While California Chrome is in Dubai training toward a prep race for the $10 million Dubai World Cup on March 26, World Cup hopeful Frosted is getting right down to the business of racing. Frosted and four other Kiaran McLaughlin-trained horses arrived in Dubai from the U.S. on Jan. 24, and four of them – Frosted included – are slated to race on the Thursday card at Meydan Racecourse.

California Chrome, the 2014 Horse of the Year, worked a half-mile in 48 seconds at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai on Sunday, his first workout since arriving in the country on Jan. 22 for a two-race campaign in coming months.

Ridden by regular exercise rider Dihigi Gladney, California Chrome galloped out six furlongs in 1:13, according to Alan Sherman, assistant trainer to his father, Art Sherman. Alan Sherman has been in Dubai since California Chrome’s arrival on Jan. 22.

It was Mike de Kock night on Thursday at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai, where de Kock won three races, finished one-two-three  in a $120,000 handicap, and ran one-two-four  in the featured Group 2, $200,000 Al Rashidiya Stakes, which de Kock won for the eighth time.

De Kock’s Thursday night success might have legs, too, as his first two home in the Al Rashidiya, Forries Waltz and Ertijaal, appear to have bright futures.

Five Godolphin-owned horses trained by Kiaran McLaughlin, including Grade 1 winner Frosted, arrived Sunday in Dubai after shipping from the U.S., and four of them, Frosted among them, are scheduled to race Feb. 4 at Meydan.

McLaughlin also now trains Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint runner-up Lady Shipman, who will ship for the Grade 1 Al Quoz on the Dubai World Cup card closer to the March 26 race, McLaughlin said.

The horses are stabled in isolation at Godolphin’s Marmoom Stables – where trainer Charlie Appleby’s string is housed – several miles from the city center of Dubai.

These days there are nonstop flights from all over the world to Dubai, but that’s not exactly how it works for racehorses traveling from South Africa.

Fears over African horse sickness have motivated an incredibly demanding shipping regimen in order to make this trip, one South African trainer Mike de Kock, a vocal critic of the protocol, knows all too well.

Safety Check won the Group 2, $250,000 Al Fahidi Fort Stakes for the second year in a row on Thursday night at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai, beating Harry’s Son by 1 3/4 lengths in the turf fixture over about seven furlongs.

Trained by Charlie Appleby for Godolphin and ridden by William Buick, Safety Check picked up Thursday where he left off last year at Meydan. The 5-year-old won all three of his starts last winter at Meydan, going from the Al Fahidi Fort on to the Zabeel Mile, a race that once again will be his near-term target again this season.

The Group 2, $250,000 Al Fahidi Fort headlines a seven-race all-Thoroughbred card on Thursday night at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai. The nine-horse field includes Safety Check, the estimable Godolphin 5-year-old who struggled two winters ago in Dubai but went 3 for 3 on the Meydan turf course last year, including a win in the Al Fahidi Fort, a one-turn turf race of 1,400 meters (about seven furlongs). 

More Aspen ended a 17-race losing streak with an upset win at 11-1 in Thursday’s Singspiel Stakes on turf at Meydan Racecourse in the United Arab Emirates.

The Singspiel Stakes, run at about 1 1/8 miles on turf, was one of two $150,000 races on a seven-race program. In the Dubawi Stakes at about six furlongs on dirt, Reynaldothewizard, the oldest horse in the field as a 10-year-old, won by 2 3/4 lengths over Cool Cowboy, a stakes winner at Mountaineer Park in 2014.

In 2011, Farraaj was third behind Wrote in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Churchill Downs. Now 7, Farraaj still runs in top-class races, but has not won for 1 1/2 years.

Thursday at Meydan Racecourse in the United Arab Emirates, Farraaj tries to end a five-race losing streak in the $150,000 Singspiel Stakes at about 1 1/8 miles on turf.

A two-year redevelopment of Longchamp Racecourse in Paris has led to significant changes to the venues of some major stakes on the French racing schedule in 2016.

France-Galop, the governing body of French racing, recently published the racing calendar for 2016, listing the venues and dates for major races this year. With Longchamp under reconstruction and not scheduled to reopen until September 2017, Paris-area tracks, such as Chantilly and Saint-Cloud, and Deauville, on the northwest coast, have taken greater roles this year.