Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Roy H brings his sprint show to Dubai’s Golden Shaheen
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – For a couple years Roy H acted like a morning glory, but since being gelded and kept to dirt racing he has covered himself in glory.
Only bad luck in the Bing Crosby Stakes last summer kept him from a perfect six start 2017 campaign. America’s best sprinter moves his show to Dubai on Saturday night as a formidable favorite in the Group 1, $2 million Dubai Golden Shaheen.
With Muarrab and Shillong scratched, eight are set for the Shaheen, run over 1,200 meters (about six furlongs) on the Meydan dirt and carded as race 6 (post time 10:40 a.m. Eastern).
Americans have dominated dirt renewals of the race and have a strong presence this year, with Mind Your Biscuits and X Y Jet the most likely winners should Roy H falter.
It doesn’t look like he will. Roy H won the Breeders’ Cup Sprint by a neck, got a winter break, and bossed three rivals Feb. 3 in the Palos Verdes Stakes, his Golden Shaheen prep.
“He’s just a freak of nature,” trainer Peter Miller said. “He does things other horses don’t do. He won that last race just galloping – it looked like a morning breeze.”
Roy H, a 6-year-old owned by Rockingham Ranch and David Bernsen, had the morning breeze down pat from the beginning but won only one of his first 11 starts.
“He worked like a champion in the morning, but he’d just kind of go around there in the afternoon,” Miller said. “When a horse is cheating, sometimes the best thing you can do is castrate them.”
Gelded and given time to get over nagging minor injurues, Roy H had his coming-out party in the True North Handicap at Belmont last June. At odds-on, and with Kent Desormeaux to ride, he’s easily the most likely winner at Meydan Saturday.
Mind Your Biscuits overcame post 14 to win the 2017 Shaheen. He drew post 1 for Saturday’s race, and that has trainer Chad Summers concerned. Mind Your Biscuits likes to settle and finish, and if he’s not ridden for position at the start, he risks a difficult trip. Also, Mind Your Biscuits has lost four in a row, but Summers insists he’s as good as a year ago.
“He’s going to have to bring his ‘A’ race to beat Roy H, but his ‘A’ race is good enough,” Summers said.
X Y Jet was heavily favored to win the 2016 Shaheen, but was physically compromised and got nipped by Muarrab. He since has undergone two surgeries and corresponding layoffs, but X Y Jet has won three in a row, including the Feb. 16 Pelican at Tampa by seven lengths, and is the likely pacesetter.
“Tampa was the best I’ve seen him come out of the gate,” trainer Jorge Navarro said. “I was like, ‘Wow, who’s this?’ It usually takes him two steps and he’s gone. If they give me a breather on the lead, he’s going to carry that speed.”
Jordan Sport made the lead in the local Shaheen prep March 10, winning by more than seven lengths in his dirt debut. Well done – but there were no American sprinters in that race.
Godolphin Mile wide open
This was supposed to be Sharp Azteca’s Godolphin Mile, but injury kept him in America and in his absence just about anything could happen.
The $1 million Godolphin Mile has 14 entrants and no defined favorite, though the American shipper Economic Model surely will be popular on the North American tote.
Economic Model, privately purchased this winter, will remain in Dubai and move into the stable of trainer Nicholas Bachalard after becoming trainer Chad Brown’s first Dubai starter. Troubled by sore feet at times, Economic Model found his best form again this winter, and his 1 3/4-length victory over Irish War Cry on Feb. 24 in the one-mile Hal’s Hope at Gulfstream is good enough to win this.
Heavy Metal took a step back finishing fourth here March 10 as the favorite in the Burj Nahaar, and he races for the first time for trainer Sandeep Jadhav. Previous trainer Salem bin Ghadayer is serving a oneyear suspension for a positive for the anesthetic ketamine.
The American expatriate Kimbear won the Burj Nahaar but is stuck in post 12 Saturday, and the pick to win this muddle is Musawaat, who raced against the speed-favoring grain of the Meydan dirt surface when a rallying third behind Kimbear.