Benbatl aces Dubai World Cup audition in Al Maktoum Challenge Round 2

Benbatl already ranked as the top turf horse stabled in Dubai this winter, and Thursday night at Meydan Racecourse he showed he’s probably the best dirt horse there, too.

Benbatl aced his dirt debut, winning the Group 2, $450,000 Al Maktoum Challenge Round 2 by two lengths and doing so easily. Military Law closed to within two lengths of Benbatl at the finish, but this 1,900-meter (about 1 3/16 miles) race had long since been decided. Jockey Christophe Soumillon settled Benbatl two paths off the rail and behind another horse as American import Roman Rosso took the lead, tipped three or four deep angling into the homestretch while between horses, and Benbatl, when asked for some run after cornering for home, accelerated like a turf horse. He powered well into the clear while still well within himself, and Soumillon never asked for anything more as Benbatl coasted to victory.

“When the horses are really good, they can handle it,” Soumillon said of the surface switch.

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Soumillon also piloted Thunder Snow, a sometime grass horse in Europe, to two victories in the Dubai World Cup. Mohammed al Maktoum, principal of Godolphin, hatched the plan this winter to give Benbatl a chance on dirt and aim for the $10 million World Cup on March 28, and trainer Saeed bin Suroor carried that plan to fruition. Benbatl had always trained well, bin Suroor said, on the all-weather surface at the Al Quoz training center, and he went just as comfortably over dirt on Thursday.

“He’s got good gate speed, which is important for dirt racing, and a good cruising speed,” Soumillon said. “He’s a bit like Thunder Snow. He knows his job really well.”

Despite struggling, Soumillon said, with his lead changes and not being set down by his rider, Benbatl was timed in a very fast 1:56.80. Gronkowski, making his second start of the winter, had very high-class form through his near miss in the 2019 World Cup yet was left reeling in third, almost seven lengths behind Military Law. Military Law, a recent convert to dirt racing, ran very well in defeat and is a horse worth watching the rest of this winter.

The top two finishers both were sired by Dubawi, Benbatl having been produced by the good racemare Nahrain, a daughter of Selkirk. Six-year-old Benbatl won the $6 million Dubai Turf over 1,800 meters on the World Cup card in 2019 but obviously has the 2,000-meter World Cup itself on his itinerary. The question now – and no answers were immediately provided by his connections – is what Benbatl does before then. The options appear to be three-fold: Wait for the World Cup, go to the $20 million Saudi Cup on March 29, or run back March 7 in the Al Maktoum Challenge Round 3, which seems the unlikeliest scenario.

Fore Left wins UAE 2000 Guineas for O’Neill, Reddam

Trainer Doug O’Neill has been a regular participant in races on the Dubai World Cup card, but this winter O’Neill took things to a different level sending a string of 11 horses to Dubai in January to compete during the World Cup Carnival. O’Neill’s stock came out with some solid performances during the two most recent Carnival cards, and on Thursday, O’Neill’s pioneer mission paid off nicely when Fore Left won the Group 3, $200,000 UAE Guineas.

Fore Left, breaking from post 14 under William Buick, went straight to the front, in this one-turn dirt race over about one mile, set a strong pace, and while tiring late, held comfortably to post a 1 3/4-length victory.

“That was so cool,” O’Neill, reached by phone in America, told Dubai Racing Club publicity. “I was going nuts.”

O’Neill trains Fore Left for owner Paul Reddam’s Reddam Racing, and Fore Left rebounded from a failed turf experiment in his most recent start in early December. O’Neill thought the post, the pace, and the layoff contributed to Fore Left’s late fatigue, and Fore Left’s connections plan to try him over longer distances later in the Carnival. Whether Fore Left’s next start comes in the Al Bastakiya on March 7 or in the UAE Derby on March 28 will be determined by how the colt, a son of Twirling Candy and the Unbridled’s Song mare Simply Sunny, looks and trains in coming weeks.

Fore Left was timed in 1:38.43 as Zabardast finished second and Emblem Storm was third. American-bred horses swept the top four placings.

O’Neill, whose assistant Leandro Mora is overseeing the Dubai string, also got a good performance out of Blitzkrieg, second by a length to longshot winner Rusumaat in the listed $175,000 Dubai Sprint over a straight 1,200 meters (about six furlongs) on turf.