Emotionless on Jan. 11, and in Promising Run the Dubai powerhouse has another good chance in the second turf stakes of the Carnival, the Group 2, $200,000 Cape Verdi. The Cape Verdi, for fillies and mares at 1,600 meters (about one mile), gets top billing on an eight-race card Thursday that also includes two divisions of the $100,000 UAE 2000 Guineas Trial, races 4 and 6. The Cape Verdi goes as race 5, post time 11:50 a.m. Eastern, with first post for the card at 9:30 Eastern. Promising Run, a 5-year-old American-bred Hard Spun mare trained by Saeed bin Suroor, makes the first start of her third winter in Dubai. Two years ago she twice was second in dirt races to the talented Polar River, while the focus a year ago was grass. Racing last Jan. 26 while making her first start of the Dubai season, Promising Run got a good trip en route to a half-length win over Light the Lights in the Group 2 Al Rashidiya Stakes. Light the Lights has a strong official rating of 112 and just won a high-end handicap race over the Meydan turf a week ago. Promising Run went on last winter to finish third in the Group 3 Dubai Millennium, then went off form and was seventh in the Group 2 Jebel Hatta, her last start until this past fall. Promising Run has shown she can fire fresh, but can she win at this level over a distance as short as 1,600 meters? Her Al Rashidiya win was at 1,800 meters, the Dubai Millennium at 2,000, though as a 2-year-old Promising Run was a Group 2 winner in England over 1,400 meters. Pat Cosgrave rides. Smiling Blue Eyes, the Cape Verdi’s top-rated horse at 107, has even more questions to answer. Trained by Mike de Kock for Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa al Maktoum, Smiling Blue Eyes is a South African-bred filly who has raced only in her native land, and on Thursday makes her first start since June. Smiling Blue Eyes, who will be ridden by Christophe Soumillon, won a Group 2 over 1,600 meters before struggling over longer distances, but de Kock imports often need a race or two to hit their stride in Dubai. Opal Tiara fits the race snugly for trainer Mick Channon and jockey Silvestre de Sousa, and was second by a half-length to the flashy Very Special in the race’s 2017 edition. Opal Tiara, who is at or near her best racing 1,600 meters, went on to win the Group 2 Balanchine Stakes before finding the water too deep in the Group 1 Dubai Turf. Her English campaign last year was modest, but Opal Tiara ran well enough – if not up to her Dubai 2017 peak – when she was fourth behind Benbatl in the Singspiel two weeks ago. The Aga Khan homebred filly Rehana merits a look as well in her second start of the Carnival. A Group 3 winner at Naas last May, Rehana was fourth in a 1,400-meter handicap Jan. 11 but could easily improve from the race. There is little established dirt form in either division of the UAE 2000 Guineas Trial, both races contested at 1,400 meters (about seven furlongs). Just three of the 12 entrants in the first division, race 4, are American-bred, and the highest-rated of them, Godolphin’s Deyaarna, has a pedigree slanted to turf, not dirt. Deyaarna, by Kitten’s Joy, did win his two starts over all-weather surfaces in England last fall, and he led in both races. Bin Suroor trains Deyaarna, while Godolphin’s other main Dubai trainer, Charlie Appleby, tries Gold Town, a son of Street Cry whose dam, Pimpernel, raced decently at Meydan when the dirt course was all-weather Tapeta in 2012. Doug Watson, the UAE’s leading dirt trainer, sends out Blue Laureate, a horse that has neither dirt form nor a dirt pedigree. The bin Suroor-trained Moqarrab might have the right combination of pedigree and ability in the second division, race 6. A son of Speightstown and Grosse Pointe Anne, a sister to Uncle Mo, Moqarrab has started twice, finishing fourth on turf at Newmarket before winning an all-weather race at Wolverhampton on Dec. 2. Tangled at 105 is the highest-rated horse in either division and was a two-time winner last year in England, but he is by Society Rock and far from a certainty to carry his form onto dirt. Gotti, by More than Ready out of the Empire Maker mare Soot Z, won a maiden race on turf at Windsor last season but could only finish third after tracking the pace in a conditions race on Meydan dirt Jan. 4. Huckleback, by Street Cry, probably has shown a bit more in a pair of Meydan dirt races this winter. Also entered is Tale of Fire, a Charles Fipke homebred trained by Doug Watson who was a modest 12th behind Gotti earlier this month. And no wonder – Tale Of Fire won his lone North American start, but that was a maiden race at Fort Erie that earned Tale of Fire just a 24 Beyer Speed Figure.