2 July, 2014, Denmark ~ After several years of absence from the world map of Arabian racing Denmark is back staging four races at the main track of Klampenborg just outside Copenhagen.
Generously sponsored by the Qatar North European Arabian Racing program and the HH Sheikh Mansoor bin Zayed Al Nahyan Global Arabian Flat Racing Festival – two of the races have already been run.
On Sunday 29 June, first out was the Qatar NEAR Comeback race. Run over 1400 m on the turf it was won in good style by the 4-yr-o new French import Mahany de Piboul (Madjani) for Swedish trainer Camilla Nilsson making it his third consecutive win.
Next out was the Wathba Stud Farm Copenhagen Cup over 1800 m run on the same day as the Scandinavian Open Championship for the english thoroughbreds.
French-bred Athlete del Sol from Karin v.d. Bos’ training quarters in the Netherlands was made hot favourite and no wonder. The son of Dormane often and successfully raids the Scandinavian prestige races. Furthermore he had just three weeks before thrashed some of the same opponents in Stockholm with Mahany de Piboul finishing 6½ lengths behind him and Iraqi-bred Labwah (Asad Saif) a further two.
This time he had to work harder for it. He was among the backmarkers early on while Labwah and Mahany de Piboul were up with the pace. The latter was rather excited in the pouring rain and had played out his role well into the straight and while Labwah kept dourly on, Athlete del Sol had made steady progress through the entire race and caught her in the closing stages to score by half a length under Carlos Lopez.
The Swedish bred 4-yr-o W Catchcash (Dormane) finished third 4 lengths behind the pair, but five lengths in front of the former Shadwell horse Al Janoob (Magic de Piboul) now owned by Mrs Maria Hagman-Eriksson.
The next arabian race to be run in Denmark is the Qatar NEAR Sprint on August the 16’th.
Report and photos by Nils Rosenkjaer