Al Raihe bandwagon rolls on as Jamhoori scores

Report: UAE, Sunday

Abu Dhabi: 4yo+ maiden, 1m3f, turf

Champion trainer Ali Rashid Al Raihe saddled his 32nd winner of the season when Jamhoori (Saeed Al Mazrooei) defeated stable companion Maali in the 1m3f maiden, the only thoroughbred race at Abu Dhabi on Sunday evening.

Ali Rashid Al Raihe: another winner

  PICTURE: Singapore Turf Club  

Al Raihe, who landed the championship with 30 winners last season and 28 the year before, saw stable apprentice Saeed Al Mazrooei post acomfortable success on the four-year-old son of Tiger Hill.

The pair led for the last mile to post a comfortable success from Maali, ridden by stable jockey Royston Ffrench and who would surely have finished closer had he not been hampered early on and forced very wide on the first turn, finding himself virtually last.

Al Mazrooei kicked his mount clear early in the straight and the pair never looked likely to be caught with the young local jockey explaining: "He was enjoying himself in front and I was confident he would stay so everything went well."

The winner, like the runner-up trained by Clive Brittain for Saeed Manana in Britain, was having his first start on turf since arriving in the UAE having run once on Tapeta at Meydan and three times on dirt.