Five Godolphin-owned horses trained by Kiaran McLaughlin, including Grade 1 winner Frosted, arrived Sunday in Dubai after shipping from the U.S., and four of them, Frosted among them, are scheduled to race Feb. 4 at Meydan.

McLaughlin also now trains Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint runner-up Lady Shipman, who will ship for the Grade 1 Al Quoz on the Dubai World Cup card closer to the March 26 race, McLaughlin said.

The horses are stabled in isolation at Godolphin’s Marmoom Stables – where trainer Charlie Appleby’s string is housed – several miles from the city center of Dubai.

These days there are nonstop flights from all over the world to Dubai, but that’s not exactly how it works for racehorses traveling from South Africa.

Fears over African horse sickness have motivated an incredibly demanding shipping regimen in order to make this trip, one South African trainer Mike de Kock, a vocal critic of the protocol, knows all too well.

Safety Check won the Group 2, $250,000 Al Fahidi Fort Stakes for the second year in a row on Thursday night at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai, beating Harry’s Son by 1 3/4 lengths in the turf fixture over about seven furlongs.

Trained by Charlie Appleby for Godolphin and ridden by William Buick, Safety Check picked up Thursday where he left off last year at Meydan. The 5-year-old won all three of his starts last winter at Meydan, going from the Al Fahidi Fort on to the Zabeel Mile, a race that once again will be his near-term target again this season.

The Group 2, $250,000 Al Fahidi Fort headlines a seven-race all-Thoroughbred card on Thursday night at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai. The nine-horse field includes Safety Check, the estimable Godolphin 5-year-old who struggled two winters ago in Dubai but went 3 for 3 on the Meydan turf course last year, including a win in the Al Fahidi Fort, a one-turn turf race of 1,400 meters (about seven furlongs). 

More Aspen ended a 17-race losing streak with an upset win at 11-1 in Thursday’s Singspiel Stakes on turf at Meydan Racecourse in the United Arab Emirates.

The Singspiel Stakes, run at about 1 1/8 miles on turf, was one of two $150,000 races on a seven-race program. In the Dubawi Stakes at about six furlongs on dirt, Reynaldothewizard, the oldest horse in the field as a 10-year-old, won by 2 3/4 lengths over Cool Cowboy, a stakes winner at Mountaineer Park in 2014.

In 2011, Farraaj was third behind Wrote in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Churchill Downs. Now 7, Farraaj still runs in top-class races, but has not won for 1 1/2 years.

Thursday at Meydan Racecourse in the United Arab Emirates, Farraaj tries to end a five-race losing streak in the $150,000 Singspiel Stakes at about 1 1/8 miles on turf.

A two-year redevelopment of Longchamp Racecourse in Paris has led to significant changes to the venues of some major stakes on the French racing schedule in 2016.

France-Galop, the governing body of French racing, recently published the racing calendar for 2016, listing the venues and dates for major races this year. With Longchamp under reconstruction and not scheduled to reopen until September 2017, Paris-area tracks, such as Chantilly and Saint-Cloud, and Deauville, on the northwest coast, have taken greater roles this year.

Veteran Dubai owner-trainer Ali al Raihe stole the show on the first night of the Dubai World Cup Carnival, winning four of the six Thoroughbred races on the card, including the Group 2, $250,000 Al Maktoum Challenge Round 1 with Le Bernardin.

Al Raihi trained the first two home in Thursday’s second race, Nawwaar and Kiifah; the impressive winner of race 3, Ertijaal; and finished off the card in race 7 with a victory by Ghaamer, a 37-1 shot in North American betting, in a seven-furlong turf handicap.

Meydan Racecourse in Dubai hosts the first of 11 Dubai World Cup Carnival cards Thursday night, a program highlighted by the Al Maktoum Challenge Round 1.

The World Cup Carnival culminates March 26 with the $10 million Dubai World Cup, a card that should draw heavy North American interest again this year.

Gold Actor (16-1) extended his winning streak to four races with the most prestigious win of his career Sunday in the $4,332,650 Arima Kinen Stakes at Nakayama Racecourse in Japan.

The Grade 1 Arima Kinen, run at 1 9/16 miles on turf, is the season-ending race of the year in Japan with a field partially determined by a ballot among racing fans.