Final day of Dubai Racing Carnival

Today is the final day of the Dubai International Racing Carnival at Meydan, with several runners still hoping to get a invitation to World Cup Day, which is scheduled for Saturday March 26th. World Cup Day, with its $26 million prize-money is not part of the carnival but a stand-alone fixture. Main feature today is the Group Two Zabeel Mile at 18.45 CET on turf and we hope to see the Qatar-trained Hearts of Fire (Ibrahim al Malki/ Adrie de Vries) win here. Previously trained by Pat Eddery he put up some excellent performances in Europe, including winning the Zukunfts-Rennen at Baden-Baden in 2009, and last week was beaten only 2 lengths in a much stronger field for the Jebel Hatta here. A repetition of that form should be good enough to take care of today´s weaker opposition.

Indomito (Pavel Vovcenko/ Daragh O´Donoghue) is the only German runner at the Carnival nd has been unplaced on his 3 starts so far, all on tapeta. He now runs on turf for the first time in the 6 furlongs handicap at 16.50 and we hope to see him placed in this race, which has a lop-sided look as the top weight JJ the Jet Plane (Lucky Houdalkais/ Bernard Fayd´Herbe) is rated so far superior to the other runners that almost all of them are out of the handicap. In theory he has to win this - he was after all a Group One winner in Hong Kong- but he ran badly on his first start at Meydan (on tapeta).

The Group Three DRC Gold Cup at 17.30 is the longest race run at the meeting at two miles on turf. Mikhail Glinka (Herman Brown/ Ryan Moore) won the Queens Vase last year and as the only 4yo in the field he gets weight all round. However we do not like his very nasty (in our opinion) owner, so hope he is beaten- possibly by German-bred Bergo, trained by Ryan´ s father Gary and ridden by Christophe Soumillon. Brown and Moore can instead win the opening conditions race over 7 furlongs on turf with Chocolicious.

Betting forecast:
1. Race: Paulinho - Chocolicious - Electric Waves
2. Race: Hunting Tower - Mr Brock - Bronze Cannon
3. Race: J J The Jet Plane - Green Beret - Rock Jock
4. Race: Mikhail Glinka - Whispering Gallery - Opinion Poll
5. Race: Spring Of Fame - Al Shemali - Here To Win
6. Race: Cat Junior - Silverside - Invisible Man
7. Race: Steele Tango - Enak - Pallodio