Deem renews her partnership with Olivier Peslier at Meydan on Thursday night when the lightly raced 6-year-old mare should start as the favorite in the Group 2, $200,000 Cape Verdi Stakes at a mile on turf.
Sacred Kingdom scored his third victory in four years in the Centenary Sprint Cup at Sha Tin on Sunday, but Japan Cup winner Rose Kingdom went down to defeat in the Grade 2 Nikkei Shinshum Hai at Kyoto.
Rose Kingdom, placed first in the Japan Cup at the expense of Japanese Horse of the Year Buena Vista but denied a rematch with the filly when scratched form the Arima Kinen, drops down to Grade 2 company at Kyoto on Sunday for the 1 1/2-mile, $1.35 million Nikkei Shinshun Hai.
Mendip returned to winning ways with a comfortable victory in Round 1 of the $200,000 Maktoum Challenge on Thursday night at Meydan as the Dubai Racing Carnival got under way. The Group 3 mile, run on Meydan’s synthetic Tapeta surface, serves as the first stepping-stone to the $10 million Dubai World Cup on March 26, and in Mendip, trainer Saeed bin Suroor appears to have himself a prime contender for the world’s richest race.
The Dubai Racing Carnival gets under way at Meydan Racecourse on Thursday night with a competitive renewal of Round 1 of the Maktoum Challenge, a one-mile Group 3 contest on the Tapeta synthetic surface worth $200,000.
New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing announced Tuesday that it is raising the minimum weights for many of its races by one kilogram, or 2.2 pounds. The increase applies to all handicap races, including those with black-type status as well as non-black-type races at set weights for 2-year-olds and 3-year-olds.
The owners of 160 stallions based outside the U.S. and Canada have paid fees that make all of the stallions’ progeny eligible to run in the 14 Breeders’ Cup races, the Breeders’ Cup announced on Monday, seven days after nominations opened under a new structure for international stallions.
The Dubai Racing Carnival kicks off the stakes race season at Meydan Racecourse on Thursday. The Emirates Racing Authority will present 28 black-type races on 13 evenings of racing at Meydan between then and Saturday, March 26, the date of the 16th running of the Dubai World Cup, the world’s richest race at $10 million.
Buena Vista was named Horse of the Year by the Japan Racing Association on Friday despite having lost her last two starts.
Baron Thierry van Zuylen, the Dutch banker who was part owner of Perrault, winner of the 1982 Eclipse Award as best turf horse, died in London on Sunday at the age of 78. Van Zuylen, who owned the Charlie Whittingham-trained Perrault in partnership with Serge Fradkoff, had been a leading figure on the French racing scene for more than 50 years.
