Meydan: De Kock looks for big day Saturday in Dubai World Cup preps
Huge fields, if not horses especially well known in North America, abound on the so-called Super Saturday card March 8 at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai.
Marcus HershMar 04, 2014
Huge fields, if not horses especially well known in North America, abound on the so-called Super Saturday card March 8 at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai.
There were a pair of Group 3 stakes on the six-race program Thursday at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai, but Ihtimal’s performance in the Group 3, $250,000 UAE Oaks stole the show.
Last year during the Dubai World Cup Carnival, Trade Storm finished 11th in his first race of the meeting, then improved massively and impressively won a pair of grass races over the Meydan course before finishing a commendable fourth in the Group 1 Dubai Duty Free to end his Dubai campaign. We will see if a similar pattern unfolds Thursday when Trade Storm makes his second start of the 2014 Dubai World Cup Carnival in the Group 3, $250,000 Zabeel Mile.
Copana Rickey, a 274-1 longshot, scored a shocking win in Sunday’s $1.91 million February Stakes on dirt at Tokyo Racecourse, the first Grade 1 of the year in that country.
Belshazzar, the winner of the Japan Cup Dirt in December, makes his 2014 debut in Sunday’s $1.91 million February Stakes at Tokyo Racecourse in Japan, a prep for an expected start in the $10 million Dubai World Cup on March 29.
L’Amour de Ma Vie, a 5-year-old Kentucky-bred mare who raced on France’s all-weather winter circuit in December, scored an 8-1 upset win in Thursday’s $200,000 Balanchine Stakes at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai.
European Group 1 winners Certify and Flotilla meet for the second time this winter in Thursday’s $200,000 Balanchine Stakes at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai, one of two $200,000 races on a six-race program.
It was a Southern Hemisphere kind of night on Thursday at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai, with horses who last started in South Africa and Australia making the strongest impressions during a six-race program.
A trio of Group 3 races, the $250,000 UAE 2000 Guineas, the $200,000 Firebreak, and the $200,000 Al Shindagha Sprint, are featured on Thursday’s six-race program at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai.
Chriselliam, the champion 2-year-old filly of Europe in 2013 and the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Santa Anita last November, was euthanized on Friday from complications of a foot infection.