Round 1 of the Al Maktoum Challenge, the featured race on opening night of the Dubai Winter Carnival at Meydan, hardly was the first go-round for Barbecue Eddie.
The 9-year-old veteran began his career at Hollywood Park in June 2007 and was making the 36th start of his career Thursday. His 16th race at Meydan produced Barbecue Eddie’s first group stakes victory, a fairly comfortable 1 1/2-length victory over Out of Bounds in the Group 2 Al Maktoum Challenge.
The Dubai Winter Carnival begins Thursday night, and this being Year 4 of Meydan, the glamour racing palace rising from the Dubai desert no longer shocks with opulence quite the way it did in 2010. But even as the return of racing to Meydan has become routine, there are changes afoot at the Winter Carnival.
Logotype, a 33-1 outsider, held off a late threat from the 3-10 favorite Codino to win Sunday’s $1.832 million Asahi Hai Futurity at Nakayama Racecourse, Japan’s top race for 2-year-olds.
Ridden by Mirco Demuro, Logotype won his first Grade 1 race in the Asahi Hai Futurity, which was run over about a mile. Logotype stalked the early pace on the right-handed course, took the lead in early stretch, and was fully extended to win by a neck.
A Shin Top, an undefeated Kentucky-bred colt by Tale of the Cat, tries to win for the fourth time in Sunday’s $1.832 million Asahi Hai Futurity at Nakayama Racecourse. The Grade 1 Asahi Hai Futurity is Japan’s top race for 2-year-old males.
Owned by Eishindo Co. Ltd and trained by Masato Nishizono, A Shin Top has won three times over about seven furlongs and tries a new distance in the Asahi Hai Futurity, run over about a mile on a right-handed course.
Robe Tissage, a filly by Kentucky Derby winner War Emblem, won her first stakes in her third career start in Sunday’s $1.68 million Hanshin Juvenile Fillies, Japan’s top race for 2-year-old fillies.
Robe Tissage, ridden by Shinichiro Akiyama, broke from the inside and raced in the middle of the 18-filly field for the first part of the race over about a mile. Robe Tissage moved closer to the front in early stretch and caught leader Kurofune Surprise in the final sixteenth to win by a neck.
California Memory and Ambitious Dragon have been the two best Hong Kong-based horses the last two years, a point they drove home Sunday at Sha Tin Racecourse.
California Memory won the Group 1 Hong Kong Cup, becoming the race’s first two-time winner, while Ambitions Dragon, who came close to being scratched from the race because of lameness, won the Group 1Hong Kong Mile.
The day’s other two Group 1 stakes went to outsiders, with England-based Red Cadeaux capturing the Hong Kong Vase and the Japanese sprinter Lord Canaloa successful in the Hong Kong Sprint.
Cirrus des Aigles injured his left foreleg while training on Thursday at Sha Tin Racecourse in Hong Kong and had to be scratched from the Group 1 Hong Kong Cup on Sunday.
The setback was described in a veterinary report from the Hong Kong Jockey Club as a tendon injury. Cirrus des Aigles’s trainer, Corine Barande-Barbe, said the problem was with a ligament. Tendons connect bone to muscle, while ligaments connect bone to bone.
The four Group 1 stakes Sunday at Sha Tin on Hong Kong’s biggest day of racing will have to do without the best-known horse on the program as French invader Cirrus des Aigles has been withdrawn from the Hong Kong Cup after injuring a leg during training Thursday.
The November stakes winners Collector Item and Sound Rihanna are the leading contenders for Sunday’s Grade 1 Hanshin Juvenile Fillies in Japan, the nation’s top race for 2-year-old fillies.
Run over about a mile on turf and worth approximately $1.68 million, the Juvenile Fillies is considered the division’s championship race.
Both Collector Item and Sound Rihanna approach the race in top form.
Former British champion jockey Frankie Dettori has been suspended six months by French racing authorities after failing a drug test at Longchamp Racecourse in Paris in September.
The suspension, announced on Wednesday, is retroactive to Nov. 20 and will run until May 19, 2013.
Dettori, 41, will miss the Dubai Racing Carnival in the United Arab Emirates, and the early-season classics in England – the 1000 and 2000 Guineas. He will be eligible to return in time to ride major events in June such as the English Derby and Royal Ascot meeting.
