Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Salute the Soldier stretches in Al Maktoum Challenge
Three times in the 24-year history of the Dubai World Cup has the race’s winner exited a win in the Al Maktoum Challenge Round 3, and it’s been a while. Dubai Millennium in 2000, Street Cry in 2002, and Electrocutionist in 2006 are the only horses to pull the double in the same year, and if there is a 2021 World Cup winner entered in this year’s renewal of the race, he is hard to find.
The Group 1, $390,000 Al Maktoum Challenge Round 3, run over the World Cup trip of 2,000 meters on dirt, headlines the Super Saturday card at Meydan, a seven-race program composed of preps for World Cup Night races. The headliner in the Maktoum Challenge is – well, no one, really. The division has seemed soft all winter, and Saturday’s race offers no contrary evidence.
Salute the Soldier at 113 is the highestrated among 11 entrants and the antepost favorite with British bookmakers offering fixed-odds wagering on Super Saturday. Salute the Soldier is an admirable beast, to be sure, but he also is a 6-year-old with 20 starts behind him and lone wins at the Group 3 and Group 2 level atop his résumé. The Group 3 came during the 2020 World Cup Carnival, when Salute the Soldier tried dirt for the first time and won the Burj Nahaar, a one-turn mile prep for the Godolphin Mile. The Group 2 came Feb. 11, when Salute the Soldier raced for the first time at a distance longer than 1,700 meters and won the Al Maktoum Challenge Round 2, contested at 1,900 meters, or about 1 3/16 miles. On the one hand, the gelding is relatively unexposed on dirt and even less so at a distance as long as Saturday’s. On the other, his position atop the betting markets suggests this is soft Group 1 race indeed.
The greatc ollection made a nice, sustained bid in the Maktoum Challenge Round 2 to wind up second behind Salute the Soldier, but here we have a 7-year-old whose long career has been formed around the idea he’s a miler. Maybe he’s not, but maybe he finished second last out for lack of a more capable alternative.
Hypothetical and Dubai Mirage are 4-year-olds who surely have more potential for improvement than their older rivals. Hypothetical has gotten in four starts while wintering for the first time in Dubai and has improved considerably. Rated 92 when he made his Dubai debut in January, he now is up to 110 on the ratings after a Feb. 18 handicap win over 1,600 meters on dirt. He performed poorly but Hypothetical did get three tries at 2,000 meters while campaigning in England during 2020, and the added ground might not hurt him. Dubai Mirage makes his stakes debut Saturday and might lack the quality to contend, but he’s being given a chance by Godolphin and trainer Saeed bin Suroor, who has given the mount to Frankie Dettori.
The Maktoum Challenge Round 3 is the sixth of seven races on the card, first post set for 9 a.m. Eastern. You can catch all the action at DRFBets.com – and all the action includes another Group 1, the $260,000 Jebel Hatta over 1,800 meters on turf. This is a prep for the Dubai Turf over the same distance on the World Cup card, and it drew the second- and third-place finishers from the last race in this division, the Al Rashidiya on Feb. 11. Zakouski, who is not racing Saturday, won that race by threequarters of a length making a strong run from midpack. Court House won a photo over Lord Glitters for second, but where Court House led on a slow pace, Lord Glitters had to make his late run into horses finishing fast after an easy tempo.
Lord Glitters, who won his first start of the winter, probably is sitting on a strong performance, but Al Suhail looms a danger for Godolphin, trainer Charlie Appleby, and jockey William Buick. A 4-year-old by Dubawi, Al Suhail was thrown into the English 2000 Guineas in his first start at age 3 and found the water too deep, finishing 14th. Back racing in July, facing listedstakes foes over one mile at Newmarket, Al Suhail posted a visually impressive sixlength victory, and the colt surely has been held back awaiting this spot and, if all goes well, the Dubai Turf on March 27.
North America, the seventh-place finisher as the favorite in the 2019 World Cup, starts in the Group 3, $220,000 Burj Nahaar, a one-turn dirt mile prep for the Godolphin Mile. North America hasn’t raced since the inaugural Saudi Cup in February 2020, when he finished 13th of 14, and is a 9-year-old now. This 16-strong field also includes Midnight Sands, who raced during the 2020 World Cup Carnival and had a modest three-start American campaign last fall.
There is new blood in the American import Premier Star in the Group 3, $228,000 Mahaab al Shimaal, a dirt sprint prep for the Group 1 Golden Shaheen on March 27. Trained in America by Mike Trombetta, Premier Star, now a 4-yearold, won four of his seven starts, one of the losses coming when he was tried around two turns in the Sam Davis Stakes. Last summer, he finished third in the Grade 2 Amsterdam at Saratoga before posting an easy win in the Jersey Shore Stakes at Monmouth Park. Premier Star now resides in the stables of Doug Watson, annually a leading dirt trainer in Dubai.
The Nad Al Sheba Turf Sprint, a prep for the Group 1 Al Quoz, drew 14 entrants, though Equilateral, who has posted the top performances in the division this winter, is not among them. Acklam Express finished second to Equilateral on Feb. 18 while making his Dubai debut for English trainer Nigel Tinkler and should have a decent chance to break through Saturday.
The Group 2, $228,000 City of Gold, a nominal prep for the Group 1 Sheema Classic over the same 2,410-meter trip, lured only seven entrants. Mishriff, the Saudi Cup winner last month, was announced Wednesday as an intended Sheema Classic starter, while American turf champion Channel Maker has been based in Dubai since finishing second in the Neom Turf Cup on Feb. 20 in Saudi Arabia.