Five Dubai Duty Free-sponsored races with prize money totalling GBP 350,000 on day two of the Dubai Duty Free International Weekend stage at Newbury Racecourse on Saturday, 21 September, were spearheaded by the ‘100,000 Group 2 Dubai Duty Free Mill Reef Stakes for two-year olds. It was the 51st running of the race commemorating the great Mill Reef, trained locally at Kingsclere by Ian Balding.
Mill Reef was Horse of the Year 1971 when he won the Derby, Eclipse Stakes and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe among many other triumphs. In recent years the race run in his name has seen the racing careers of such as Ribchester, Harry Angel, Kessaar and Dark Angel take off, before becoming top class stallions.
Richard Fahey who came down from the north to win the Dubai Duty Free Mill Reef Stakes in 2015 with Ribchester and 2013 with Supplicant, fielded Powerful Glory in the colours of Dubai Racing Club Chairman Sheikh Rashid Dalmook Al Maktoum. He was bought at the Breeze-Up Sales and after his debut win in August and the trainer expressed his gratitude that Sheikh Rashid had granted him liberty to “Do what you want with him.”
“So this was always the target,” said Philip Robinson, the former top jockey representing the owner. “Yes, he was favourite but he hated the ground. His extra class got him home,” said Robinson of the unbeaten colt who only imposed on the field’s outsider La Bellota in the last hundred yards, but a bright future undoubtedly lies ahead of him.
The romance of racing exceeds mere figures and statistics. Twelve’year-old Not So Sleepy, twice the age of any of his opposition in the GBP 70,000 Dubai Duty Free Autumn Cup Handicap, proceeded to make all the running to repeat his victory of last year. Early in the morning the heavens had opened, as they did last year, to provide Not So Sleepy’s favourite going but it was his courage and Tom Marquand’s perseverance that saw him home.
It was the result everyone bar his rivals wanted. There was a spontaneous round of applause from an appreciative audience when Not So Sleepy returned to the winner’s circle.
“He works on his own at home and they left him alone today,” said his trainer Hughie Morrison, sticking to last year’s script. “You know, he ran here as a two-year-old back in 2014, and finished last. He’s run respectably in the Champion Hurdle. It’s character horses like Not So Sleepy that make this game what it is. He pleases himself. We thought we should have retired him three or four years ago, and he said ‘no’.”
If this was the horse’s swansong – the immediate thought of his owner breeders Lord and Lady Blyth – what a way to bow out!
The third race, the Dubai Duty Free Handicap, provided more unalloyed joy – from the many members of the Newmarket Racing Club with their Mustazeed.
Mustazeed was bred by the late Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s Shadwell Estate Company but only raced once in the blue and white colours of Shadwell before being sold for a modest sum to his present owners, who promptly had him gelded. He had since won three times and, quite remarkably, only twenty-four hours before, over the same Newbury course, was narrowly beaten!
Today he carried 21lb less. “You can’t be dogmatic about horses,” said his trainer Harry Eustace. “He ate up last night, didn’t have to travel back to Newmarket so we thought it was worth him taking his chance.”
Only six days prior No Half Measures had been beaten less than two lengths in Paris in a Group 3 sprint. But he has won before after a brief interlude and trainer Richard Hughes was confident of a good showing in the five furlong GBP 85,000 Group 3 Dubai International Airport World Trophy, the first race on Saturday’s card.
No day of the Dubai Duty Free International Weekend is complete without a winner for Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin operation and it came through their single runner, Movie Maker trained by Saeed bin Suroor. In the seventh race, the Conundrum Consulting Handicap over seven furlongs Movie Maker, though absent since finishing fourth in the Jumeirah Guineas Trial at Meydan in January, found enough to touch off Amphius.
This was a battle royal between two champion jockeys, Oisin Murphy leading the current table by a considerable margin and Ryan Moore, already winner of the first race.
The mark of a true champions is an insatiable lust for success. “I needed that,” said Murphy after completing a treble in the last three races of the day. In the concluding GBP 15,000 Dubai Duty Free Finest Surprise Handicap over a mile, Murphy again had to work hard on his willing partner Atlantic Gamble who has won five of his last six races and shot up no less than 25lb in the handicap.
The feature race on the the opening day of the fixture on Friday, 20 September was the Dubai Duty Free Cup, a Class 1 Listed contest for three-year-olds and above run over a distance of seven furlongs and worth GBP 50,000. The winner, Witness Stand, began his season finishing last but has progressed through the handicap ranks and this gelding, who “loves his job” according to his young Newmarket trainer Tom Clover, will step up to the Group 3 Challenge Stakes at Newmarket in October.
As is traditional, a large variety of Dubai Duty Free entertainments attracted the crowds. Racegoers visiting the Arabic-themed Dubai Duty Free marquee sampled complimentary Arabic coffee and dates and enjoyed the chance to win fabulous prizes including free entry into the Dubai Duty Free Finest Surprise and Millennium Millionaire prize draws.