Ghantoot Review Sunday February 13th
Defending champion Willie Supple said at the start of the season that it was going to be hard to defend his jockey's title during 1999/2000.
And that is exactly the way it is working out with everything he does seemingly matched by compatriot Ted Durcan.
Durcan is flying high at the top of the UAE jockey's championship and if he is going to be beaten those closest to him in the chase must start their move now.
Supple saw that and rode a winning double at Ghantoot on Sunday night, both Purebred Arabians, Ali de Piboul for retained trainer Dhruba Selvaratnam and the other, the feature event on the card, the Bani Yas aboard Al Saham Al Fuddi for Mazin Al Kurdi.
However, the double was negated by a winning treble for Durcan and it certainly appears that he has the championship sewn up. He has set a furious pace in the championship, his three winners at Ghantoot aboard Surhaan, Arabian Desert and Satin Secret and only bad luck will stop him from securing his first championship.
Satin Secret's win also gave Erwan Charpy yet another double, the Frenchman having a very successful season as is Satish Seemar, who followed his double at Abu Dhabi on Friday night with another winning double here with victories from Ekdam and Arabian Desert.
Al Saham Al Fuddi is on the threshold of providing his owner, Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamdan Al Nahyan with a Dhs100,000 bonus after his win in the Bani Yas at Ghantoot.
The Bani Yas is the second and middle round of the Ghantoot Sprint Championship and with this win complimenting his first round win in the Al Ruwais at Ghantoot on January 14th, the horse is now firmly favoured to make it a clean sweep in the third round, the Liwa Oasis, again at Ghantoot, on April 9th.
The first round was over 1,000m, last night's event over 1,200m and the third round will be over 1,400m.
Al Saham Al Fuddi again relegated the Qatari-trained mare Al Hanoof into second placing last night, the mare narrowly failing to give trainer Alban de Mieulle a big race feature over the weekend after the win of Djelmila's win in the second round of the Maktoum Challenge at Nad Al Sheba last Thursday night.
