Zoom, a locally based 6-year-old gelding, was elevated to first in Saturday's Sandy Lane Barbados Gold Cup in Bridgetown, Barbados, after fellow local Show Me the Money was disqualified.
In a rarity for the 30-year-old event, the biggest race in the Caribbean, the Barbados-based Show Me the Money, who crossed the wire first at 10-1 odds, was ruled guilty of inteferring with another local, 7-2 third choice Apostle, in the early stretch of the race and was demoted to 11th place.
Twice Over moved into the Dubai World Cup catbird seat with a decisive victory in the Group 2, $300,000 Maktoum Challenge at Meydan on Thursday night. Trained by Henry Cecil for Juddmonte Farms, the 6-year-old son of Observatory rallied widest of all to defeat the Mike de Kock-trained Musir by 2 3/4 lengths with Team Valor’s Gitano Hernando third, a nose behind the runner-up. Twice Over, who had not run since Oct. 16 when winning Newmarket’s 1 1/4-mile, Group 1 Champion Stakes, was immediately installed as the general favorite by British bookmakers for the March 26 World Cup.
Safety Zone and Grand Cash head a field of 12 for Saturday’s 30th Sandy Lane Gold Cup at the Garrison Savannah in Bridgetown, Barbados.
The Gold Cup, worth $115,000, is the biggest race in the Caribbean and contested at about 1 1/8 miles on the turf.
Owner Eugene Melnyk seeks his third Gold Cup, this time with Safety Zone, a 7-year-old son of King Cugat that he claimed for $40,000 last October through trainer Mark Casse.
Safety Zone promptly won the Labeeb Stakes at one mile on the Woodbine turf in his first start for Melnyk three weeks after being claimed.
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Mont Pelato’s plans to come to America for the Blue Grass Stakes and a possible tilt at the Kentucky Derby hit a snag at Cagnes-sur-Mer on Saturday when the Forest Danger colt backed up to finish ninth in the listed $75,000 Prix Policeman.
Thomas Huet put Mont Pelato on the lead almost from the start of the 1 1/4-mile Fibresand stakes and opened up a five-length lead at the halfway point. He led to the eighth pole and then stopped as the 20-1 Nicolas Clement-trained Inscrutable held off the 5-1 Mariage Tardif by a head for the victory.
Victoire Pisa, winner of the Arima Kinen, will use Sunday’s $1.5 million Nakayama Kinen to prepare for his March 26 date in the $10 million Dubai World Cup. The 1 1/8-mile, Grade 2 turf contest at Nakayama Racecourse just east of Tokyo has attracted 12 contestants.
DUBAI RACING CARNIVAL: Past performances, race analysis, and results
Mont Pelato’s bold American ambitions start on Saturday at the unlikely venue of Cagnes-sur-Mer, a racecourse that lies just a few miles from the ritzy seafront resort of Nice on the French Riviera where he will use the listed, $75,000 Prix Policeman at 1 1/4 miles as a trial for Keeneland’s Blue Grass Stakes. An undefeated Kentucky-bred son of Forest Danger, Mont Pelato already owns two wins going 1 3/16 miles on the Deauville Fibresand track, so the extra sixteenth on the Cagnes Fibersand strip should be right up his alley.
The Dubai Racing Carnival at Meydan this winter has been largely a battle between Mike de Kock and Godolphin. On Thursday night, Godolphin’s boys in blue got the upper hand when the Saeed bin Suroor-trained Khawlah upset the odds-on de Kock-trained Mahbooba in the $250,000, Group 3 UAE Oaks.
