$12,000,000 Group 1 Dubai World Cup (Sponsored by Emirates Airline)
A change of plans with Forever Young saw the world’s best dirt horse undertake quieter work than intended at Meydan Racecourse on Wednesday morning, three days out from the 30th Dubai World Cup.
Japanese horses generally do their final fast gallop on the Wednesday before their target race. Forever Young still completed his main piece of exercise, a 1000m gallop on the Meydan dirt, but trainer Yoshito Yahagi instructed regular rider Ryusei Sakai to restrain the five-year-old more than originally planned.
“Ryusei Sakai breezed him over five furlongs this morning,” Yahagi said. “We decided to give him lighter work than originally planned due to the fast track conditions here at Meydan. We successfully completed exactly what we intended to do this morning, Ryusei Sakai executed as planned, he looked to have a spring in his step and all is well.”
Sakai added: “There were no problems. He’s in better shape than he was in Saudi Arabia, I think he’s in fantastic condition.”
Jamie Osborne was at Meydan on Wednesday to see Heart Of Honor go through his paces on the main track, and is hopeful that both a test of stamina and the A.P. Indy gelding’s progress through the season to date – albeit that hit a bump in the road in the Al Maktoum Classic on Super Saturday – put him in the mix.
“We were happy with him going into his last run and I’m hanging my hat on the fact that he reared up and Adrie [de Vries] said he banged his head on the top [of the stalls] very hard,” he said.
“If you watch the way he left the gate he kind of came out sideways. I am hopeful that is a legitimate excuse. We know he’s never going to be quick away, but he doesn’t need to be as slow as he was that day.”
Osborne’s daughter Saffie missed the ride on Super Saturday through illness but will be back on board in the World Cup, while the trainer himself is pleased with how Heart Of Honor is doing.
“This is the first time I’ve seen him for a couple of weeks, but Jimmy McCarthy has been extremely happy with him,” said Osborne. “His whole programme here has been working back from Saturday and so we’ve had a bit to work on with each race, and he was looking progressive until his last run.
“If we can be brave enough to ignore that and base our thoughts on what he’s done previously, yes he’s going to be an outsider but 2000 metres around here is ideal for him, especially if the track’s going to ride a little slow.
$5,000,000 Group 1 Dubai Turf (Sponsored by DP World)
John Gosden has seen as much as anyone in terms of the way this meeting has grown since Cigar won the inaugural Dubai World Cup 30 years ago, and Ombudsman heads into Saturday with credentials every bit as burnished as those of his previous winners here such as Dar Re Mi, Mishriff and Dubai Turf hat-trick hero, Lord North.
Ombudsman enjoyed a leg-stretch on the Tapeta training track under the watchful gaze of Gosden, who has had March 28 circled in the diary since confirming plans with owner and Godolphin founder HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
“It’s been the plan since last year,” said Gosden. “After York and Ascot we thought we’d freshen up, come here. It is the 30th year here and I think it’s important to come and it’s been very much the plan, [one] I discussed with Sheikh Mohammed back in October at the yearling sales in Newmarket, so we made this the target.
“It’s not easy, you’re training in the winter so we don’t have ideal weather for it. Given that we’ve got the rest of the season coming, I wanted to train him at home. He had a little away day at Chelmsford. We’re happy with him, he’s trained nicely and as I say, it’s been the plan since last October.”
Gosden added: “He’s bigger and stronger now and he’s a horse who’s got better with age. I suppose if you give them the chance, most of them will. But certainly his physique has developed, and he’s a more professional horse. He’s still edgy, he likes to look at everything. He’s got a very inquisitive mind. He likes to play and any excuse to play about, he goes for it.”
$2,000,000 Group 1 Dubai Golden Shaheen (Sponsored by Nakheel)
G1 Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Bentornato makes his five-year-old debut in the Dubai Golden Shaheen, aiming to become just the second horse to win both the American sprinting championship and its Emirati equivalent after Secret Circle.
Trainer Jose d’Angelo campaigned him in the Middle East as a three-year-old, finishing third in the G3 Saudi Derby behind Forever Young. The Venezuelan-born horseman believes that Bentornato has vastly improved since then, although he believes that he hit his peak towards the end of last season.
“He’s doing very well and he’s keeping his condition well,” d’Angelo said. “He’s handled the trip perfectly over here and he really likes this track too. Last time he was here (in the Middle East), he was unlucky to run against Forever Young and Book’em Danno. Hopefully, this time he wins.”
Bentornato drew gate two at Wednesday’s post position draw, not entirely ideal for a horse that d’Angelo says is “better drawn outside”.
“He has natural speed, so outside you have less pressure but the draw is what it is,” he said.
$1,500,000 Group 1 Al Quoz Sprint (Sponsored by AZIZI Developments)
The United States is not renowned for its turf sprinters, but its Al Quoz Sprint runners have generally surpassed expectations over time, culminating in the 2021 win by Extravagant Kid.
This year, it is Reef Runner who will fly the stars and stripes at Meydan. The American Grade 2 winner added to his record when landing the G2 1351 Turf Sprint in Saudi Arabia last start, defeating Lazzat by a neck.
“He’s adapted really well here, he seems to like this warm weather,” trainer David Fawkes said. “He has blossomed since he was gelded and we decided to run in the Breeders’ Cup where he finished fourth in the Turf Sprint. A friend of mine, Nick Esler, encouraged me to go to Saudi Arabia – that was obviously a good thing!
“I’m very confident ahead of Saturday. He’s been working excellent here and right now, I feel we have the horse to win this race.”
$1,000,000 Group 2 UAE Derby (Sponsored by Jumeirah)
Godolphin’s two UAE Derby winners over the past decade, Thunder Snow and Rebel’s Romance, developed into genuine superstars as older horses. This year, HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s operation will attempt to break new ground with Japanese contender Pyromancer.
