Godolphin’s dominance is throttling Dubai Carnival

THE Racing’s Post’s feature writer, Julian Muscat, believes Godolphin should consider whether to scale back their Dubai Carnival operations. “The sight of one blue-clad blueblood after another entering the winner’s circle is as uninspiring,” he opined this week.

It is not just the pre-Cheltenham fare in Britain and Ireland that fails to fire the imagination. Friday afternoons at Meydan used to be an attractive alterative option for those in search of competitive racing, but it’s sad to relate that too has become a thing of the past.

The Dubai Racing Carnival has gone the same way as jumping. For Willie Mullins, read Charlie Appleby’s Godolphin stable. What was once a series of beguiling turf races has become a procession, with Appleby streets ahead. The opposition must be as demoralised as those rivals who chase Mullins’ horses in vain.

Appleby’s stats are nothing short of astonishing. Even his bare strike-rate of 21 winners from 52 runners does not tell the full story as those 21 winners have come in just 31 races that he has contested. He has saddled the first two home on five occasions.

It wasn’t always that way. Saeed bin Suroor was once able to give Appleby a run for his money, with local bragging rights on the line as Godolphin’s trainers jousted for their boss’s attention on his own patch. With South African trainer Mike de Kock also more than a match for Godolphin’s battalions, there were some who felt the Group fare on turf was a three-pronged fork.

Now we are down to one. De Kock is no longer on the scene and Appleby’s carnival dominance has been abetted by the slump in Bin Suroor’s fortunes, Godolphin’s one-time totem finding himself short of ammunition with a string that declines every year. After sending out seven winners to Appleby’s 15 at last year’s carnival, he has yet to saddle a winner after ten fixtures this year.

And if you think Appleby’s overall record at this carnival should be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, it pales by comparison to how he has fared in Group races alone. Of the ten Pattern races on turf since the carnival opened in December, Appleby has won nine – and he didn’t have a runner in the tenth.

He invariably saddles the favourite, frequently at odds-on, and should that favourite underperform, it is invariably a stablemate who profits. So it was on Friday, when bloodless Group victories for Naval Power and Siskany supplemented that posted earlier by English Rose, who turned over odds-on stablemate Sapphire Seas.

Even before this year’s tour de force, Godolphin’s voracious appetite was impacting on the desire of European trainers to compete. It is also partly responsible for the reduced traffic of horses from South America, which lent the carnival such an eclectic feel. Those early years bequeathed some wonderful memories, notably the sight of Brazilian grooms exercising horses bareback every morning on the track.

Back then, the carnival really was a melting pot for horses from all points of the compass. It felt like a celebration of racing, which was its raison d’etre. But the magic has dissolved. It seems a long time ago since Invasor, the Uruguayan champion three-year-old bought by the late Sheikh Hamdan, carried all before him after he finished fourth in the 2006 UAE Derby, culminating in his victory in the 2007 Dubai World Cup.

Ironically, dirt races are now more competitive than of yore. However, the carnival dirt preamble to Super Saturday concerns largely local trainers and horses lacking resonance with European viewers. And the turf races have become far too predictable.

Godolphin should now consider whether to scale back their carnival operations. The sight of one blue-clad blueblood after another entering the winner’s circle is as uninspiring as was the procession of Mullins-trained horses doing likewise at the recent Dublin Racing Festival. It is having a detrimental effect.

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