By Duane Fonseca
Godolphin asserted themselves well and truly at Meydan on the third night of the Dubai World Cup Carnival Friday night, winning themselves the feature event on the programme, the Group 2 Zabeel Mile, yet again. Winning the turf feature turned out to be a case of all-round number crunching as Master Of The Seas’ triumph brought the royal blue silks of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum a ninth success in the race while delivering a fifth win for jockey William Buick and a fourth win in the last five runnings for trainer Charlie Appleby.
Additionally, Buick opened his carnival account with the win, which also turned out to be the recently crowned 2022 British Champion Flat Jockey’s 150th UAE winner. Better still, when it came to timing, Buick zipped across the finish, lowering the time for the 1600m turf trip at Meydan by clocking 1:34.28, which was tad quicker than the 1:34.47 he recorded aboard Valiant Prince 11 months ago.
Buick and his 5yo gelded Dubawi partner sat behind the pace set by teammate and stable companion Modern News, the ride of James Doyle, and pounced 300m from home to go well clear quickly. David O’Meara’s Shelir gave chase under Daniel Tudhope, but the pair could only reduce the margin to a half length.
A further three and three fourths back in third was Michael O’Callaghan’s I Am Superman, the ride of Colin Keane. "We're very pleased. The team has done a great job in getting him back. He had a setback after Newmarket and there's been a lot of patience and time to get him back to where he is now," said Appleby, who has six victories in the race.
"The race couldn't have gone any better for him, the pace was there and William got a nice box seat. It would've been nice if the pace had held up for a bit longer because the one thing this horse does is travel. He put the race to bed and he's entitled to come on for the run. "He has a huge engine in there. He does challenge himself sometimes but if everything goes right he's a good horse."
It was the first of three back to back wins for Godolphin, who also enjoyed success with Shining Blue and Global Heat, both trained by Saeed bin Suroor. The undercard witnessed the first Classic contest of the season, the Listed UAE 1000 Guineas being won by Mimi Kakushi, trained by Salem Bin Ghadayer for His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum.
Bin Ghadayer won the 2020 renewal for the same colours with Down On Da Bayou and he now has another top candidate after Mimi Kakushi, who lost her maiden tag in the UAE 1000 Guineas Trial a month back, romped home in the 1600m contest on dirt. A daughter of City Of Light, Mickael Barzalona settled her along the outside in the shadow of Doug Watson’s pacesetting Awasef and she dominated in the straight kicking clear to win by four and a half lengths.
Sam Hitchcott's mount Awasef was second, but a further five lengths back in third was Unjokable for Ahmad bin Harmash and Ray Dawson. That win brought up a double for Bin Ghadayer and Barzalona, who had earlier won the Virgin Radio Dubai 104.4 1200m handicap on dirt 1000m with Rawy, who denied the Watson schooled Pat Dobbs driven Colour Up by three fourths of a length.
Godolphin’s second of the night was delivered by Bin Suroor’s Global Heat who burst through under Pat Cosgrave to scorch his rivals in the other Listed affair of the evening, the 2810m Al Khail Trophy presented by ARN. The pair won by a length from Ismail Mohammed’s Away He Goes, with Barzalona up.
Godolphin closed with a treble following Tudhope’s victory aboard Shining Blue in the Dubai Eye 103.8 1400m turf handicap, which brought the curtains down on the night. Bin Harmash and Dawson were the other trainer-jockey pair celebrating a Thoroughbred winner on the night after Thunder Of Niagara powered home along the centre of the track to turn up the shock winner of the ARN 1000m handicap, while the inaugural Big Easy Arabian Sprint Championship, a 1200m conditions run witnessed trainer Majed Al Jahoori and jockey Bernardo Pinheiro scoring with Leena.
RESULTS
1. Leena
2. Rawy
3. Thunder Of Niagara
4. Mimi Kakushi
5. Master Of The Seas
6. Global Heat
7 Shining Blue
