British season moves into top gear
NEWMARKET HOSTS GUINEAS MEETING AS AMERICA STAGES KENTUCKY DERBY WEEK
The international flat racing season moves into top gear this week with major meetings programmed for Newmarket in the UK, France’s historic Chantilly racecourse and Churchill Downs in the USA.
Newmarket, the home of British flat racing, hosts the colts and fillies’ Classics of what promises to be another sweeping calendar of high-class race meetings extending up to October.
The boys take centre-stage on Saturday when a tentative field of 17 horses line up to contest the Group 1 2,000 Guineas over a mile.
The following day it’s the turn of the ladies to strut their stuff with 19 runners scheduled to run in the Group 1 1,000 Guineas, also over a mile.
Both races, that trace their origin to the 1800s, are worth a prize fund of £500,000 (Dh2.5m) each.
Across the mighty Atlantic, the USA’s 2018 flat season moves up a notch with the first of the Classics, the Grade I Kentucky Oaks and the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby, the highlights of the fiveday Derby Week.
Champions Day, which took place yesterday, thrilled thousands of fans by celebrating the greatest moments in the sport’s history and honouring its legendary jockeys and trainers.
Autograph sessions were conducted with legendary trainers like D. Wayne Lukas, a four-time Kentucky Derby winning handler and multiple Oaks and Derby-winning jockey Gary Stevens.
However, for most UAE connections, the focus will for the most part will be on Newmarket, with several Dubai-owned horses looking like big players in the Guineas double-header.
Godolphin’s inform handler, Charlie Appleby, must surely have as good a chance as any of sending out the UAE’s 10th winner of the 2,000 Guineas since, Shadeed, owned by Shaikh Maktoum Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, became the first of them when triumphing in 1985.
Appleby saddles Craven Stakes sensation, Masar, as he seeks a first Guineas victory for himself and fourth for Godolphin, who last won the contest in 2013 with the Jim Bolger-trained New Approach.
Good training
The last time Masar visited Newmarket he demolished his rivals and has since reportedly trained on well in the eyes of Appleby.
“Masar came out of the Craven very well and he has pleased at home since that race,” the trainer said. “The signs are good. I’m very happy with him going into
the Guineas, and I expect him to give a good account of himself.”
Shaikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and UAE Minister of Finance, has won the race twice with Nashwan in 1989 and Haafh in 2004, and appears to have a genuine contender in his ranks in Elarqam.
A son of the incomparable
Frankel, the Mark Johnstontrained colt is unbeaten in two starts including a resolute victory in the Group 3 Summerville Stakes at Newmarket last September.
Johnston is long due another Guineas success having last saddled a winner of the Classic in 1994 with Mister Baileys.
Fourteen horses with a UAE owner have won the 1,000 Guineas, the fillies Classic, since Ma Biche prevailed in the colours of Shaikh Maktoum Bin Rashid Al Maktoum in 1998.
Appleby is two handed in the contest with second favourite and Nell Gwyn Stakes (G3) scorer Soliloquy and Wild Illusion, already a Group 1 winner in France where she comfortably landed the Criterium des Pouliches, France’s only Group 1 contest for two-year-old fillies, last October.
No UAE-owned horse has ever won the Kentucky Derby (G1) but Godolphin handler Kiaran McLaughlin will be hoping the Grade 2 Jockey Club Stakes hero, Enticed, can end the drought when he competes in this year’s renewal of the ‘Run for the Roses.’