Abu Dhabi: After the superb win by UAE apprentice jockey Ahmad Al Subose in Tarbes, France, last week, all eyes will be on fellow Emirati apprentice Saeed Al Mazrouei in Sunday’s penultimate race of the HH Shaikha Fatima Bint Mubarak Apprentice World Championship (IFAHR) at the Duindigt racecourse in the Netherlands.
Al Mazrouei, who is in his fourth season as an apprentice, has 22 wins under his belt and will be riding the C. J. M Wolters-trained Derham. The grey colt by Amer has had two second-placed finishes this season and will need to improve on that to better some fancied rivals at the HH Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Global Arabian Horse Flat Racing Festival event.
The Diana Dorenburg-trained Hurra and the Gillian Duffield-trained Munya Farah appeal the most in a small but quality field for the turf contest over 1,900 metres, with a prize fund of €22,000 (Dh103,115) on offer.
Spain’s Jaime Gelabert Bautista, who finished fifth on Ainhoa Madjanis in the third leg of the series in Tarbes, gets the ride on Hurra. Hurra won the Qatar Near Elite Arabian Derby on August 3 and, before that, also won the Festival’s Wathba Stud Farm Cup 3 race at the same course in Duindigt.
Munya Farah, a winner of the Wathba Stud Farm Cup Premier Stakes in Newbury last year, finished fourth to Udjess de Bouzouls in the Festival’s €30,000 HH Shaikha Fatima Bint Mubarak Ladies World Championship race on June 22. The drop in class could suit the Munjiz filly that will be ridden by Malaysian apprentice Amirul Adli Ismadi.
Dorenburg also saddles Nabukko, to be ridden by Irish apprentice Josh Doyle.
Fareedha will be ridden by Czech Republic’s Simona Molkova and Jimmy des Cedres will be under Hector Crouch from Great Britain.
Germany’s Bayarsaikhan Ganbat, who finished third in last year’s IFAHR finale in Abu Dhabi, will be looking to clinch a berth in this year’s November 9 final in the UAE. With 96 wins under his belt, Ganbat will be hoping for a winning debut from Astarte da Bonorva.
American apprentice Laura Carson, second in the Newbury leg of the Apprentice World Championship, gets another chance to book an Abu Dhabi place when riding Robbie the First.
Sunday’s winner will join the previous three winners at Sacramento, Newbury and Tarbes and will be joined by ten other apprentice jockeys for the grand finale.
Wieger Joost de Ruiter, IFAHR Treasurer and Chairman of the Dutch Arabian Racing Committee, said: “We are extremely delighted to be staging this race, which aims to boost apprentice jockeys, here in the Netherlands.
“With this event, we will have the proud privilege of having staged races of all the four series organised by the Festival — the other three being the Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Cup series, the HH Shaikha Fatima Bint Mubarak Ladies World Championship IFAHR series and the Wathba Stud Farm Cup series.”
