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**A THOROUGHBLOG tradition is LIVE-BLOGGING during the DUBAI WORLD CUP racing night – join me Saturday morning, Eastern time, at this site for news and notes as the races go along. Paddock looks, pedigree notes and race results right through all the races

Leave it on @jensblog Saturday morning to follow the action!

 

 

CALIFORNIA CHROME DRAWS POST 11 OF 12

$10m Dubai World Cup Sponsored by Emirates Airline (UAE-I)
PP., Horse, Jockey, Trainer
1. Keen Ice, R. Moore, Dale Romans
2. Mshawish, L. Dettori, Todd Pletcher
3. Gun Pit, J. Moreira, Caspar Fownes
4. Mubtaahij, C. Soumillon, Mike de Kock
5. Special Fighter, F. Jara, Musabah Al Muhairi
6. Candy Boy, P. Dobbs, Doug Watson
7. Vadamos, V. Cheminaud, Andre Fabre
8. Hokko Tarumae, H. Miyuki, Katsuichi Nishiura
9. Frosted, W. Buick, Kiaran McLaughlin
10. Hoppertunity, F. Prat, Bob Baffert
11. California Chrome, V. Espinoza, Art Sherman
12. Teletext, S. De Sousa, Sami Al Harabi

 

TAKE A LOOK – DUBAI WORLD CUP NIGHT, SOME STARTERS AND NOTES

www.horse-races.net – Vanessa Ng provide coverage:

 

PHOTO 1 – CANADIAN-OWNED Frank Conversation (UAE Derby) galloped 1 1/2 miles. Leandro Mora, assistant to trainer Doug O’Neill said, “It’s right around the corner. He’s got ten points piled up (to qualify for the Kentucky Derby) so if we finished second or win we would probably get enough points to make it. And that’s (owner) Paul Reddam’s and our dream.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lady Shipman (Al Quoz Sprint) galloped 1 1/4 miles on the main track. Neil McLaughlin, assistant to brother Kiaran said, “She arrived in Dubai on March 15 and we’ve been taking it easy with her. All the work was done back home. She ran great in the prep (at Gulfstream Park). 1000m turf horses don’t need to be 2000m fit. You want them to be fresh and full of energy on race day. We want explosiveness and a burst.” Regular rider Irad Ortiz Jr. gets the call on Saturday.

 

X Y Jet (Golden Shaheen) galloped 1 1/8 miles on Monday. Trainer Jorge Navarro said, “We are just keeping him happy. He’s been here for a week and is really enjoying the experience here. The windows in the barns, the open air, the 27-minute walk to and from the track in the mornings. He’s usually a crabby horse, but here he’s been very loose. (Jockey Emiseal Jaramillo) knows the horse and they have a good connection. He’s the all-time leading rider in Venezuela and he has big dreams.”

 

 

 

SHOWING OFF – Duramente (Sheema Classic) galloped once around the main track under exercise rider Atsunori Hashimoto. Hashimoto said, “He is sometimes tense as all is new for him. But I think everything has gone well so far.” He won the Satsuki Sho (2000 Guineas) and Japanese Derby last year.

 

 

Sheikyzayedroad (Sheema Classic) galloped on the main track under Jennie Simcock, wife of trainer David. She said, “He has just done a routine canter after his work on Saturday. He might switch to the grass tomorrow morning and then have a blow on Thursday.”

 

 

 

FORM GUIDE FOR ALL RACES FROM EMIRATES RACING:

http://www.emiratesracing.com/racing-information/form-guide
NEWSWEEK MIDDLE EAST

DUBAI WORLD CUP TO SEE MOST OPEN BATTLE IN YEARS
By Martin Dokoupil

The world’s leading thoroughbreds have been flocking to the horse racing capital of the United Arab Emirates these past few weeks in the hope of taking home the prized $10 million Dubai World Cup on Saturday, the world’s richest horse race, which is likely to be the open contest as, after a long time, there’s no apparent clear winner this year.

“It is the strongest race [in] about five or six years. I can’t say (who has the biggest chance),” Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai Deputy Ruler, UAE Finance Minister and one of the leading horse owners and breeders, told Newsweek Middle East in the Meydan’s winners’ enclosure at a recent race.

So far American star California Chrome, the 2014 Horse of The Year, is seen to be coming on top, installed as a 9/4 favorite after cruising home barely breaking a sweat in a February 25 preparatory handicap at the opulent glass and steel Meydan racecourse in what some trainers described as almost a public workout rather than a proper race.

http://newsweekme.com/dubai-world-cup-to-see-most-open-battle-in-years/

 

TAKE A THOROUGHBLOG POLL – What do you like to bet on?

