THE Abu Dhabi Equestrian Club staged one of the biggest meetings of the capital city track’s season on Sunday, highlighted by a Group 1 for purebred Arabians and a listed race for thoroughbreds.

The former was won stylishly by Somoud under a polished ride from Richard Mullen, riding for owner Yas Racing and trainer Jean de Roualle. Mullen won the race on Loraa for de Roualle in 2017, and the French-born trainer also landed the spoils last year with Rmmas under Tadhg O’Shea.

De Roualle added: “I am so grateful to Sheikh Mansoor for the opportunity to train these lovely horses and I am blessed to have such a good job. We have won this prize three times in five years which is a great team effort.”

The seven-furlong Listed HH The President Cup was very competitive on paper with a field of 15 taking part, but that did not prove to be the case with Mullen scoring an emphatic success aboard Medahim for Satish Seemar and owner Sayed Hashish. A seven-year-old gelded son of Kodiac bred by Paul McEnery, Medahim won three times in Britain when trained by Richard Hannon for Al Shaqab Racing, and was opening his local account at the fifth attempt.

Storm clear

He started this season twice finishing second, over a mile at Abu Dhabi. The second of those runner-up finishes was in the Listed National Day Cup when he was denied right on the line. He then went to Meydan and was far from disgraced when seventh in the Group 2 Al Fahidi Fort over seven furlongs. Settled in midfield here, he showed great acceleration and storm clear entering the final furlong.

Mullen said: “I actually dropped my whip in the National Day Cup; so I owed the team that. We knew the seven furlongs here would really suit him. That was a massive effort and very impressive indeed.”