DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Only nine horses are entered in the $6 million Sheema Classic at Meydan on Saturday. Divide them by three to get to the Sheema’s heart: Postponed, Highland Reel, and Duramente.
Postponed won the Group 1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot last year, while Highland Reel captured the Secretariat at Arlington last summer and the Group 1 Hong Kong Vase in December. Duramente’s peak came last May when he beat 17 rivals to win the Japanese Derby.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Somewhere on a farm in England early Saturday evening, Prince Bishop will be munching on grass or maybe staring blankly at a fence post, oblivious to the one-year anniversary of the Dubai World Cup bedlam he stirred.
In 2015, the World Cup went back to dirt for the first time in six years. The switch from the original Tapeta Footings surface at Meydan Racecourse was made, it was widely assumed, to lure back elite American runners who mainly had been staying home – runners like California Chrome, the 2014 Horse of the Year.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – On the bare face of things, the decision to use blinkers on Dubai World Cup starter Keen Ice is unusual. The 4-year-old has made 15 starts, none in blinkers, and the equipment change comes as Keen Ice gets set to line up in the richest race of his life, and while he is stabled and training thousands of miles from trainer Dale Romans’s winter base in Florida.
But the unusual nature of the change runs still deeper: Romans is a trainer who does whatever he can to avoid using blinkers under any circumstances.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – When Todd Pletcher’s first starter in Dubai, Harlan’s Holiday, finished second in the 2003 World Cup, it seemed a fait accompli that the trainer – young, already accomplished, ambitious, and with a growing equine portfolio – would win a race here, and probably the World Cup itself, before long.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – California Chrome will break from post 11 in a field of 12 Saturday night when he attempts to become the third Kentucky Derby winner to capture the Dubai World Cup, following Silver Charm and Animal Kingdom.
Mongolian Saturday, the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint winner, and most recently fifth Dec. 13 in the Hong Kong Sprint, was scratched Tuesday from Saturday’s $1 million Al Quoz Sprint at Meydan Park. Mongolian Saturday reportedly suffered shipping sickness after arriving in Dubai last week.
Trained by Enebish Ganbat, Mongolian Saturday would been one of the favorites in the Al Quoz along with BC Turf Sprint runner-up Lady Shipman and Sole Power, last year's Al Quoz winner.
Trainer Jorge Navarro runs a large string in Florida, but he has been in Dubai now for close to two weeks, having arrived two days before X Y Jet, the horse he starts Saturday in the Golden Shaheen. It’s a significant time commitment, and Navarro hopes it pays off Saturday night.
Basically, since Mubtaahij crossed the wire eight lengths best last March 28 in the UAE Derby, Saturday’s Dubai World Cup has been his major objective. But the race is nearly upon us, and hardly anyone this week is viewing Mubtaahij as a major World Cup contender.
Mubtaahij returned from a long layoff surely needing his first race back, but his fifth-place finish in the Feb. 4 Firebreak Stakes was surprisingly flat. While Mubtaahij improved marginally second out, he still was just fourth March 5 in Round 3 of the Al Maktoum Challenge.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – The names of 12 horses had passed the entry box when entries closed Monday morning in Dubai for Saturday’s $10 million Dubai World Cup.
The list of final declarations doesn’t include Intilaaq, who made the set of probable entrants distributed last week by the Dubai Racing Club and was entered instead in the $6 million Dubai Turf, but the five Americans – California Chrome, Frosted, Mshawish, Keen Ice, and Hoppertunity – are set to take their chance Saturday night at 9 local time, which is 1 p.m. Eastern.
