Horse Racing: Joshua Tree to encounter Beethoven in the Qatar Invitational
The richest race of the country will be taking place at the Al Rayyan racecourse in Doha on Thursday at 3.30 p.m. GMT. This race is called the Qatar International Invitational Cup. The race will be run over a distance of 1 mile and 4 furlongs and is open
for racehorses of age three and above. The event will be featuring the most celebrated racehorse of the country, Beethoven in a field of 14 contenders and carries a purse money of 500,000 Qatar Riyal. The most prominent contender of this race, apart from the
champion Beethoven, is the talented racehorse Joshua Tree. He is a stable mate of Beethoven’s and is the winner of the Royal Lodge Stakes. The champion colt returned to the track after 11 months last August. He then started many international events and performed
fairly well after such a long break from the track. Amongst these performances was his third place finish in the Great Voltigeur. He then went on to contend the St Leger meeting in which he was the fifth place finisher, enjoyed a success in the Canadian International
that took place at Woodbine. Unfortunately, he was unable to live up to the expectations of his fans and connections in the Japan Cup.
The racehorse used to train under the care of the famed trainer O’ Brien and recently left Japan for Qatar. He made the Gulf debut under the care of O’Brien, in which he was the third place finisher and was beaten by a length and quarter by his former stable
mate and rival in this race Beethoven in January.
Qatar’s official handicapper, Ryan Skelton was reported as saying, “It was difficult to rate Joshua Tree on that race, but I decided he had probably run about 5 lb below his international rating of 112, which was a good effort considering the amount of travelling
he had recently done.”
Other racehorses that will be taking place in the Qatar International Invitational Cup on Thursday include Miss Starlight, Dixie Music and Rain Forest.
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