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Angus McNae

Captain's Blog - 13th January 2011

2011 Dubai International Racing Carnival

Its Carnival time once again and you can follow all of the action from day 1 of this years event from Meydan live on . I am a big fan of this event which provides competitive action on both Tapeta and Turf and with generous prize money top class horses from all over the world converge on the UAE every January thanks to this event.

The Carnival culminates in Super Thursday which is a warm up for Dubai World Cup night itself. This structure enables trainers to plan a horses campaign from January to March, indeed the path to the big races on World Cup night is a well trodden one. For example the Maktoum Challenge round 1 takes place today and then there are two further rounds leading up to the World Cup itself. Round three is more relevant to the big race and takes place on Super Thursday but it is not unknown for round 1 competitors to run well in the big race indeed Gloria Di campeao won both last year. This structured programme and truncated length of the Carnival means that the pool of horses in Dubai tend to run quite often against each other providing punters and form students with plenty of opportunities to evaluate the form.

Last year was the year that brought an end to the dirt track at Nad Al Sheba and saw the emergence of the shiny brand new Meydan. I believe this new venue has brought about a fundamental change to the Dubai World Cup and to the Carnival meeting. The awe inspiring new stand is accompanied by a brand new synthetic surface for the horses to race on. Gone was the speed favouring dirt surface of Nad Al Sheba with its stinging kickback and in its place Tapeta, a bouncy polytrack like surface designed by Michael Dickinson. With this change of surface came a change to the style of Racing that we had become accustomed to in Dubai. The surface has been welcomed by horsemen and the media alike, but whilst it is a fairer and safer surface it is doubtful if it will ever produce the kind of performances that the likes of Cigar, Moon Ballad and Dubai Millenium were able to put up on the dirt.

Synthetic surfaces worldwide tend to produce close finishes and exciting racing. Horses can win from the front or when held up. The pace of the races tends to be more akin to turf racing where there is no need to show early pace out of the stalls to get out of the kickback. A lack of early pace usually results in a host of horses bunching up come the final two furlongs for the mad dash for home. Thrilling stuff, you only have to revisit the three way photo finish to the 2010 Dubai World Cup to see what I mean. There were many close finishes last year at Meydan and statistically the winners were evenly spread between those that were on the pace, sat mid division or were held up. We are set for much of the same this year, but the days of a Dubai Millenium running lung bursting early fractions, going clear of his field and then maintaining the gallop all the way to the line are gone. That style of racing produces champions who put up scintillating performances on the clock.

Synthetic surfaces like Tapeta are more conducive to cruising on the bridle and quickening and give every horse whatever its track position in the race a fair chance. Yes I morn the worldwide demise of dirt surfaces like the one at Nad Al Sheba, but they have been sacrificed at the alter of horse welfare and even if that sacrifice will not give us performances that take the breath away it will give us exciting finishes and injury free horses. This less attritional surface will also attract more horses to the Carnival which will make the Racing more competitive in itself which is very much the vision that Sheikh Mohammed had for this event.

Tapeta and polytrack are surfaces that are a lot more akin to turf than dirt and as such you could ask why do they bother to race on the turf at Meydan. The answer is that the Carnival seeks to provide opportunities for top class horses from all over the world and that includes our turf champions. Studies in America show that whilst Tapeta rides in a similar way to turf it is not the same, indeed turf racing is much more reliant on pace in the final quarter mile than synthetic racing and as such it maintains an important place at Meydan where as at Nad Al Sheba it is very hard to make all the running.

The Turf track is superb and very fair, indeed in a recent interview on Kieren Fallon acclaimed it to be the best turf track in the world. There is no bias and the long home straight gives horses plenty of time to get organised and deliver a challenge.

This years Carnival looks set to be very competitive and will I believe be just as lucrative for Godolphin and Mike De Kock as last year was. De Kock is a master at preparing horses to win the big races here and understands what it takes to peak on World Cup night. He does not always have his horses cherry ripe first time out as he is aware of future targets, but you can be sure he will take his share of big prizes. Team Godolphin will also do well this year. Meydan is the dream of Sheikh Mohammed and he will want his team to win the big races. At the track these two super powers have a far better strike rate than anybody else. Saeed Bin Suroor strikes at 18% and De Kock at 16%.

It is no surprise that the best jockeys are those connected to these trainers and the top three boast impressive numbers. Dettori strikes at 22% Soumillon at 23%. These two are obviously the guys for the big occasions but keep an eye on Harry Bentley who has been doing well in the UAE of late riding for Satish Seemar who looks set to improve on a dismal season last year.

De Kock has a good chance of winning the opening race this afternoon with Mahbooba. Soumillon is on board this filly who is a Grade 1 winner in her native South Africa. She is by Galileo and her ultimate aim will be the UAE 1000 Guineas and I suspect this 7 furlong trial will not be adequate, but it will be a perfect stepping stone to the guineas which is run over further and was won by De Kock last year. Saeed Bin Suroor may well win Round 1 of the Maktoum Challenge with Mendip. This horse won twice at Meydan last year and came up against a top class horse in Musir when beaten by that fellow in last years UAE Derby. He has a long way to go to be World Cup horse but Round 1 of the Cahllenge is an ideal start for this lightly raced horse.

I hope all of this wets your appetite for the Carnival. If you have never taken the event seriously I urge you to give it a go this year you will not be disappointed. Richard Hoiles will take you through it all this afternoon on .

Time for me to get some kip after a sleepless night with my new daughter who seems to have a Pavarotti style set of lungs on her!

All the best.

 

Today’s Selection

6:15 Meydan – Mendip (SP)

 

 

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