Sire De Grugy, a winner of eight of 11 career starts in steeplechases, is favored to win the richest race of his career in Wednesday’s $581,000 Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham Racecourse in western England.

An 8-year-old gelding, Sire De Grugy was the 9-4 favorite Monday for the Champion Chase, the top race of the year for two-mile steeplechasers in England. The Champion Chase, which drew a field of 11, is the featured race on the second of four consecutive days of Cheltenham’s National Hunt Festival.

Other than Shea Shea’s successful return to action in the Meydan Sprint, and, to a slightly lesser extent, Vercingetorix’s victory in the Jebel Hatta Stakes, the results of the Super Saturday card at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai did little to bring into focus the blurry picture still being projected of the March 29 Dubai World Cup card.

No horse has won more Grade 1 races than Hurricane Fly, the 10-year-old hurdler from Ireland.

From November 2008 until January of this year, Hurricane Fly has won 19 Grade 1 races for hurdlers in England and Ireland. By comparison, John Henry won 16 Grade 1 races in the early 1980s, the same number that the British steeplechase horse Kauto Star won in the late 2000s.

Two of Hurricane Fly’s wins were the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham, a race he is favored to win for the third time Tuesday.

The growing influence of South African racehorses in Dubai has never been more evident than on the Super Saturday program at Meydan, where South African-breds are entered in all seven of the Thoroughbred stakes and should be favored to win four of them.

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.

The eight-race card, drawn Tuesday, includes preps for all the major races on the March 29 Dubai World Cup program and is headlined by the Group 1, $400,000 Al Maktoum Challenge Round 3, the final local stepping-stone to the $10 million Dubai World Cup.

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.

Ridden by Hironobu Tanabe, Copana Rickey was near the front throughout the dirt race over a mile. Copana Rickey stalked pacesetter A Shin Top early, took the lead with a quarter-mile remaining, and won by a half-length over Hokko Tarumae. Belshazzar, the 8-5 favorite, finished third in the field of 16, 2 1/4 lengths behind the winner.

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.

The February Stakes, run over a mile, is the first Grade 1 race of the year in Japan.

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.

Certify, the 2-5 favorite with British bookmakers, could only finish fourth in the field of six, her first loss in her sixth career start.