The Dubai World Cup: Historical Trends

Tipping / Timeform / 26 March 2010 / Leave a comment

Dubai Millennium winning the 2000 renewal of the Dubai World Cup

Timeform explore the trends that have come to light from the first fourteen runnings of the world's most valuable race.

"In slamming Behrens by six lengths, Dubai Millennium achieved a Timeform rating of 140"

'A top class race, run at a strong pace throughout and the runner-up (Soul Of The Matter) ran the race of his life to make the champion (Cigar) pull out all the stops. Although Freedom Cry and Pennekamp both got injured and had to miss the race, almost every other horse that should have been competing was competing and the success of the American horses all but guarantees a very important international future for the event.'

That was how Timeform assessed the first running of the Dubai World Cup back in 1996. It's fair to say the race hasn't quite had the international resonance that Sheikh Mohammed had perhaps intended, Singspiel the only winner outside of America and Saeed bin Suroor, but the implementation of a new surface, tapeta, could change all that if the entries for the 2010 renewal are anything to go by with America, Saudi Arabia, Britain, France, Japan, South Africa and of course UAE all represented.

Without doubt the most brilliant winner of the race was Dubai Millennium, successful in 2000 as his naming suggested he would be, one of only two horses in the process to break the two-minute mark, Invasor being the other in 2007. In slamming Behrens by six lengths, Dubai Millennium achieved a Timeform rating of 140, Curlin recording the next best figure of 134. The distinction of the lowest Timeform rating in winning the Dubai World Cup falls to Almutawkel, who ran to a mark of 126 in a year that also featured the smallest field for the event. 130 is the average winning rating and, of this year's entries, only Gio Ponti can claim to have produced such a performance so far, that coming when second to the brilliant Zenyatta in the Breeders' Cup Classic last November.

Jerry Bailey is the only jockey to have won the race in successive years, on board Cigar and Singspiel then repeating the feat on Captain Steve and Street Cry. This year Aaron Gryder will bid to follow up having done the steering on Well Armed in 2009, his victory margin of fourteen lengths a record that is likely to stand for some considerable time.

So, for those of you who like to arrive at a selection following historical data, let's try and identify who will be winning in 2010:

No horse older than six has won the race, theoretically ruling out Gloria de Campeao and Mr Brock. Only one horse (Pleasantly Perfect) has ever been successful in blinkers, by which rationale we dismiss Furthest Land and Richard's Kid. No filly or mare has ever won which means Red Desire can't possibly win! Southern-hemisphere bred horses have a poor record so the Saudi Arabian challenger, Amor de Pobre, will have his work cut out. Only three winners of the Dubai World Cup, including Well Armed it has to be said, came into the race on the back of a defeat, so the stats are against the likes of Gio Ponti, Crowded House, Twice Over, Mastery, Allybar and Lizard's Desire. That leaves us with Gitano Hernando and Vision d'Etat. Both have compelling cases for making them worthy candidates to win the race, both are winners over the Dubai World Cup trip of ten furlongs, both Grade/Group 1 winners, but Gitano Hernando can boast a win on an artificial surface whereas Vision d'Etat has raced exclusively on turf. Gitano Hernando therefore gets the nod and is currently available at [7.2].

Racecards for Dubai World Cup night will be available from timeform.com