Facteur Cheval to make dirt switch in Meydan Jerome Reynier’s Facteur Cheval is set to try a dirt track in the Al Maktoum Challenge ahead of a possible Middle Eastern campaign on the surface. The gelding had gone close in a series of high-quality races before making his Group One breakthrough at Meydan last year, winning the Dubai Turf to add over £2million to a prize fund haul that already looked pretty healthy due to prior placed runs in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes and the Sussex Stakes. After his Dubai trip last year, he returned to British shores again to finish sixth in the Queen Anne at Royal Ascot, after which he was third in the Sussex Stakes and second once again when chasing home Charyn in the Queen Elizabeth II. A return to Meydan has been on the agenda ever since, with connections pondering a switch to a dirt surface and a potential tilt at races such as the Saudi Cup and Dubai World Cup. With that in mind, Facteur Cheval will head out to Dubai imminently to settle in ahead of the Al Maktoum Challenge, run on dirt over nine and a half furlongs in late January. Prior to the journey, the horse did a piece of work at Cagnes-sur-Mer at the weekend and gave Reynier plenty of reason to be optimistic ahead of the six-year-old’s return to action. “He’s been very good, he’s been training well and he did a piece of work at Cagnes-sur-Mer two days ago on Saturday. We’re very happy with him,” he said. “He’s going to run in the Al Maktoum Challenge on the dirt on January 24, that will be a good test to see if he can handle the dirt and we will make a plan afterwards depending on his run. It will be very interesting. “He has run over the trip before in Dubai and it was no problem, he is getting more mature with age and he looks amazing physically. “He’s been to Dubai before, he knows the place and obviously he was very successful last year. “That’s the aim (the Saudi Cup and/or the Dubai World Cup), that’s why we are trying him on the dirt to see if we can target those races. If not, we will keep him on the turf and maybe run him on Super Saturday too. “He takes it all in his stride, he deals with the travelling very well and he’ll be going over on Friday.”
