Dubai: Almost 20 years after winning the inaugural Dubai World Cup (G1), American Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott appears to have a strong chance of repeating the feat when the $10 million (Dh36.7 million) contest celebrates a landmark year at Meydan Racecourse in March.
The three-time Eclipse-winning handler claimed a special place in racing history when he saddled the great Cigar to victory over the tenacious Soul Of The Matter in an unforgettable first running of the 2,000m event at Nad Al Sheba Racecourse in 1996.
Now, Mott has not one but two potential candidates to aim at the upcoming 20th edition of the Meydan classic — which returns to dirt in 2015 after a five-year absence — in the form of recent Grade 3 winner Lea and Cigar Street, who was sixth behind another Dubai World Cup contender, Bayern, in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita, USA, last November.
Lea stormed into the Dubai picture when bouncing back from almost a year’s absence to win the Hal’s Hope Stakes (G3) at Gulfstream Park on Saturday. British bookmakers Coral reacted swiftly to that performance and introduced him into the ante-post market at 10-1 behind the joint favourites Toast Of New York (5) and Bayern (5), California Chrome (8) and Shared Belief (8).
Reviewing the build-up to the Meydan showpiece, which takes place on March 28, Martin Talty, the Dubai Racing Club’s International Manager, said: “Lea seems to be the talking horse at the moment, he’s the one on the way up.
“It will be quite fitting to have the trainer who won the inaugural race back in 1996 come back and win the 20th one.
“Bill Mott is a great horseman and he will recognise the size of the challenge that confronts Lea. He’s obviously a high-class horse but he will have to be at his best to beat horses like Bayern, California Chrome, Shared Belief, Tonalist and others.
“But he’s shown that he’s as good as ever. It’s a huge performance if a horse returns from a long lay-off to win any race. But to come back and win a Graded race is even more impressive.
“There’s no doubt he’ll improve further and a defence of the Donn Handicap [G1 in Florida, February 7], looks the likely route, much like Mott did with Cigar.”
Free entries for the Dubai World Cup close on Friday and Talty expects to see a lot of big names on the list.
“There is a lot of interest emanating from America and that’s good,” said Talty. “They had a lot of major winners in Dubai, at the old dirt track at Nad Al Sheba between 1996 and 2009, and it’s good to have all the big names from America coming back to Dubai.”
After the free entries close, Dubai Racing Club officials will rate the horses from top to bottom and see which are suited for which race on the Dubai World Cup card. Following that, invitations will be sent out to the connections of the selected horses.
“We will then hope to get as many acceptances to those invitations,” said Talty. “We want the best horses from all over the world to race at Meydan and hopefully we can achieve that goal in this 20th year of the Dubai World Cup.”
