David Marnane believes the group of horses he has brought to this year’s Dubai World Cup Carnival from his native Ireland represents his strongest chances in the international race season to date.
He suspects the inclement weather that prevented his four charges, Elleval, He’s No Saint, Jamesie and Red Dubawi from making their planned January 28 departure from the Irish winter may play to his advantage on raceday.
“We couldn’t get the horses out of Ireland because we’ve had some bad weather and the ferries weren’t sailing,” said the trainer who will race three out of his four charges at the opening Dubai World Cup Carnival meeting on Thursday.
“It may have been a blessing in disguise,” said Marnane, whose horses arrived in Dubai on Sunday. “The horses have been trained for these races but we just adjusted the timescale so that the last piece of work took place in familiar surroundings at home instead of Dubai.
“Now we will just give them some light canters and essentially race them off the plane. Dandy Boy won like that for us in 2011 so it wasn’t the end of the world.”
Thursday will see Elleval, winner of the 2013 Meydan Classic Trial and runner-up in the Dubai World Cup-day UAE Derby, start his campaign in the Listed $150,000 Singspiel Stakes over 1800m of Meydan’s turf while Jamesie will race in a 1400m all-weather handicap and Red Dubawi has a spot in the 1000m turf sprint.
“We were lucky to get the horses out when we did because the weather was bad,” said Marnane, who like all Dubai-bound Irish trainers ships his horses across the Irish Sea to connect with flights from London’s Heathrow Airport.
Interestingly, Marnane has a strong connect with Dubai. He spent eight years in the emirate with stints as assistant to two former UAE Champion Trainers, Kieran McLaughlin and Doug Watson.
“Dubai has been very good to us,” he said. “This will be our fourth season at the Carnival and we have been lucky to have a winner every year and made Dubai World Cup night with two of our runners when Elleval ran second in the 2013 UAE Derby and Nocturnal Affair was sixth in the Al Quoz Sprint in 2012.”
