The final furlongs of the $12 million Dubai World Cup (G1) produced a repeat of the finish of the $20 Saudi Cup a month earlier with Ushba Tesoro and Senor Buscador battling it out.
The only problem is, they were doing it 8 1/2 lengths behind the surprise winner, Laurel River .
Laurel River overcame the outside 12 gate, jumped right to the lead for jockey Tadhg O’Shea and never looked back. Running comfortably, he turned for home and hit the afterburners, quickly distancing his rivals en route to the massive win.
Japan’s Ushba Tesoro, last year’s World Cup winner, nosed out Senor Buscador for second, reversing the order of finish from the Saudi race, albeit for the minor placings rather than the big prize.
The massive disappointment in the race was Kabirkhan, the Kentucky-bred California Chrome colt who started his career in Kazakhstan and Russia, then became the talk of the Dubai Carnival with two dominating wins. He was never in contention in the World Cup and got home eighth.
But if Kabirkhan was all the rage before the race, Laurel River was the buzz when it was finished.
“When I came to Dubai in 2001, I didn’t think that 23 years later I’d be winning the world’s richest race,” O’Shea said, generously inflating the relative size of the purse. “To have any winner on this stage is marvelous.”
Bhupat Seemar, one of the most successful local trainers, added, “I thought I’d probably never have a horse to run in the Dubai World Cup, much less win it. It’s the best race in the world, in my opinion.”
Seemar inherited the horse this season when Juddmonte Farms, the owner and breeder, opted to relocate Laurel River to Dubai from California. In California, the now 6-year-old Into Mischief entire reeled off three straight wins to finish his 2021-22 campaign, ending with a win in the seven-furlong Pat O’Brien Stakes (G2) at Del Mar.
He then missed the entire 2023 season and when he reappeared in Dubai in January this year, he finished a well-beaten seventh in the 1,200-meter (about six-furlong) Al Shindagha Sprint (G3). Undaunted, Seemar put him in the one-mile Burj Nahaar (G3) March 2 and he responded with a 6 3/4-length victory.
“After the Burj Nahaar, we decided to forget the Godolphin Mile (on the World Cup undercard) and let him go in the World Cup,” Seemar said. “He’s just got a natural pace and if he could get the lead, we thought, go for it.”
Ironically, Laurel River was trained in California by Bob Baffert. Seemar worked as an assistant to Baffert years ago. Asked if he expects a call from his former mentor asking for the horse back, he said, “I’m sure there’s a smart comment on my phone.”
O’Shea said he hoped Laurel River, a confirmed sprinter-miler, could handle the added distance. And he said that feeling was reinforced when he hopped aboard for morning trackwork a week out from the race.
“I have never, ever worked a horse to feel like that,” he said. “And it was only a four-furlong workout. This is the best horse I’ve ever ridden.”
As to the simple race tactic, he said, “You can’t be half-hearted. You gotta go forward. If he stays, he stays. If he doesn’t, he doesn’t.”
Seemar stood like a statue while watching the race unfold and said afterward, “I was just hoping nobody was going to come from the back and catch him.”
Asked whether his renaissance might find Laurel River flowing back to California, Seemar said he would consult with the Juddmonte team but sounded a negative note.
“He’s had a long enough season even though it’s only three races,” the trainer said. “The good thing about Dubai is, the reason we have older horses and they last so long is that we can give them that break in the summer and freshen them up and bring them back. Unfortunately, a lot of places in the world, the only way you get a break if they have injuries.”
So no Del Mar? No Breeders’ Cup in November?
“Probably not.”
Another piece of irony: Baffert’s only runner in the World Cup, Newgate , finished ninth under Frankie Dettori. And another former Baffert trainee, multiple graded stakes winner Defunded , now based in Saudi Arabia, was seventh.
The race also was slightly disappointing, other than Ushba Tesoro’s second, for Japan. Wilson Tesoro finished fourth, Dura Erede fifth, and Derma Sotogake , the 2023 UAE Derby (G2) winner, sixth.
It was a good night for the local connections. Early on the program, races had gone to horses based in the United States, England, Hong Kong, and Japan. Then Tuz , another Seemar-O’Shea connection, produced a major upset in the Dubai Golden Shaheen (G1).
And, even though he’s trained in England by Charlie Appleby, Rebel’s Romance got Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s Godolphin back on the board after two winless years when he defeated a world-class field in the Dubai Sheema Classic (G1T).
Jockey William Buick said he congratulated Sheikh Mohammed during the winners’ ceremony “on getting so many world-class horses to the World Cup program. But then I told him, ‘You know you’re just making it harder for ourselves.'”
With wide geographic dispersal of winners, things couldn’t have been much more international—unless Kabirkhan had won the World Cup.
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