Keiji Yoshimura-trained Pyromancer has won all three starts, including the JPNG1 Zen-Nippon Nisai Yushun over 1600m at Kawasaki last time out – a race previously won by UAE Derby winners Derma Sotogake and Forever Young.
“Pyromancer is one of our homebreds,” said Godolphin Japan president Harry Sweeney. “The Zen-Nippon Nisai Yushun is the only Group 1 for two-year-olds on dirt in Japan, so he was the champion dirt two-year-old.
“He’s an interesting horse, obviously he’s young and it’s his first time to travel abroad but he’s pretty highly rated. In theory, he has a very good chance but this is a horse race and we have enormous respect for all of these other runners as well.”
James Doyle takes his first ever UAE Derby ride on Pyromancer and Sweeney says he trusts that the rider will be able to end up in the right spot from gate nine.
“We’re happy with the draw, he travels well through his races so he’ll likely be second or third on the outside I’d think,” he said. “We’re very lucky to have James riding him, we think having an experienced Meydan jockey on board is a big help. James will sit on him here on Friday morning just to do a steady canter with him to get a feel.”
A natural progression for UAE Derby horses is towards the Run for the Roses, the G1 Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May. However, Sweeney says it is one step at a time for the son of 2008 Kentucky Derby eighth Pyro.
“We don’t like to get carried away,” he said. “We’ve been here before with other horses and left with our tails between our legs. We’ll concentrate on this race and if it goes well for us, we’ll consider the next option. Those are easy decisions to make, they don’t need to be made before the race.”
French trainer Richard Chotard is hoping history might repeat itself on Saturday, 14 years on from Yang Tse Kiang running a memorable second to Daddy Long Legs in this race.
Go Man has plenty of experience from a busy two-year-old campaign and has some good form with some of last season’s better juveniles in Europe.
Chotard said: “He finished third in the Arqana Sales race at Longchamp on Arc weekend and some of the horses around him like Cape Orator and Isaac Newton ran well in the Group 1s at Saint-Cloud afterwards so I was fairly sure I had a Group horse.
“He won his Listed race and that’s when I started dreaming of this race. He was third on his comeback at Cagnes-sur-Mer when he got a bit far back but it was still a good run and his closing fractions were excellent.
“He’s got speed, which you need for dirt, and I don’t think 1900 metres will bother him. Obviously the dirt is the unknown, but I have wonderful memories of running second in this race and when we were invited I didn’t hesitate for a second.”
Jim and Clare Bryce went agonisingly close to winning this race 12 months ago with Heart Of Honor, who this year will carry their colours in the $12 million Dubai World Cup itself.
They and trainer Jamie Osborne get the chance to try again in the three-year-old feature with Brotherly Love, a Zoustar half-brother to Heart Of Honor who won the Listed Dubai Road to the Kentucky Derby – formerly the Al Bastakiya – here in February.
“These are very young horses and they’re changing all the time, but I’ve been worried all the way through the carnival that this horse wasn’t just mature enough do what we were going to ask of him,” said Osborne. “He’s not quite as mature as his brother was at this stage last year. But looking at him this morning he looks like he’s done particularly well and his last breeze was by far the best he’s done in all the time he’s been here.
“I would like to think he’s improving at the right time and, like his brother, a stamina test is what he needs.”
$1,000,000 Group 2 Dubai Gold Cup (Sponsored by Al Tayer Motors)
The last time the Year of the Horse ticked around on the Chinese Zodiac calendar, Mick Halford tasted Dubai Gold Cup success in his own right when his hardy stayer Certerach just held off Godolphin’s Cavalryman. Behind them, Joseph O’Brien was aboard eighth Ernest Hemingway for his father Aidan.
Twelve years on, as the Year of the Horse dawns again, Halford is back in Dubai for the Gold Cup. A return to Meydan sparked memories for the Irish horseman.
“I’ve had some wonderful times here in the past, it’s a great buzz to be back,” Halford said. “We actually had two runners in that Gold Cup, Certerach and Dabadiyan, and Certerach got a lovely ride from Jamie Spencer – in typical Jamie style, he dropped him in and just landed him there. It was wonderful.”
This time, though, Halford is not among the trainers. Instead, he is assisting jockey-turned-trainer Joseph O’Brien who is double-handed in the 3200m staying test with G1 Irish St Leger winner Al Riffa and G2 Red Sea Turf Handicap hero Sons And Lovers.
“We’re really happy with them,” he said. “They are experienced travellers at this stage and they have settled in super. They’re eating well and everything has gone as planned.
“Sons And Lovers stuck to his guns really well in Saudi, Dylan (Browne McMonagle) gave him a great ride on the day. He’s an improving horse and we’re looking forward to seeing how he copes here now. And Al Riffa is a terrific horse, things didn’t go to plan really in the Melbourne Cup but I’m looking forward to seeing him here on a big, galloping track and going two miles on decent ground.”
Caballo De Mar adds richly to one of the most open races on Dubai World Cup night, with trainer George Scott eager to build on what was a breakthrough season for the son of Phoenix Of Spain.
The undoubted highlight was victory in the G1 Prix du Cadran over a marathon 4000m, a performance that means Caballo De Mar will be dining at the top table in 2026.
“He took us on an amazing trajectory last year and he has to start this year on a totally different playing field as a result of that,” said Scott. “He’s been away from home a couple of times and he’s absolutely ready to go.
“I always had this race as a great stepping stone into the European season, it’s not the be-all and end-all. But he’s got a great mind and the process will only benefit him. I’m happy with the way he’s training, he loves to go forward in his races and we’ll see how he stacks up against horses that are very much proven at this level.”