An introduction to handicapping the Dubai World Cup card
I would like to begin this by revealing one of horse racing’s best kept secrets: The clock in the U.S. begins a bit after the gates open. At Meydan, which will host its Dubai World Cup card this Saturday, seconds start ticking as soon as the gates open, resulting in seemingly slower final times. In order to estimate that delay, I will use X Y Jet as a reference. In the 2015 edition of the Mr. Prospector and the 2016 edition of the Sunshine Millions Sprint, he run opening quarters of 21.9 and 21.8 seconds respectively. He then came to Meydan for the Golden Shaheen and ran this:
So, 21.8 became 23.5. Same horse, different method of clocking. That’s a difference of 1.7 seconds that carries on to all fractions up to the final time. If we subtract roughly 1.7 seconds from the Meydan fractional times, we can convert them to the easier to recognize and compare US format.
Having said that, let’s move on to this year’s Dubai World Cup day. It takes place over the dirt at Meydan, one of the trickiest tracks of the world. With sharp turns and a long stretch Meydan has been known for its speed and rail bias from the day it switched from synthetic.
Most of the winners come either on the lead or skimming the rail behind the pace. The jockeys there know that, so what you see as the gates open is a sprint to the first turn. The horse that gets the lead and the rail becomes a major player in the race. The ones that don’t make it and were caught three, four and even five wide on the first turn seemingly lose all chances. The next time the same field runs, with the only difference post positions, results tend to change. Horses that lost by double digit lengths come back to content, while the ones that run well the other day disappear. The draw is very important at Meydan.
The 10-furlong World Cup begins with a 2-furlong straight before the first turn. Same thing with the 6-furlong distance starting on the back stretch. If you have enough speed to clear the field and move to the rail before the turn comes, then the draw is insignificant. In that case, stall 1 is definitely better than stall 12, but not by much.
The other factor is class. In 2016’s World Cup, California Chrome overcame a wide trip simply because he was special. Same thing with Arrogate in the 2017 edition. He won despite what happened immediately after the start, breaking last of all.
Sharp Azteca in last year’s Godolphin Mile lost to a couple of locals (Second Summer and Ross) because he was part of suicidal pace. Ross tried stakes races in the U.S. after that and confirmed that, despite the miracle in the Godolphin Mile, he does not belong in group company.
By the way, part of that hot pace was due to North America, a contender in this year’s Dubai World Cup. In the 2016 Golden Shaheen X Y Jet lost to a local sprinter, Muarrab, by a head. There is class at the Emirates. Last but not least, Marking got destroyed as the 2016 Godolphin Mile favorite by another local horse, the classy One Man Band.
Strange things can happen at Meydan.
Another trend worth noting came out of last year’s event. It rained for three days prior to the races. The rain stopped about an hour before the first race, the Godolphin Mile. Trainer Doug Watson said that he has never seen that much rain in Dubai since moving there, and that was a long time ago.
The track was listed as sloppy. Everyone thought that the track bias would be multiplied and shot to the front. They were proven wrong. Horses that day were winning or running well from everywhere. The Godolphin mile was won by an inferior horse who came from way off the pace skimming the rail. Mind Your Buiscuits won the sprint going wide from off the pace. We all know how Arrogate won/ Gun Runner performed well tracking the leader. Thunder Snow nailed Epicharis on the wire to win the UAE Derby by tracking four wide while Epicharis was on the lead. The water made the track fair.
Have a look at how the dirt races were run that day:
The track started ridiculously fast. Look at the 6-furlong fraction the mile race (No. 1 on the card): 69.6 seconds by Sharp Azteca. Mind Your Biscuits won the 6-furlong race (Race 6) in 70.9 seconds. The two horses ran three months prior in Santa Anita’s Grade 1 Malibu going 7 furlongs and finished 1-2, separated by half a length. Apparently the track had already slowed down significantly by the time the sprint race ran.
That makes sense because Meydan is built on the desert. Once the rain had stopped, the track started drying out fast. You can’t compare the rate at which U.S. tracks dry out to this one. The desert is always thirsty.
By the time Arrogate ran, the track was even slower. Maybe that’s what helped his performance win the Longines World's Best Racehorse award. I’ll cover that more later this week when I go into more detail on the 2018 Dubai World Cup.
Let that serve as an introduction to handicapping the races at Meydan. I’ll hit on the card’s major dirt races separately in the coming days, focusing on those with U.S. runners. I’ll compare them with the local horses using a variety of handicapping methods. It will be interesting to see where North America, Thunder Snow, Jordan Sport and any other local hopes really stand. Are they real contenders or just local firecrackers? We’ll try to determine that before the gates open Saturday.
Writer Savvas Lopez considers himself a horse racing scientist. The more he studies the sport, the more he loves it. the more I love them. Savvas spends his professional life developing business software, and his personal life developing horse racing software.