On Thursday evening, 11 January 2017, nineteen top racing Arabians including highest rated, US Darley Champion, Paddys Day, are entered into the 1600m Round 1 of the Al Maktoum Challenge (Gr 1) at Meydan, Dubai, UAE.

Also running are top rated Quick and Rich, owned by Tom Fritz and trained by Ernst Oertel, along with the Sh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum-owned Barnamaj trained by A Al Rayhi. One cannot overlook the Eric Lemartinel-trained RB Torch, a solid performer with a post position of 7, and winner of two recent Meydan races.

Joyce and Tom Fritz comment on Quick and Rich:”Quick stayed in the UAE after the race in Abu Dubai. We were fortunate to have Ernst Oertel have an interest in him. He invited Quick to stay in training with him for the Kahayla Classic in March with some races in between. He was just recently taken out of quarantine in Dubai and this will be his first race since Abu Dubai. We are hoping he can represent the US in good form – we think he has so far.”

The Quarter Moon Ranch-owned Paddys Day has been training on the dirt Meydan track with Doug Watson. Two-time Darley-Awarded Arabian Horse of the Year, Paddys Day won the Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Cup US Triple Jewel 2017 for the second year in a row, wrapping up the bonus of $150,000 in the process for highest series points.

The 7-year-old son of Burning Sand out of the Virgule Al Maury mare AK Loretta has now won 22 of his 34 career starts, extending his all-time earnings record for an American Arabian Horse to $494,746.

Paddys Day, champion of many dirt Gr 1 races in the US, has not taken to the turf racing clockwise on the Abu Dhabi track, but is looking good on the Meydan dirt which travels counter-clockwise as do US tracks. His post position of 13 and local jockey, Patrick Dobbs, may give him a chance to get comfortable in this race going off at 16:30 Dubai time.

Full race card:

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