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.
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.
Flotilla won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Santa Anita in 2012 and the Group 1 French 1000 Guineas at Longchamp last May. She was fourth behind Certify in the Group 2 Cape Verdi Stakes at Meydan on Jan. 30.
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.
Variety Club, two times South Africa’s Horse of the Year, looked particularly sharp winning the Group 3, $200,000 Firebreak Stakes in his first start outside South Africa.
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.
The UAE 2000 Guineas, carded for about one mile on the Tapeta main track at Meydan, drew 11 entrants and is difficult to figure in no small part because two of the Godolphin horses in the race, Long John and Paximadia, both are making their first start outside Australia while making their all-weather-racing-surface debut.
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.
Chriselliam had been transferred from a veterinary clinic near trainer Charlie Hills’s base west of London to a clinic in Newmarket, England, on Wednesday for continued supervision. It was determined on Friday that she could not recover, and the decision was made to euthanize her.
Prince Bishop, a 17-1 outsider, won his first Group 2 stakes since 2010 with an upset in Thursday’s $250,000 Round 2 of the Maktoum Challenge at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai.
Prince Bishop ran about 1 3/16 miles on the Tapeta Footings synthetic track in 1:55.67, setting a track record at a venue that opened in 2010.
The win makes the 7-year-old Prince Bishop a candidate for the $10 million Dubai World Cup at Meydan on March 29. Prince Bishop was seventh in the 2012 Dubai World Cup.
The Group 1 winners Dunaden, Heavy Metal, and Hunter’s Light are three of the 16 runners in Thursday’s $250,000 Round 2 of the Maktoum Challenge at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai, a prep for the $10 million Dubai World Cup on March 29.
Hunter’s Light, one of three runners in the field owned by the Maktoum family’s Godolphin Racing, won Round 2 of the Maktoum Challenge in 2013 and was later seventh in the Dubai World Cup. Round 2 of the Maktoum Challenge is run over 1 3/16 miles on the Tapeta Footings synthetic track. The Dubai World Cup is run over 1 1/4 miles.
Making her first start since September 2012, the 4-year-old filly Certify made an excellent return to the races, scoring a measured three-quarter-length victory over longshot L’Amour De Ma Vie in the Group 2, $200,000 Cape Verdi Stakes on turf Thursday at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai.
Trade Storm was virtually unknown when he began racing in Dubai at about this time last year, but the horse who had struggled to gain traction on English racecourses found his niche at Meydan, moving up mightily on the fast-playing, left-handed course to become one of the better grass runners of the 2013 World Cup Carnival.
Anaerobio, a Group 1 winner in Argentina in 2010, won his first group stakes in Dubai in Thursday’s $250,000 Al Fahidi Fort Stakes on turf at Meydan Racecourse.
Ridden by Christophe Soumillon for Michael de Kock, Anearobio stalked pacesetter Pearl Flute for the first six furlongs while racing on the rail. Soumillon guided the 7-year-old Anearobio off the rail in the stretch, and took the lead, holding off a late threat from Mshawish to win the seven-furlong turf race by three-quarters of a length.
