Sunday evening’s final card of the season at Abu Dhabi is a cracker with their biggest Thoroughbred race of the season, the 2,200m Group 3 Abu Dhabi Championship and the Purebred Arabian equivalent, the Group 1 Arabian Championship the obvious highlights.
Victory in the Thoroughbred race last season for the Doug Watson-trained Jutland was enough to earn him an invitation to the Dubai Gold Cup on World Cup night, in which he was fourth, and Watson’s charge seeks an unprecedented second win in the race.
The most interesting runner has to be Mushreq, owned by Sheikh Hamdan and trained by South African Mike De Kock, who won this race in 2009 with Mr Brock.
He won the Listed Singspiel Stakes at the first meeting of this year’s Carnival. He has not won in three starts since, but has run well enough in defeat, including a close fifth in Super Saturday’s Group 1 Jebel Hatta last weekend.
The 2011 winner Topclas, his stablemate Jamr, last year’s third Dormello and the Satish Seemartrained Dormello are others to consider.
Over the same 2,200m, the Group 1 Emirates Championship sees Musharab attempt to become the third horse to win the race more than once.
He is trained by Majed Al Jahouri for Sheikh Mansour.
“Sunday’s conditions suit him better and we expect a big run.”
Should the Al Jahouri runners fail to fire, the Eric Lemartineltrained Albar Lotois appears the most likely to benefit.
