Meydan Overview & Selections – Week 1:
The 2022 Dubai International Carnival at Magnificent Meydan where the Dirt meets the Turf begins on Friday. The action gets underway with two feature races – the Al Maktoum Challenge on the Dirt and the Cape Verdi on the Turf. Both races have attracted plenty of runners and the whole card is of the highest quality, with some decent international challengers adding spice to the meeting.
Four selections this week. All the best!
9:35am ET Meydan: Taking Names
Despite a dull effort last time out I think this Doug Watson trained colt can bounce back to the sort of form that saw him when his maiden impressively here last November. In that race he travelled powerfully and thrashed Summer Is Tomorrow, who went on to win a maiden by 4 1/2 lengths next time out. Faith in the selection requires forgiveness for Taking Names did not fire last time up, but he was slowly away and had to take a lot of kickback. He merely plugged on in that race and it’s possible that he recoiled a bit from his big first-time up effort. Pat Dobbs will be keen to get him to break better this time and make full use of his inside draw in stall 1.
10:10am ET Meydan: Wirko
You won’t go far wrong if you follow Charlie Appleby and William Buick on the Turf at Meydan and this lightly raced individual looks the ideal type too thrive under these conditions. He has only had four career starts, winning two of them and his win in the Listed Blue Riband trial at Epsom was achieved despite inexperience – and won in a fast time. Compared to most of his rivals today he is relatively unexposed and open to improvement. He has been off the track since running poorly in the Chester Vase in May where the prevailing soft ground may have been against him. The beautiful turf carpet at Meydan will definitely suit him and it looks like he has been saved for a big tilt at this year’s carnival. William Buick will have to negate the disadvantage of stall 10 but apart from that I can see very few negatives as regards this horse’s chance.
11:20am ET Meydan: Midnight Sands
This horse is a Meydan specialist having won 6 of his 9 starts here on the Dirt track. This one-turn mile is ideal for him, and he has had a recent run to blow the cobwebs away. On the face of it he was a little disappointing on his return to action, but he endured a bad wide trip and was not persevered with when beaten. That run should see him spot on for this and against a few rivals who have Saudi on their radar he may be sharper than some of them. He is highly thought of as evidenced by the fact that he went off favourite for the Godolphin mile last year on World Cup night and Pat Dobbs has chosen him rather than the useful Golden Goal. This is a deep dirt race with a lot of pace on but this will suit Midnight Sands who already boasts a Grade 3 win here.
11:55am ET Meydan: Wedding Dance
Charlie Appleby has won this race for the last three years and can land it again with this progressive filly. She will need to take a step forward from her cosy Wolverhampton success last time up, but she won that race in a very good time and it has always been a maxim of mine when assessing racehorses to ask not what they beat but how fast did they run. She was very strong in the closing stages of that race and stepping up to a mile here given her stamina laden pedigree can only be a plus. She is well berthed in stall 1 for a ground saving trip and I expect William Buick to angle her out in the home straight and allow her to finish her race off strongly. This is never a very strong fillies contest, and she looks to be a standout against this opposition.
Remember to place your wagers at IdaBet.com!
