2 minute read
Photo finish: Mixed fortunes
Good fortune for Frankel with a unique international Africa/Middle-East double header, bad fortune for City Of Troy in the US
On November 16 in Morocco at Casablanca racecourse Shining Dawn won one of the newest races on the international circuit, the Grand Prix De La Sorec Defi Du Galop, part of the Casablanca International meeting. The race is run on a deep sand track and worth over £100,000 to the winner.
Shining Dawn is a nine-year-old son of Frankel, is trained by owner Fannane Samir, and was bred by the Saudi breeder Mitaab Abdullah.
The day before Spirit Dancer, also by the leading Juddmonte sire, won the Turf-run Bahrain International Trophy for the second year in succession for the ownership group of Done Ferguson Mason and trainer Richard Fahy.
The seven-year-old gelding, bred by Sir Alex Ferguson and Niall McLoughlin, could well be heading East to take up an entry at the big Hong Kong meeting in December.
Not such good fortune for City Of Troy in Del Mar. The son of Justify (below) just got sand kicked in his face in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Classic.
It was a race in which the four-time Group 1 winner never featured after a slower-than-ideal exit from the stalls behind the experienced, Dirt-bred US horses, and then he never got to grips with Dirt surface in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
