There was a dramatic finish to the Purebred Arabian version of HH The President Cup Prep with jockey Silvestre De Sousa, employed primarily by Godolphin, riding the Majed Al Jahouri-trained Raazig to victory on his local debut.
Settled way off the pace by De Sousa, Raazig made smooth progress to chase the leaders 800m out. De Sousa’s left foot came out of his iron turning for home but that did not stop the Brazilian driving his mount out and the pair led close home.
De Sousa said: “I thought I was going to win on the bend but, when I asked him to quicken, my foot came out of the iron.
“I did not want to lose momentum though and just carried on riding to the finish. He is a nice horse.”
The Thoroughbred equivalent, over 1,400m, was a lot less exciting with this season’s National Day Cup (1,600m) winner Nawwaar making virtually every yard of the running under Dane O’Neill.
Trained by Ali Rashid Al Raihe, Nawwaar was clear 500m out and was never going to be caught. Jose Santiago, replacing the indisposed Richard Mullen, steered the Jaber Bittar-trained debutante Tahya Al Reef to a fairly comfortable victory in the opening 1,400m maiden.
Not the quickest away, Santiago did not panic, allowing his filly to find her stride and the pair made smooth progress 500m out to track the leaders.
They ran on strongly in the straight, leading about 100m out to give the jockey a second winner of the season.
A 1,200m handicap was won by Wadi Al Sail, a fourth winner of the season for apprentice William Twiston-Davies, and a first in four seasons for trainer Omar Daraj Mohammed.
For the second week running, Champion Jockey Tadhg O’Shea won a 1,600m handicap aboard Sheikh Down for Champion Trainer Ernst Oertel. Seven days after a hard fought course and distance victory, they followed up a tad more comfortably yesterday.
O’Shea said: “This horse also won at Sharjah in November so that is three for the season for him, as well as two seconds. From our bad draw we had to ride for luck and he really ran on strongly when it mattered.”
O’Shea completed a double when producing the Saifaldin Deebtrained Najem S’Heel to win a second 1,200m handicap.