Randy Thompson was not sure if trainer and friend Saffie Joseph, Jr. was joking when he asked the Ontario horseman if he wanted to go to Dubai for World Cup week with sprinter Drain the Clock.

“I laughed,” said Thompson, who has been working with Joseph at Gulfstream Park in Florida this winter as one of the assistants for the meet’s leading trainer. “He told me he wanted to pay his respects to me ‘as a horseman and a friend’ by sending me.”

Thompson is now halfway around the world at Meydan racecourse in Dubai with the Grade 1 winner Drain the Clock, preparing that colt for the $2 million Golden Shaheen, at six furlongs on the dirt, on March 26 on the Dubai World Cup card.

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