Gamilati, a two-time stakes winner for the Maktoum family’s Godophin racing, will miss the English 1000 Guineas this spring after having a bone chip removed from an ankle, Godolphin announced on its website earlier this week.
By Bernardini, Gamilati is expected to return to training later this spring, according to Godolphin racing manager Simon Crisford. The surgery was conducted in Dubai.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – With 3-year-olds Went the Day Well and Howe Great back home preparing for America’s Triple Crown series, trainer Graham Motion and owner Barry Irwin had the luxury of shipping Lucky Chappy halfway around the world for Saturday’s $2 million UAE Derby at Meydan.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Last year, trainer Bob Baffert was second to one in the $2 million Golden Shaheen with Euroears, who got beat by Rocket Man in the $2 million race at six furlongs over Meydan’s synthetic surface.
Baffert has returned for another crack at the Golden Shaheen with speed merchant The Factor. Problem is, Rocket Man also has returned to defend his title, and with a gaudy record of 19 wins and 4 seconds from 25 career starts, he remains the horse to beat.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – There is a Ladies Night theme to this year’s Dubai World Cup. It centers on jockeys Hayley Turner and Chantal Sutherland, the first females to ride on World Cup Night. Then there is the champion 3-year-old filly Royal Delta, who is attempting to become the first female horse to win the $10 million Dubai World Cup.
The filly Silent Achiever, who beat males in the Group 1 New Zealand Derby in Auckland on March 3, will be favored to win her fifth group stakes of 2012 in Saturday’s $535,000 Rosehill Guineas at Rosehill Gardens racecourse in Sydney, Australia.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – If Presvis is to repeat his victory from a year ago in Saturday night’s $5 million Dubai Duty Free at Meydan, he is going to have to improve on the form he has displayed thus far this year.
In two starts at Meydan this winter, Presvis finished fifth in the Group 2 Al Rashidya and ninth in the Group 1 Jebel Hetta, both stepping-stones to the Duty Free.
Trainer Luca Cumani said simply his horse has been compromised by slow paces in both of those races.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – For someone who suffered a heart attack approximately 57 hours earlier, Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert looked pretty good Wednesday morning.
Baffert, 59, was up and walking about his palatial suite on the eighth floor of City Hospital in Dubai on Wednesday morning when a handful of visitors walked in to see him.
“I’m alive and grateful,” Baffert said in an interview with Daily Racing Form. “Actually, I feel pretty good. We caught the problem before it happened. Luckily, I had my wife Jill with me on this trip.”
Meydan Racecourse's nine race Dubai World Cup card, with its eight Group stakes worth a combined $27 million, has blossomed into a global racing event.
Saturday's proceedings kick off with the $250,000 Dubai Kahayla Classic, a 2000 meter Group 1 race for Arabians.
