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Captain's Blog - Monday 2nd April 2012

Good Morning everyone. Here are some reflections on the Dubai World Cup meeting which graced our screens on Saturday.

Firstly, lets start on a positive note. The Meeting as a whole was a tremendous advert for what can be achieved in terms of International Racing. As long as the prize money is good enough the horses will come.

The Dubai World Cup on Tapeta is not what it was when it was run on Dirt. It would seem that the surface does not lend itself to creating champions like Cigar and Dubai Millenium. The race did throw up a truly run contest this year and Monterosso outstayed his opponents on the deep slow Tapeta. I have no idea why the track was prepared to ride in such a fashion but it was slow and it was hard to make up ground from off the pace. As such the surface itself had a lot to do with the result of the Dubai World Cup. The final race time of a tick or two over 2 minutes 2 seconds which, given the condition of the track, was a good one. The subsequent speed figure will probably be respectable.

African Story who won the Godolpin Mile is a real synthetic freak! The improvement he has shown since switching to Tapeta has been nothing short of sensational. He will remain a force on this surface, something we must bear in mind when he contests turf races in Europe this summer.

Rocket Man is one of the best sprinters in the world but he was simply blown away by Krypton Factor in the Al Quoz sprint. That statement in itself is quite remarkable and I am struggling to find words to accurately describe what I actually saw. Lets leave it at this, sometimes horses find untold improvement from absolutely nowhere and this is a case in point and the performance is inexplicable although there may be an explanation out there somewhere!

James Doyle is a tremendous judge of pace and importantly he can get horses to settle in their races. That is exactly what he did on Cityscape when winning the Dubai Duty Free. This lad is going to be top class and for now he looks set to form a formidable partnership with Roger Charlton.

Joseph O'Brien will have found the whole Dubai experience to be a steep learning curve and will emerge a better jockey for it. Many will criticise his ride on St Nicholas Abbey in the Sheema Classic but in my opinion he did little wrong and to be beaten a neck by Cirrus Des Aigles is no disgrace at all, but Joseph what were you doing on Await the Dawn!

Australian Sprinters are the best in the world. Ortensia from that part of the world won a very strongly run Al Quoz sprint and jockey Craig Williams was quick to acknowledge that there are at least two sprinters who are better back in OZ, one of which is of course Black Caviar. Boy if she makes it to Ascot I am going to try and be there to see her because she really has a claim to being the best horse we have seen for many years.

The Dubai Gold Cup should not have been re-run. I know that is easy to say in hindsight, but after Fox Hunt lost his life first time around the authorities were playing Russian Roulette running the race at the end of the card and I am afraid the decision backfired with two more horses losing their lives. This race casts an unwelcome shadow over an otherwise tremendous meeting and as an industry we must not let the like happen again. It is asking too much for horses to compete in half a race, cool down, relax and then three hours later race again. Horse welfare must be paramount in our decision making for the sport and although nobody was to know what was going to happen second time around surely the risk was not worth taking in the first place.

A few random thoughts for you to chew on.

Have a good day.

Today’s Selection

4.15 Redcar - Klynch (each way)