Brundtland preps for Dubai Gold Cup

Brundtland, one of four Godolphin horses entered, heads a seven-horse field in the Group 3, $300,000 Nad Al Sheba Trophy Stakes, featured race on the Dubai World Cup Carnival card Thursday night at Meydan Racecourse.

The Nad Al Sheba Trophy is carded at about 1 ¾ miles on turf, making it a prep for the two-mile Dubai Gold Cup on the March 30 Dubai World Cup card, and Brundtland’s connections certainly would aspire to that race.

Just a 4-year-old, Brundtland already has shown strong signs of developing into a higher-level staying type for trainer Charlie Appleby. By Dubawi and out of the Hurricane Run mare Future Generation (who ended her career racing in America for trainer Christophe Clement), Brundtland’s lone start at 2 came over 10 furlongs, a clear harbinger of his stamina-leaning racing profile. Brundtland won that race, and winning, like long-distance racing, seems to come naturally to the colt.

Brundtland in fact won his first four starts, landing Group 2s in France last year over 12 furlongs (the Prix Niel) and 15 furlongs (Prix du Chaudenay) before finally taking a defeat Oct. 28 when fourth of eight in the Group 1 Prix Royal-Oak at just under two miles. The Royal-Oak loss came with one obvious excuse and another in the speculative realm. Brundtland dropped from a tracking position back to last when the race’s pacesetter spooked and hampered Brundtland’s progress a half-mile into the running. Brundtland, too, was racing over softer going than he’d encountered in his two previous races and might benefit Thursday from the firmer conditions at Meydan.

William Buick has teamed with Appleby to produce a torrent of grass winners this month at Meydan and has the mount Thursday on Brundtland, who at 114 is easily highest rated in the Nad al Sheba Trophy and will be heavily favored.

Perhaps chief among his opponents is another Godolphin-owned, Appleby-trained 4-year-old, Ispolini, who comes off a local handicap-race win over this same distance and has European form suggesting he won’t be totally overwhelmed by Brundtland.

Bin Battuta, from the Saeed bin Suroor-trained wing of Godolphin’s Dubai operation, stands a decent chance of rounding out an all-Godolphin trifecta, a not-uncommon site in turf stakes during this World Cup Carnival.