Knowing what you do about some state-bred races, many tend to have a lot of horses in poor form, or with low Beyer Speed Figures, take a look at the poll below:

 

 

BALLOT OUT FOR CANADIAN HORSE RACING HALL OF FAME – 40TH ANNIVERSARY

Jim Sabiston returns on ballot (was on in 2013) at age of 92!
The five categories chosen for the 2016 Thoroughbred ballot are Builder, Communicator, Trainer, Male Horse and Veteran Horse.

A Thoroughbred Builder ballot comprised of Dr. Michael D. Colterjohn, James B. Irvine and James Sabiston is offered for voter consideration.

The late Dr. Michael Colterjohn, one of Canada’s top equine reproductive experts, joined Gardiner Farms in 1987 and was soon named farm President. Under his management, the Caledon East farm became one of the country’s most well-respected and accomplished breeding operations. He built a quality broodmare band to elevate the farm into a significant player in the Canadian-yearling market.

Following the sale of Gardiner Farms 2008, Colterjohn, along with his wife, Dr. Moira Gunn, and farm manager, Sherry McLean, purchased the Gardiner livestock he had spent so much time and effort amassing and the three partners launched Paradox Farm Inc. The long list of Paradox-bred horses include 2014 Queen’s Plate winner Lexie Lou along with venerable Ontario Sires Stakes performer, Pender Harbour.

The late James B. Irvine, a longtime employee of the Ontario Racing Commission and the Horsemen’s Benevolent & Protective Association, was instrumental in finding employment for countless numbers in the stabling area for over 45 years; from the 1950s to the 1990s at Dufferin Park, Greenwood, Woodbine, Long Branch and Fort Erie Race Tracks. ‘Bow Tie Jimmy’ was a mentor, father figure, and simply a friend to many people on the backstretch, including Jim Bannon, jockeys Richard Grubb, Robbie King, and Ron Turcotte. The J.B. Irvine Library, located in the ‘Jake’ Howard Center on the Woodbine backstretch, is named in his honour.

With over 60 years in the business as a breeder, owner and a consignor to the Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society Sales, James Sabiston, now 92, continues to enjoy the races. Beginning in 1956 with his first stallion ‘Bimini Bay’ and followed by others including Dawn Flight, Triumphant, Ground Cover, Bold Revenue to name a few, Sabiston bred many mares of his own and for numerous clients at his Longview Farm, near Stouffville, Ontario. Always searching out new blood lines and crosses to try to ‘make a better foal,’ James represents the ‘small owner/breeder’ in racing. He tried to keep the cost of his yearlings within a reasonable range, and if a yearling did not sell, he was prepared to race it under Longview colours. He also participated in the syndication of stallions such as Bold Ruckus, again supporting the Ontario breeding program, enabling other owners to be involved in the breeding process, and expanding blood lines. Longview graduates of note include Silent Fleet, Crease Infraction, Native Nova, and Katahaula County and Mr. Sabiston’s personal favourites, Grecian Touch and Rose and Shine.

Joe Hirsch, Curtis Stock and Daryl Wells, Sr. have been selected to appear on the Thoroughbred Communicator ballot.

American horse racing columnist and author Joe Hirsch was the founding president of the U.S. based National Turf Writers’ Association. He began writing for the Daily Racing Form in 1954 and retired as its executive columnist in 2003. The frequent visitor to Woodbine, wrote glowing articles on Canadian racing, especially the Queen’s Plate Stakes. His support of Canadian racing and those involved in the sport on this side of the border was widespread as his work was read by industry leaders all over North America. The author of multiple books, his ‘The Grand Senor’ details the career of Horatio Luro, best known as trainer of Northern Dancer. Hirsch won both the Eclipse Award for outstanding writing along with other prestigious awards including the Big Sport of Turfdom in 1983 and the Jockey Club Medal in 1989. The Joe Hirsch Turf Classic (G1) is contested annually at Belmont Park and the press boxes at both Saratoga and Churchill Downs are named in his honour; each year Breeders’ Cup Ltd. presents the Joe Hirsch Award to a member of the media for their BC coverage and the Joe Hirsch Media Ring of Honor was established in 2010 by the National Racing Museum’s Hall of Fame.

