Dubai World Cup night is the richest single day of racing in the world and it turned into a banner day for both Godolphin and Darley stallions.
The first to salute the judge came in the opening race when Heavy Metal continued his excellent Dubai form when landing the G2 Godolphin Mile. The evergreen son of Exceed And Excel has now won three Group races on the year and has 15 career triumphs to his name.
Hot on the heels of Heavy Metal was another true superstar in Manduro’s son Vazirabad, who won the G2 Dubai Gold Cup for the third successive season. Now the winner of 12 Group races, a feat no European-trained performer can match, he becomes the only thoroughbred to win three times on Dubai World Cup night. To add to his tally of records he also broke the track record in the process!
With attention now switching to G1's, Iffraaj’s consistent son Jungle Cat broke his top-flight duck when landing the Al Quoz Sprint, becoming Godolphin’s first G1-winner on the card. Benefiting from the drop back down to six furlongs he gamely won by half-a-length.
There are not many better bred horses in training than Benbatl (by Dubawi and out of multiple G1-winner Nahrain) and he gained a very valuable G1 win when taking the Dubai Turf, in arguably the most impressive performance of the night. The highly progressive four-year-old looks destined for future stardom after his three-and-a-quarter length demolition of five previous G1 winners.
The last race on the card, the showpiece Dubai World Cup, fell to Thunder Snow who became the fourth G1 winner on the night for Godolphin. From the first crop of Helmet, he is now into his third season racing and has now won a G1 in each of those years.
As a juvenile he landed the Criterium International by five lengths before winning the G3 UAE 2,000 Guineas and G2 UAE Derby at this meeting last season. Transferred back to Europe and showing his versatility to be equally adept on turf as dirt, he placed in the Irish 2,000 Guineas and St Jame’s Palace Stakes before making all the running to win the G1 Prix Jean Prat over a mile at Chantilly. The winner of seven career races, he now has earnings in excess of £6,000,000.
