THURSDAY’S third meeting of the 2020 Dubai World Cup Carnival at Meydan was highlighted by the $250,000 Group 2 Cape Verdi, a mile turf race for fillies and mares. The race was won in thrilling fashion by Godolphin’s Magic Lily, a daughter of classic winners New Approach and Dancing Rain, who won by a bobbing head on the line.

It was a third win in the race for both trainer Charlie Appleby and jockey James Doyle and produced a stakes and track record time of 1min 34.84sec. Runner-up by a nose was a game Nisreen, who shipped in for Team Valor International from France and was piloted Pierre-Charles Boudot.

Victorious on her juvenile debut, Magic Lily was third in the Group 1 Fillies’ Mile behind Laurens and September, finishing ahead of Magical.

Magic Lily then missed her entire three-year-old and most of her four-year-old season with injury. She returned with a second in listed company in France last autumn before a poor performance last time out at Lingfield.

“I had my head down to ride and didn’t think we’d got up, but she’s tough and very game,” Doyle said. “It didn’t go entirely our way. The plan was to lead or if not be very close, which is what happened. She was over-racing a little bit. She’ll definitely be better going another furlong. We think she’s a nine or 10-furlong filly. Hopefully we can build on this, as she has very few miles on the clock.” This win was the five-year-old’s second from just five career starts.

The secondary feature was the $175,000 Listed Zabeel Turf over 10 furlongs, which was won in driving fashion by the Mick Channon-trained Certain Lad, ridden by Ben Curtis for owner Chris Hirst who was present. The race was expected to be dominated by Godolphin, responsible for six of the 11 runners, but they were brushed aside by the winner as well as the Aga Khan-owned runner-up Simsir, trained by Michael Halford. Godolphin’s Desert Fire was the best of the runners in blue in third, while Group 1 winner Dream Castle finished seventh.

Fractious in the preliminaries and sent to post early, the four-year-old Certain Lad, a son of Clodovil, made progress throughout the early part of the straight, quickening clear passing the furlong pole. Simsir was gaining at the line but never looked like denying Curtis his 21st winner in the past 14 days. The winner equalled the track record.

“He’s improving with every run. It’s unbelievable,” Curtis said. “He’s a handful, but it’s probably a good thing, because if he wasn’t they probably wouldn’t have flown me out to ride him. He does everything a horse should do to get himself beat, but he keeps winning. He ran a bit fresh and keen the first two furlongs, but once he got into a rhythm I was delighted. He picked them up well and kept going all the way to the line. He ran a good race and the time backed it up.”

“He has always been a good horse,” Channon said. “We’ve always thought a lot of him. He won a listed race as a two-year-old and was consistent last year. It’s hard to place these horse, but we knew we could be competitive tonight. You never know going against Godolphin. We’ve always been competitive and never slow at having a crack.”

Winning owner Christ Hirst added: “It’s really fantastic. We’re over the moon. We didn’t expect him to run so well in his first race. We bought him back in the Newmarket sales because we didn’t think we got value and the plan was to send him down here with Jack Channon. Great ride by Ben. We really appreciate that he came out here to ride for us. Couldn’t have ridden a better race. We’ve won this now, but the main target was a race here on the 30th, but we’ll have to look at that now. I’d just like to say thank you to all the team who take care of him at home to get him in this kind of condition to get him here.”

Crisford and O’Meara on the winning trail

THE opening $135,000 Riviera 2, a six-furlong turf handicap, attracted the maximum field of 16 and the runners soon split into two groups of eight.

At halfway it was apparent those drawn high and racing nearest the stand-side rail were well on top. With little over two furlongs to run James Doyle produced Roulston Scar to challenge, the pair quickening clear and were soon in total control.

A four-year-old gelding by Lope De Vega bred by Denis Brosnan, the winner was making his local debut and first start for trainer Simon Crisford and owner Abdullah Menahi, having been purchased out of Kevin Ryan’s yard at Tattersalls in October for 110,000gns after winning three of his 10 starts in Britain.

Edward Crisford said: “He is a nice new horse for us and has been straightforward to deal with and train. I would imagine we will aim at another six-furlong turf handicap and hopefully we can have some more fun with him.”

Dirt sprinters had their chance over six furlongs in the $135,000 Al Furjan Handicap, which was contested at a furious gallop. The Dubawi seven-year-old Bochart and Richie Mullen, well-berthed in stall four, were soon in front and once they kicked clear early in the straight they were never going to be caught. The tough sprinter nearly broke the track record in the process, finishing just 0 .06sec off Mind Your Biscuits’ 2018 mark.

Mullen said of the Satish Seemar-trained runner: “His great attitude makes my life a lot easier and he seems to be improving with age. He is now a Carnival winner, which is a great result for everyone concerned.”

The concluding mile and a half turf handicap, the $135,000 Aliyah, produced a brilliant finish when the David O’Meara-trained Group 1 winner Suedois fought to the wire to win by the minimum. The winner ran in this instead of next week’s Group 2 Al Fahidi Fort at his favoured seven-furlong trip. The nine-year-old was winning for the 10th time from 49 starts for owners George Turner and Clipper Logistics. Danny Tudhope was in the saddle.

O’Meara said: “We’re delighted. I wasn’t sure we won it when he crossed the finish, but he ran a great race. I did think about running in the Group 2, but thought it would be a tougher race and he is well up to running in a handicap. He gave a lot of weight away, but good horses like him who have won a Grade 1, then can give weight away and still win.”

Watson strikes 600 in typically modest fashion

IN a thrilling finish to the $135,000 Azizi Mina Handicap over a mile on dirt, leading trainer Doug Watson won his 600th race in the UAE when Cool Silk Partnership’s Midnight Sands won by a short head over the Dundalk juvenile listed winner and former Michael Halford-trained Ambassadorial.

The milestone victory comes less than three months after Watson made history by sweeping an entire card of six races, the first trainer to do so in the UAE. A Flaxman Holdings-bred son of Speightstown, Midnight Sands, one of Watson’s favourite horses, won his fourth race from five UAE starts, a far cry from the little he showed in three starts for James Given.

Watson, a native of Centerville, Ohio, began his career at Chicago’s Arlington Park cleaning stalls and grooming horses. Now over a quarter of a century in Dubai, he became an assistant trainer to Kiaran McLaughlin. When McLaughlin relocated back to the USA, Watson took the reins of Red Stables in 2004. In just his third season he won the first of six UAE championships. He has been runner-up a further six times.

“We are very fortunate,” Watson said. “I came up under Kiaran McLaughlin and I got the job when he left. He left a good bunch of horses, which made life easier for me in the first few years, and good staff. They are the main drivers behind it.

“It has been a nice few years and we have got a great staff and a group of owners who give us some nice horses to train. Obviously that includes His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid and Mohammed Khalifa Al Basti. I can’t go through them all. There are so many of them. You have to have the horses to win races. We have the horses and we have the staff who can get them ready to run.”