Dubai Prince wins Killavullan Stakes with flying colours
Every owner dreams of seeing a horse carrying his colours to victory in the Classics.
And for the second time in three days Sheikh Mohammed must have felt exactly that frisson of hope as one of his two-year-olds put up a commanding performance that could only nourish such aspirations. However both will be carrying different silks next year.
When Casamento won the Group One Racing Post Trophy at Doncaster on Saturday - in the sheikh’s maroon-and-white colours –his trainer, Michael Halford, had already accepted that the colt would be on the plane for Dubai this winter and then to Newmarket as a Godolphin horse next spring.
Dubai Prince, carrying that same livery, was an impressive winner of the Group Three Killavullan Stakes at Leopardstown and had Dermot Weld suggesting that this was the best two-year-old he had trained since Grey Swallow, who went on to win the Irish Derby in 2004. Pat Smullen always looked confident on a horse who was heavily backed having beaten Seville (second to Casemento in the Racing Post Trophy) on his debut at Gowran Park last month.
That confidence was not misplaced as Dubai Prince swept through to win by three-and-a-half lengths and Weld believes that he is sending a real Classic prospect to Godolphin for next year. “He’s an exceptionally good young horse. I was bringing him back from a mile to seven, which is not ideal for him. I wanted to win a Group race with him and he’s a class horse. He’s got tremendous speed, he’s very relaxed, I see no reason why he won’t stay to be a Derby horse next year,” Weld said.
“He’ll join Godolphin – that was the understanding earlier in the year and I was delighted to have the pleasure of training him as a two-year-old. He’s certainly the best horse I’ve trained since Grey Swallow.”
Smullen was clearly impressed, even if there might be an edge of disappointment that this was the closest he is likely to get to the colt again unless he runs in the Group One Criterium de Saint-Cloud in France next month. “I think he's high class – he’s out of the top drawer. We've always liked him,” he said. “He won what turned out to be a very hot maiden and he won very impressively.”
Dubai Prince had to drop back in distance, from a mile to seven furlongs, and Smullen added: “It's not ideal - he'll definitely make into a middle-distance horse next year - but the good horses are able to cope with things like that. I think he could end up going a mile-and-a-half next year. The good mile-and-a-half horses have got to have pace, and he showed that he had that today.”
Famous Name (pictured) may have come up just a little short against the best but he was far too good for his rivals in the Listed Trigo Stakes to give the Weld-Smullen team the two feature races on the card.
His victory was yet another Pattern success for owner Prince Khalid Abdullah and his racing manager, Teddy Grimthorpe, said that connections do not envisage ground problems hindering the plan to run Workforce in the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Churchill Downs in a fortnight.
Sir Michael Stoute’s colt, who came right back to his Derby-winning form when he won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp earlier this month, has not been a certain runner until coming through a gallop at Newmarket on Saturday. The only caveat would be if the turf course at Churchill became too fast but Grimthopre said: “I gather there's been a new strip or a fairly new strip laid and they've hardly used it so it will be a pretty good track and I'm not anticipating a problem there.
"He showed us on Saturday that he's in very good form both physically and mentally so we gave him the go-ahead.”
Richard Hughes rode a treble at Leicester, taking him to 171 winners for the season, to close the gap on Paul Hanagan in the jockeys' title race to eight.
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