Racing Preview

A warm welcome to the first Saturday meeting of the new season from King Khalid Racecourse, Ta’if. There’s a nine-race card in prospect today, featuring three valuable SAR135,000 0-85 handicaps.

A fillies’ maiden over 1200m begins the card, and it should prove an informative contest with 18 two-year-olds set to line up. Shathah, a daughter of Dawn Approach, might be the pick of these on pedigree.

Another maiden over 1200m comes next, with this one for four to five-year-old fillies and colts. Life’s A Beach ran a highly promising KSA debut at King Abdulaziz Racecourse in March when looking to find that 1800m trip too far. He could take advantage now dropping back in distance.

Race three is the first of today’s 0-85 Handicaps and will be run over 1200m. Highly rated Night Of Thunder colt, Desert Man, created a good impression when third on debut last November and followed up on his following start. He’s clearly capable of going well fresh and can take this under Adel Alfouraidi. Defender, who runs in the same colours, may give him most to do.

The following race is a 1200m Open for locally-bred horses. Yaktaseh is a prolific winner with 10 KSA wins to his name and has finished third on seasonal debut for each of the last two seasons. He faces highly rated and younger opposition in Wadhahee and Helmee though, and perhaps the latter, trained by Abdullah Naseeb, can come out on top.

Race five is an Open race for Arabian horses over 1200m. Aryam Al Khalediah is an interesting debutant and could be up to making a winning start in the hands of Aseel Alsarhani.

Next up is another Arabian horses’ Open race, this time over the slightly longer trip of 1400m. This looks competitive despite the small field, and it’s Taqdeer, who was last seen finishing down the field in a much higher grade in the King Abdulaziz Racetrack Championship Cup in March that makes most appeal. He won twice last season and gets weight from all his rivals, despite having the highest rating.

Race seven is our second SAR135,000 0-85 Handicap, which sees a field of 15 go to post over 1600m. There are plenty of imports with interesting pedigrees here, with progeny of Lope De Vega, Gleneagles and Caravaggio on show. It’s locallybred Faz that makes most appeal though, after winning impressively on seasonal return last year.

Our penultimate contest is a 2000m maiden for locally-bred fillies. Nafethah showed improvement between her first and second start last season and may build on that here with Camilo Ospina aboard.

Today’s action draws to a close with another 0-85 Handicap, and it’s our longest race of the day, run over a 2400m trip. Watch out for the lightly weighted Eight Of Diamonds potentially taking a step forward in his second season in KSA. This son of Ulysses has taken time to come to hand, but a return to this trip could spark some improvement. Gurkhali Warrior is