Originally from Calgary, Curtis Stock got his start as a horse racing reporter while still in university, before working at Woodbine with CHRHF member Bruce Walker. He returned to Alberta to take over the publicity, marketing and advertising at Northlands Park and then moved to the Edmonton Journal. Stock’s affection for the horses, jockeys, trainers and horsepeople in general, is reflected in his writing. His reporting has resonated with Sovereign Awards judges. Stock was the recipient of back-to-back Sovereign Awards for Outstanding Feature Story in 1993-94 and beginning in 1985 took home an unprecedented eight Sovereign Awards for Outstanding Newspaper Story in Canada.

The voice of Daryl Wells Sr. became as much a part of Ontario Thoroughbred racing as the track where he honed his craft. His career as announcer for the OJC, began when the Etobicoke, Ontario track opened in 1956, when the assignment also included calling races at Fort Erie and Greenwood. Twenty years later, he began focusing exclusively on races at Woodbine, allowing his son, Daryl Jr., to take over at Fort Erie. Wells’ broadcast career began as a disc jockey at the age of 15 in B.C., moving east several years later, working in the sports department at radio station CHML in Hamilton in the 1940s and ’50s. He eventually became the sports director for CHCH-TV. Working with another radio/TV legend Norm Marshall, Wells co-hosted the first four races live from Woodbine during weekday afternoons. In so doing, he provided easy-to-understand commentary which truly enhanced racing’s image and dramatically boosted its popularity and increased the sport’s fan base.

His calls of Northern Dancer winning the Queen’s Plate in 1964 as well as Secretariat’s final race at Woodbine in 1973 live on in the memories and archives of racing fans everywhere.

Following his death in 2003, the headline in the Toronto Sun read, “Woodbine loses legend. Long-time announcer dies”

The three Trainers on the 2016 Thoroughbred Election ballot are Reade Baker, Harold J. Barroby and Mark Casse.

Reade Baker’s racing career now spans four decades and in June 2014 he notched his 1,000th career win as trainer; 122 of those wins have come in stakes events, 27 of which were graded races. Voted the Sovereign Award Outstanding Trainer in 2005, Baker has developed numerous stakes winners including Horse of the Year champions Fatal Bullet who won in 2008 and Biofuel, who won in 2010. Baker also conditioned Bear Now who won the 2008 Sovereign Award for Older Female and Tu Endie Wei winner of the 2011 Sovereign Award as Champion Two-Year-Old Filly. Baker continued to saddle winners in 2015 with Academic being victorious in the Woodbine Oaks and Breaking Lucky winning the Prince of Wales Stakes, the second-jewel in Canada’s Triple Crown. In 2013, Reade Baker was inducted into the Etobicoke Sports Hall of Fame.

Harold Barroby a native of Ravenscrag, Saskatchewan followed his older brother, Frank, to Alberta, where he eventually became leading trainer in 1969 and 1970. He moved further west in 1974 to British Columbia. The great Love Your Host won 13 stakes under his tutelage and other good horses were Pampas Host and Delta Colleen, both multiple stakes winners at Hastings Park. He has been leading trainer there a record 10 times and remains the all-time leader in terms of wins and stakes wins.

Graded stakes wins include Fortinbras in the 1986 British Columbia Derby (G3) and 1986 B.C. Premier’s Championship Handicap (G3).

Mark Casse, to date is the winner of seven Sovereign Awards as Canada’s Outstanding Trainer and ten leading-trainer titles at Woodbine. Born in Indiana in 1961, he took over his father’s Kentucky operation at the age of 18 and scored his first winner as trainer at Keeneland. A 69-win season in 2002 earned Casse his first Woodbine trainers’ title. Since then, he’s trained a number of Sovereign Award winning horses including three Horses of the Year – Lexie Lou (2014), Uncaptured (2012), and Sealy Hill (2007), the only filly to win the Canadian Triple Tiara. Other champions include My Conquestadory and Marchfield. In 2011, Casse won a record 119 races, surpassing the previous mark of 89 victories by Frank Passero in 1995 and collected a then-record over $6.6 million in purses. He saddled Lexie Lou to win both the Queen’s Plate and Woodbine Oaks in 2014. 2015 was Casse’s biggest year yet, as he amassed $13.6 million in purses with 159 winners including Breeders’ Cup Grade 1 wins with Tepin, 2015 Eclipse Award winner as Champion Turf Female, and Catch a Glimpse, who is a 2015 Sovereign finalist as Canada’s Outstanding two-year-old Filly.

The Thoroughbred Male Horse category will be contested by Quiet Resolve, Wake at Noon and Wise Dan.

