Dubai: Jockey Royston Ffrench is hoping that Need To Known can reproduce his Jebel Ali form when he runs in the 1600m Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships Handicap, the feature race of Meydan’s six-race card sponsored by Dubai Duty Free.

Trained by Ali Rashid Al Raihe and ridden by Ffrench, the South African-bred six-year-old was an impressive winner at Jebel Ali three weeks ago.

“We always liked him. He has rarely run a bad race throughout his career and had a good season last time,” the jockey said. “He won well at the first meeting at Jebel Ali and the runner-up that day, Mawhub, won last week so the form looks good.

“This is probably a better race but we have to be hopeful of a big effort.”

His main rivals appear to be Shamaal Nibras, who was finishing well in a 1400m handicap at Meydan on opening night and the Dhruba Selvaratnam-trained Canwinn.

Rochdale, now trained by Rashed Bouresly, actually won over course and distance on the equivalent card in 2008 at Nad Al Sheba. He is having his third start of the season already.

HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum owns four of the ten runners and retained jockey, Dane O’Neill, rides Sefri, who is making his dirt debut for trainer, Erwan Charpy. On pedigree the surface should be fine and he showed plenty of promise during his first UAE season.

Silvestre De Sousa rides for the first time as official stable jockey to Musabah Al Muhairi and partners Ajraam, also owned by Sheikh Hamdan.

The second most valuable race is a 1200m handicap and De Sousa rides the Al Muhairi-trained Art Wave who looked the likely winner of a 1400m handicap at Jebel Ali last Friday, only to hang violently in the closing stages forfeiting victory.

With De Sousa replacing apprentice George Buckell, he looks the one to beat.

Satish Seemar has made a great start to the season and saddles Price Is Truth, the mount of stable jockey Richard Mullen. Price Is Truth was the very easy winner of a 1200m Sharjah handicap on his return to action almost two weeks ago.

That was his first win, at the 13th attempt, and he is considered a dirt specialist by connections so it will be interesting to see how he fares here.

Stable companion, Zalzilah, to be ridden by the stable’s apprentice jockey, Marc Monaghan, made a pleasing local debut at Jebel Ali three weeks ago and should also go well.