Nordic Lights did us a good turn last week continuing what has been an excellent Carnival so far for his trainer Charlie Appleby, and I think he’ll be in for a good night again this week.
For our yard, we had a surprise winner of the UAE 2,000 Guineas in Estihdaaf, who looked a totally different horse in a visor. He’s always had a lot of talent but is a right old monkey and kept plenty us his sleeve, so the headgear clearly worked.
It was a real boost to the yard to get another big winner, following on from successes of Dream Castle, and hopefully we can carry on picking up decent prizes along the way.
This week it looks like Charlie’s team have the stronger runners but we’ll be trying our best to get in amongst the winners too.
He’s different class to these. He’s not 100 per cent ready for this race but he should be too good for the rest of them, as his price suggests. My son Cieren spent much of the winter riding work for David Hayes and they do like Faatinah. He was beaten last time but he’s worth a second chance based on the reports I’m getting about him. That said, I think they’ll all struggle to beat the favourite.
This horse is the one everyone at Charlie Appleby’s is most looking forward to and they tell me he’s their best chance on the night of a winner. They’ve been waiting to run him in this race and he’s got a lot of talent; he’s flying at home. Burj, one of our two runners, has been disappointing. I skipped him around Meydan when he first arrived and he felt like a horse to handle it all, but he’s not put it together at all out here. Our other runner is Promise Of Success and she’s worth keeping an eye on. She’s going in at the deep end but she’s well worth a second look and could go well each way. I like her a lot.
She’s another short-priced favourite but all the vibes are that she deserves to be. I fancied her to win a couple of weeks ago and she was very good, and I think she’ll win again. We run Asoof and I do think she’s capable of giving Poetic Charm a race. She’s taken a real big step forward from her first race out here and is working nicely.
I put this horse up as one to note in my very first blog and I’ve still got a lot of time for him. All he does is gallop this horse – he doesn’t really quicken – and if he could be up there racing handy and then kick a good way out I think he’d have a strong chance. He does need to be ridden the right way though. Charlie’s team like Zaman and he finished third last time after meeting trouble. I’d hope they’d both be in with good chances in this race.
Good luck,
Kieren
