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French King secured his second win in the HH The Amir's Trophy, a US$ I million race over 2400 presented by Longines.
\Trained in France by Henri-Alex Pantall and ridden by Olivier Peslier, he's by French Fifteen out of a Halling mare. He ran in the Arc last year but the soft going was not to his liking and earlier he won a G2 in Cologne.
As we said in the preview, it would probably need the re-introduction of the guillotine to stop him and since that (fortunately) didn't happen he finished 2 ½ lengths in front of the American raider Standard Deviation who had Oisin Murphy in the irons. Qatar Derby winner Pedro Cara was third under Tony Piccone, and Tom Marquan's mount Noor El Halwa was fourth. OTI's nice grey Mr Satchmo was up the front for most of the race but couldn't quicken faster than the swoopers and finished sixth.
The HH The Amir's Sword was another sensational race where Ebraz won the race for the third time and also won the Triple Crown. The Triple Crown for the Purebred Arabians consists of the Qatar International Stakes at Goodwood in July, over 1600m, the Qatar Arabian World Cup at Longchamp in October over 2400m.
Earlier the Stefano Ibido trained Dark Pursuit won the Dukhan Sprint G3. That's quite a hood segue for the trainer who is known to be first at the track in the mornings and to be the one who turns the lights on. When asked he agreed that getting up at 2.30 am made it all worthwhile he concurred.
The HH The Amir Shalfa went to the Fabrice Chappet trained Al Malhouf with the first of a double for Christophe Soumillon.
His second came in the HH The Amir Silver Sword for Purebred Arabians when Lady Princess bolted to the front and left the field 11 lengths behind her.
The organisation of the whole three days of racing was very well handled and provided good racing for the fans both local and international. In between feature races there was a series of match races between two purebred Arabians and these were hugely popular with the locals, and between the two big races on the Saturday there was an excellent display of horsemanship by a man and a lady and three horses but unfortunately there was no detail about this in the program.
Obviously the Purebred Arabian races are dear to the hearts of the Qatari, but there is a growing interest now in the thoroughbred races with runners representing Europe, The United States and Australia. The traditional Arabian hospitality was on show at every turn and helped to make the Festival a resounding success.
