Al Ain: MH Areeb, Richard Mullen up, cruised home to win the HH Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Global Arabian Horse Flat Racing Festival’s Wathba Stud Farm Cup for private owners only at the Al Ain Racecourse on Friday (December 2). The UAE National Day was made even memorable when three horses of Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs won their races.
It was the festival’s Wathba Stud Farm Cup for Private Owners which opened the race meeting and the seven-year-old MH Areeb won under Richard Mullen. It was half-a-length that separated MH Areeb and AF Muwall’s Aa under Szczepan Mazur with UAE Apprentice jockey Saeed Al Mazrooei third on Tamooh S. The winning time for the Dh70,000-dirt contest over 1600 metres was 1:59.99 sec.
Trained by Elise Jeanne and only raced in the UAE, MH Areeb was recording a seventh career victory and third at Al Ain. Owned by Mansour Khalifa Sultan Bin Habtoor, MH Areeb was also a winner at Sharjah on the first weekend of this season.
“This horse is a bit of a character but this track really seems to suit him,” said Mullen. “He travelled nicely today and picked up well when I asked him.”
The Al Ain Racecourse staged six other races after the opening Wathba Stud Farm Cup and three of those were won by horses owned by Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Topping the triple triumph was Aslaan, a four-year-old Bibi De Carrere colt bred, winning the featured 1600-metre handicap to round off the meeting.
