sport news Frankie Dettori and Sir Alex Ferguson revved up for the richest show in ... trends now
The 28th Dubai World Cup brings together runners from 14 countries and 33 individual Group One race winners to compete for nearly £25million at the most cosmopolitan meeting on the calendar.
Racing Editor MARCUS TOWNEND is there and marks your card for Saturday’s scintillating show at Meydan…
DETTORI AND THE GOOD LORDFrankie Dettori playing a part in racing history, a phrase which looked like it would never be used again until the 53-year-old made a U-turn on his retirement plan and headed out to California.
Dettori will try to make Lord North, trained by old boss John Gosden and his son Thady, the first horse to win thoroughbred races at the World Cup meeting four times.
The pair won the Dubai Turf in 2021, dead-heated for first in 2022 and won it outright again last year with a three-quarter length win from Danon Beluga who he faces again.
Frankie Dettori is the most successful jockey ever at Dubai World Cup meeting with 23 wins
Lord North will be reunited with Dettori in search of a fourth straight victory in the Dubai Turf
Two other thoroughbreds have won three World Cup day races — French stayer Vazirabad claiming the Dubai Gold Cup between 2016 and 2018 and Thunder Snow adding two World Cups (2018 & 2019) to his 2017 UAE Derby victory.
Lord North has run once since last year’s race, finishing second in the Winter Derby at Southwell. Thady Gosden said: ‘The race has brought him on a lot and has sharpened him up.’
Dettori, the most successful jockey ever at the meeting with 23 wins, has a solid chance on Star Of Mystery in the Al Quoz Sprint, while he chases a record fifth World Cup on Newgate.
FERGIE TIME AGAINSir Alex Ferguson has enjoyed a remarkable racing winter. He won his first races at the Cheltenham Festival thanks to Monmiral (Pertemps Hurdle) and Protektorat (Ryanair Chase), while Spirit Dancer, the gelding he also bred, has taken his form to new highs with wins in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
The Richard Fahey-trained seven-year-old faces his stiffest task yet in the Sheema Classic. If he wins he gets £2.7m but even if he can only finish eighth, he will get almost £50,000.
Fahey said: ‘He looks fantastic and has acclimatised well. He is primed to the minute. If we are going to take these good horses on, this is the time to do it.’
Former Man United boss Sir Alex Ferguson has had a glorious winter on the racecourse
Spirit Dancer and Oisin Orr win the lucrative Neom Cup in Saudi Arabia last month
The question asked on a regular round of the popular TV quiz show Richard Osman’s House of Games may be a phrase being uttered if Kabirkhan wins the £9.5m World Cup.
The son of 2014 Kentucky Derby winner California Chrome, who only cost £9,500, has made the unlikely journey from a debut win at a ramshackle, puddle-strewn dirt track in Almaty to Dubai via Russia, where he suffered his only career defeat in the country’s Derby.
He goes into one of the world’s most valuable races the 4-1 third favourite. British-based jockey Pat Dobbs will ride the colt who gave him the second Group One win of his career when he
