WINNER of the Group 1 Al Maktoum Challenge R1, the Simon and Ed Crisford-trained Algiers added the second round to his roll of honour when running out an easy six-length winner of the $350,000 Group 2 feature over nine and a half furlongs on dirt yesterday at Meydan. The race was the highlight on what many considered was the best card of the 2023 World Cup Carnival so far.

This race has been won in the past by the 2003 and 2018 Dubai World Cup winners Moon Ballad and Thunder Snow, and will surely be the target now of the Godolphin-bred Algiers, who races in the colours of Hamdan Sultan Ali Alsabousi. James Doyle was again in the saddle, just as he was a month ago when the six-year-old son of Shamardal won R1 over a mile.

Bhupat Seemar saddled the distant runner-up Bendoog under Ryan Moore, while his stable jockey Tadhg O’Shea was third on Remorse. Group 1 winners Salute The Soldier (a previous winner of this race in 2021), Atletico De Curano and First Constitution were all disappointing.

The first of the day’s turf features was the $180,000 Group 2 Cape Verdi over a mile, and William Buick’s choice of the four-year-old daughter of Frankel, With The Moonlight over her stable companion Wild Beauty proved to be correct.

Down the field in the Oaks last year, after winning a listed race at Newmarket to warrant her place in the line-up for the classic, she did well afterwards in the USA and was a Grade 3 winner at Saratoga in August, and runner-up to McKulick in the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks.

Clear top-rated in this race, she continued the fine run for Godolphin runners, and trainer Charlie Appleby, wearing down another Godolphin runner, the Saeed bin Suroor-trained White Moonlight, with half a furlong to go, winning snugly enough on the line. The homebred With The Moonlight is an own-sister to the Group 1 Jebel Hatta winner, Dream Castle. Both are out of the Dubawi mare Sand Vixen, winner of the Group 2 Flying Childers Stakes.

Second win

This was a second win on the card for Appleby, having earlier landed the $80,000 Vazirabad Handicap over a mile and a half with First Ruler, partnered in the Godolphin silks by James Doyle. This homebred four-year-old son of Dubawi is out of the Grade 1 winner Zhukova, a daughter of the classic winner Nightime.

First Ruler is the first foal of his dam, a half-sister to the Darley sire Ghaiyyath, and Zhukova cost Godolphin 3,700,000gns as a mare out of training. Her second produce is the promising Imperial Emperor, winner of his only start last year at two.

Godolphin, Appleby and Doyle combined to capture the nine-furlong Group 2 Singspiel Stakes on turf, and this represented a treble for all concerned.

This was a second Group 2 success in three weeks for the Irish-bred Valiant Prince, a five-year-old Dubawi son of the high-class racemare Chachamaidee. Last time out, and on his first run over nine furlongs, the gelding captured the $180,000 Al Rashidiya at Meydan where he is now unbeaten in four starts.

The winning distance, and that between second and third, were more reminiscent of a long-distance race than a six-furlong sprint, when the US-bred Tuz was a three-length winner over Isolate, with the winner’s stable companion Freedom Fighter nearly five lengths further back in the $150,000 Al Shindagha Sprint on dirt. Once Tuz, the mount of Jose da Silva, took up the running just after half way, the result was never in doubt.

Racing in the colours of Dakki Stables, the winner and third-placed horses are trained by Bhupat Seemar.

The day’s racing opened with a Group 1 race for purebred Arabians. This was the $55,000 Al Maktoum Challenge R2 and it was won by the eight-year-old French-bred Hayyan, owned by Yas Racing, trained by Majed Al Jahoori, and the mount of Oscar Chavez.

The concluding $75,000 The Velley Handicap over a mile on turf was won by Shadwell Stable’s Kingman seven-year-old Moqtarreb. A winner at three when trained by Roger Varian, he was successful in Abu Dhabi in 2021, and this was his third win, and a first for trainer Ali Albadwawi. Dane O’Neill was in the saddle.