Alexandros ran away from an evenly matched field at Meydan on Thursday night, drawing clear to take the Group 3, $200,000, Al Rashidiya by 3 1/2 lengths from Crowded House. His owner, Godolphin, thus won the first race run on the Meydan turf course after Alexandros traveled the 1 1/8 miles in 1:51.74 on good to firm ground.

The Group 3, $200,000 Al Rashidiya will be the first race run on Meydan's new turf course Thursday night. The 1 1/8-mile prep for the $5 million Dubai Duty Free lost some luster when the expected favorite, Presvis, opted for Friday night's 1 1/4-mile handicap on the synthetic track as his initial trial for the Dubai World Cup.

Gio Ponti heads the list of 288 free nominations to the $10 million Dubai World Cup at Meydan on March 27. Favored by all of the British bookmakers for the world's richest race, the 2009 Eclipse Award winner as both best older horse and best turf horse was one of 45 American-trained horses nominated to the World Cup at the first entry stage that closed Jan. 13. The list does not include Zenyatta.

Sacred Kingdom won but Good Ba Ba came a cropper in a pair of Hong Kong Group 1 races at Sha Tin on Sunday. The co-highest-rated sprinter in the world, Sacred Kingdom upheld his reputation with a handy score in the five-furlong, $579,100 Centenary Sprint Cup, while Good Ba Ba finished third behind Fellowship in the one-mile, $1 million Stewards Cup.

Cannonball failed to fire at Flemington on Saturday as the first American-trained horse to run in Australia finished ninth of 11 in the Group 1, $450,000 Lightning Stakes, a five-furlong sprint that was taken by the Royal Ascot-bound Nicconi.

Sacred Kingdom, the co-high-rated sprinter last year on the World Thoroughbred Rankings, will attempt to continue his winning ways at Sha Tin on Sunday when he starts as the strong favorite in the $579,000 Centenary Sprint Cup, a straight five-furlong dash with domestic Hong Kong Group 1 cachet.

Gloria de Campeao rallied along the rail to win Round 1 of the $200,000 Maktoum Challenge on Meydan Racecourse's opening night Thursday in Dubai, catching the favored Midshipman, who weakened to finish fourth in the Group 3 mile on Meydan's new Tapeta surface.

Cannonball will make history as the first American-trained horse to run in Australia on Saturday when he lines up for the $450,000 Lightning Stakes, a five-furlong Group 1 sprint at Flemington that serves as the first leg of the Global Sprint Challenge.

Meydan Racecourse will celebrate its grand opening in Dubai on Thursday night with an eight-race card worth $930,000 highlighted by Round 1 of the $200,000 Maktoum Challenge, a Group 3 mile with implications down the road for both the Dubai World Cup and the Godolphin Mile.

The glittering new racecourse/hotel complex that replaces Nad Al Sheba as the United Arab Emirates' equine showpiece will play host to perhaps the strongest Round 1 of the Maktoum Challenge in its history. Godolphin will be unloading two of its big guns right off the bat in Midshipman and My Indy.

Vodka won her second consecutive Horse of the Year award on Monday from the Japan Racing Association in a vote of Japanese racing journalists. A 5-year-old mare trained by Katsuhiko Sumii for Yuzo Tanimizu, Vodka won the 1 1/2-mile Japan Cup on Nov. 29 to cap a campaign that included victories in a pair of Grade 1 miles, the Victoria Mile and the Yasuda Kinen.