-©ali-jumaa(0).jpg)
By Duane Fonseca -
The massive AED250,000 bonus for winning at least two of the three legs of the Emirates Sprint Series went Sayed Hashish’s way for the second-straight year after Colour Up battled all the way to the finish to emulate what teammate Road Bloc achieved last year during the inaugural edition of the series.
Looking to defend his title in the 1000m Listed Jebel Ali Sprint sponsored by ARM Holding, Osama Refai’s Road Bloc finished 13th of the 15 that went to post, but that did not matter to his owner Hashish who was over the moon after the Doug Watsontrained Colour Up powered home under Pat Dobbs to steal victory by a nose by narrowly thwarting Musabbeh Al Mheiri’s Al Shibli (Sandro Paiva).
Hashish said: “Colour Up backed his win today with a strong performance. “He is definitely one of the stars for our colours and it is a great training performance by Doug Watson and his team. He was given a very confident ride by Pat Dobbs. Very proud of Colour Up and very grateful to the team.” Dobbs held Colour Up in mid-division and more towards the rear of the field, but in the centre of the track. And after the field parted to make way with the pace clearly down the centre with Al Shibli moving forward strongly alongside Colour Up who appeared to hit the front 200m out. Al Shibli gave chase all the way to the finish, but Colour Up could not be reeled in.
The Bhupat Seemar-trained Leading Spirit was a further length back in third under Tadhg O’Shea, who made his bid along the far-side rail. Colour Up became eligible for the bonus after winning the second leg of the Emirates Sprint Series, the Al Garhoud Sprint at Meydan Racecourse on December 8th.
TREBLE IN SPRINT FOR WATSON
It was a third win for Watson in the race after the back-to-back successes of Al Tariq and Khuzaam in the 2021 and 2022 renewals respectively. The Red Stables boss supremo: “Fantastic for the owners, Sayed. Colour Up is a top-class horse. He raced here for the first time, and despite not being at his peak for the past few weeks, he delivered exceptionally well.
‘NOT 100 PER CENT ’
“He hasn’t been a hundred percent for the last six weeks, but he’s just a tough horse who has been running in top class races. He ran his first race here when he was trained by Erwan Charpy. “We got him last season and we ran him up here to get him to become eligible for the Carnival.
He won nicely so we knew he liked it here. We’ll have to see how he comes out of the race and take it from there.” The father-son training partnership of Simon and Ed Crisfords landed the training plaudits with a double that included Swing Vote’s stunning success in the Group 3 Jebel Ali Mile, the feature event on the seven-race programme.
Swing Vote’s success followed My Honor’s last-ditch triumph in the Emirates Airline Cup, a Conditions event for three-yearolds, where the Honor Code colt stuck his nose ahead on the line under Pat Cosgrave denying the Ahmad bin Harmash trained race favourite Bismilah Alik, the ride of Connor Beasley and the only horse in the race to have won before. The pair were a half length clear of Salem bin Ghadayer’s Sensatiable, who was ridden by Royston Ffrench.
My Honor was adjudged the winner by the judges after a lengthy inquest of the finish which showed he was only just ahead of his nearest rival. “It was a really good victory by My Honor and he did it nicely with a finish like that under a good ride from Pat. We are very happy with his performance and we will wait to see how he comes out from what was a tough race before making future plans,” Ed Crisford said. Bin Ghadayer and Ffrench were rewarded later on the programme after Homespin rallied to deny the Fawzi Nass trained favourite El Introvertido (Adrie de Vries) on the wire. Homespin’s stablemate Tolmount set the pace under Xavier Ziani and was at the helm of affairs 400m out before El Introvertido managed to reel him in.
Homespin brought momentum along with him as he moved swiftly to the front down the centre of the track. However, El Introvertido and De Vries weren’t done yet and made a final bid that saw them engage in a battle of the bob with Homespin, who was declared the winner after a review of the photo. Homespin won by a nose with Ranchero a further half length back in third for Seemar and O’Shea. The card ending Sukoon Takaful Stakes 090- handicap was claimed by the home team of Sheikh Ahmed bin Rashid Al Maktoum after Makfoul justified his favourites billing to win the 1950m affair for resident trainer Michael Costa and his first choice rider Ben Coen.
Bin Ghadayer’s Imperial Ace made the running under Ffrench, but ran out of steam, handing the lead to Bin Harmash’s Cosmic Desert (Beasley). Makfoul sat off the pace under Coen and, after the rider stirred him up with 400m to run he started to find the traction needed and went forward smoothly to hit the front 100m out and win by three quarters of a length from the Seemar-trained Ghost Of The Mambo (O’Shea), who stole second from Cosmic Desert late on.
Winning trainer Costa commented: “It was a nice win and it turned out to be a little bit tough for him jumping from a wider gate. He was second last time out behind Cosmic Desert in a course and distance event and just got pipped then and perhaps this might have been a harder race as he went in as the top weight. He’s done it nicely.” Earlier on the card, Rashed Bouresly’s Houb Al Wattan managed to shed his maiden tag on his 11th start when bidding in the Al Shafar Investment Stakes, a maiden event over 1200m.
Houb Al Wattan finished with a length-and-a-half to spare from Eruptive, trained by Al Mheiri and ridden by O’Shea, with Theeban a further length-and-threequarters behind in third for Bin Harmash and Beasley. The only Purebred Arabian contest on the card, the Wathba Stallions Cup 090- handicap sponsored by the HH Sheikh Mansoor bin Zayed Racing Festival was claimed by Ibrahim Al Hadhrami’s Ramz Muscat (Sam Hitchcott) by a length-and-aquarter from AF Rami (Ernst Oertel/Patrick Harnett) with the latter’s teammate AF Marmuq a further two-and-a-quarter lengths behind in third under Tadhg O’Shea.
