Aidan O’Brien said before the UAE Derby that Mendelssohn is the horse best suited to the Kentucky Derby that he’s ever trained. He’s surely not saying anything different now. Mendelssohn made his dirt debut in the Grade 2, $2 million UAE Derby and won almost from Dubai to Kentucky.
Leave it to jockey Christophe Soumillon to sum up the nature of Vazirabad in one efficient phrase. “My horse saw the horses in front of him, and he just wants to catch them,” Soumillon said.
The internationally renowned jockey Ryan Moore often can be found in the winner’s circle following a million-dollar race, and there he was Saturday at Meydan Racecourse following Heavy Metal’s two-length win in the Group 2, $1 million Godolphin Mile.
Cheval Grand, the winner of the Grade 1 Japan Cup last November, will have his first start of 2018 in a tough running of Sunday’s Grade 1 Osaka Hai at Hanshin Racecourse near Osaka, Japan.
Arcada, who finished third in two Group 2 stakes in Ireland and England in 2016, will have his Hong Kong debut in Monday’s $236,981 Hyacinth Handicap at seven furlongs on turf at Sha Tin Racecourse.
Past the finish in the Japan Cup last Nov. 26, one could see the froth around the mouth of Rey de Oro, who just had run a fine race to finish second of 17 to Cheval Grand. Cheval Grand had gotten a sweet inside trip, while Rey de Oro was forced to come wide, but that froth suggested another reason for Rey de Oro's defeat – a tendency to pull too hard.
Only bad luck in the Bing Crosby Stakes last summer kept Roy H from a perfect six-start 2017 campaign. America's best sprinter moves his show to Dubai on Saturday night as a formidable favorite in the Group 1, $2 million Dubai Golden Shaheen.
Andrew Hawkins' Hong Kong Selections and Analysis for Monday, April 2, 2018 at Sha Tin.
Instead of running in the traditional prep races throughout the United States, Gronkowski could earn a berth in the Kentucky Derby in faraway Newcastle, England, on Friday. Gronkowski is part of a field of 10 in the $140,000 Burradon Stakes at a mile on a Tapeta surface.
When Yulong Warrior won the Al Bastakiya Stakes, a prep for the UAE Derby, by more than 11 lengths on March 10 at Meydan, the colt's connections started looking ahead – and abroad.
