A pot of $10million was always going to draw some of the best horses in the world to the Dubai World Cup but whether everyone was quite as happy after the post position draw is another matter.
The betting for the race is very open but there were plenty who began to doubt the chances of Henry Cecil’s Twice Over, one of the favourites, with the news that he will be in post position 11 when the 14 stalls open at Meydan on Saturday night.
Teddy Grimthorpe, racing manager to owner Khalid Abdullah, had little choice in the matter as Twice Over was the last horse to come out of the draw and said: “At least I can’t be blamed for picking the wrong draw - it’s a little wide but we can’t do anything about it.
“Twice Over hit a flat spot last summer but Henry found two confidence boosting wins and he won the Champion Stakes at Newmarket really well, and then ran a blinder at the Breeder’s Cup [third to Zenyatta in the Classic].
“The idea of taking him to California was to find out if he acted on a synthetic surface as this race has always been in the back of our mind.”
That run puts him one-and-a-quarter lengths behind Gio Ponti, who was handed stall four, and Christophe Lorieul, the assistant trainer to Christophe Clement, said: “That’s great, we wanted to be in the first half. We were rooting to be in the first half, it doesn’t seem to be much kick back and the rail is the closest way around.”
Vision D’Etat, a winner at both Royal Ascot and the Hong Kong International meeting, seems to have been handed a decent draw in stall six and trainer Eric Libaud looked a happy man, as were the connections of Gitano Hernando, who will be ridden by Kieren Fallon.
Gitano Hernando was given stall two, a draw which delighted his trainer Marco Botti who said: “Barrier two is great. From there Keiren should be able to have him midfield or slightly better, and there is pace in the race which will suit him.”
The inside track may be what everyone searching for a winner is trying to find but it is not always the best place to be drawn in a race. A slow start and a jockey can find himself shuffled to the back of the pack but a lightning break can mean a horse is a spent force before halfway.
Godolphin’s Allybar, who will be saddled by their new train Mahmoud Al Zarooni, will be racing from stall one but the trainer did not seem too perturbed. “It will be my first day as a fully fledged trainer and I will be very nervous,” he said, “but I am happy with the inside draw.”
The rest of us will be happy finding a winner. Come back tomorrow and we'll tell you.
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