Quiet Resolve, the Sam Son Farm homebred and Mark Frostad-trained son of Affirmed earned $2.3 million in a 31-start race career with a record of 10-6-4, including multiple graded stakes wins. He was recipient of the 2000 Sovereign Award as Champion Turf Horse and Canada’s Horse of the Year, which was highlighted by victories in the Atto Mile (G1), and the Hong Kong Jockey Club Trophy Stakes (G2). During his championship season, Quiet Resolve ventured south of the border and won the Dixie Stakes (G2) at Pimlico, was second in the Breeders’ Cup Turf (G1) at Churchill Downs and third in the Shadwell Keeneland Turf Mile Stakes (G2).

Bred and owned by Bruno Schickedanz and trained by Abraham Katryan, Wake at Noon won six of 10 starts in 2002, earning him Sovereign Awards as Champion Sprinter, Champion Older Horse and most importantly, Horse of the Year. His major wins that year included the Vigil Handicap (G3), Highlander Handicap (G3), Jacques Cartier Stakes, and Briartic Handicap. In 2000 at the age of three, he won the Highlander Stakes (G3), Achievement Hcp., Queenston Stakes, Woodstock Stakes and Kennedy Road Stakes. Lifetime, the Ontario-bred horse by Cure the Blues, out of the Silver Deputy mare Sermon Time won 21 races in 67 starts, including 10 stakes for earnings of $1.6 million.

Wise Dan’s racing career concluded in 2014 at the age of seven after 23 wins and two seconds in 31 starts, amassing a bank account of $7,552,920 for breeder/owner Morton Fink and trainer Charles LoPresti. Included in these impressive statistics for the multiple graded stakes winner were back-to-back wins in the Ricoh Woodbine Mile Stakes (G1) in 2012 and 2013. His 2013 victory in that race in an impressive course record of 1:31.75. Wise Dan also had back-to-back wins in the Breeders’ Cup Mile (G1) 2012, 2013 and was honoured as Eclipse Award Horse of the Year in both 2012 and 2013 as well as Champion Grass Horse and Champion Older Horse in the U.S. those two years.

Thoroughbred Veteran Horses All Along (FR), Dahlia and South Ocean will the nominees voters will select from.

All Along and Dahlia have appeared on the ballot in years past.

The French-bred filly All Along, was the first winner of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (G1) to race in Canada where she won the Rothmans International (G1) as part of a torrid international tour spanning 41 days that also included wins in the Turf Classic (G1) at Aqueduct and the Washington, D.C. International (G1) at Laurel. During her race career, she earned Horse of the Year honours on two continents for owner Daniel Wildenstein and family. She was named Champion Older Horse in France and 1983 Horse of the Year in the U.S, the first female and foreign-based horse to win an Eclipse award as Horse of the Year. She also finished 2nd in 1984 Breeders’ Cup Turf Stakes.

Bred in Kentucky by Nelson Bunker Hunt, the French-trained Dahlia spent much of her race career taking on the boys, doing so 35 times in her 48 starts, and was the first female horse to surpass $1 million in career earnings. She is still the only horse to win Group or Grade 1 stakes in five different countries including Canada, where she won the Canadian International in 1974. That Canadian victory brought international attention to the race and subsequently resulted in other European horses making the trip. Her career stats include a record of 15-3-7 in 48 starts with earnings of $1,489,105. As a broodmare, she produced three Grade 1 winners.

South Ocean won the 1970 Canadian Oaks and later as a broodmare produced the sire of Storm Cat. She was bred by E.P.Taylor and sold through auction to his son Charles, who also raced her. Trained by G. ‘Pete’ McCann, South Ocean was a dual stakes winner, taking the 1969 Yearling Sales Stakes in her first year racing and following up as Oaks Champion and top three-year-old filly contender in 1970. That year she also placed in five other stakes including the Bison City and Wonder Where Stakes.

Her legacy as a broodmare is even more impressive. The daughter of New Providence out of a Chop Chop mare matched perfectly with the Northern Dancer line. One of her eight pairings with Northern Dancer produced the great Northernette, herself a Canadian Champion filly and 1987 CHRHF inductee. Another mating resulted in Storm Bird, who went on to stand stud in Kentucky and sired 63 stakes winners, including Storm Cat.

The Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame 2016 Induction Ceremony will be hosted at the Mississauga Convention Centre on Wednesday, August 3, 2016.

Additional information about the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame may be found at canadianhorseracinghalloffame.com