The Weekly Wrap

On the face of it, the Turf's most opulent raceday could not have played out more consistently with its billing: a winner apiece for Australia, the United States, France and Britain, and two for Japan. Moreover, the fact that the other races on the Dubai World Cup card were both won by local trainers might even encourage the Japanese, as they stagger home with all those dirhams, to accelerate the removal of protectionist fetters on their own sport.

Yet the paradox persists that a meeting devised to dismantle barriers between racing cultures seems, increasingly, only to amplify a retrenchment in their most parochial attitudes. Certainly the decision to dig up the synthetic surface at Meydan has been treated as an admission that nothing, any time soon, will end the schism between dirt and turf racing. With the exception of Animal Kingdom (Leroidesanimaux {Brz}), who had of course established his calibre on turf, even $10 million had no longer been sufficient to guarantee the participation of bona fide American stars on a synthetic surface.

If there has been a clear price, in the standard of dirt racing during the Carnival, then California Chrome (Lucky Pulpit) will doubtless make it seem one worth paying.

But perhaps the time has come for us Europeans to repent of our self-righteous complaints about all the vested interests that reversed the United States's own brief experiment in synthetic surfaces. We made hay for a couple of years, with Raven's Pass (Elusive Quality) et al, but they call it the Breeders' Cup for a reason–and those American breeders who had skillfully refined generations of dirt blood to produce champions in a wholly different discipline were absolutely within their rights to feel disenfranchised by our arrogant insistence that they tough things out; that they accept our prejudice that synthetic surfaces are not only safer, but produce performers of purer class. What we really meant, of course, is that synthetic surfaces suited turf pedigrees, and a European style of racing.

It was always specious to conflate synthetic and dirt racing. As such, perhaps we should turn those charges of myopia on ourselves. Back in the 1970s, stagnant European pedigrees were revived by a champion dirt runner, Northern Dancer; but an apparent want of equivalent transferability in his principal son and grandson, Sadler's Wells and Galileo, seems to have persuaded everyone that dirt and turf pedigrees can no longer be integrated. But there is a perilously self-fulfilling quality to this belief.

Andre Fabre, author of the most spectacular experiment of all in Arcangues (Sagace {Fr}), evidently misplaced a parallel hunch about Vadamos (Fr) (Monsun {Ger}), beaten out of sight as the only European-trained runner in the World Cup. Yet how many of those who sniggered at the master trainer, for bringing so predictable a humiliation upon himself, had once watched Mubtaahij (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire})–a son of a Pennekamp (Bering {GB}) mare–finish down the field in two turf maidens and recognised an eight-length winner of the G2 UAE Derby and, now, a World Cup runner-up? Both the other dirt races on Saturday, moreover, were won by horses with putative turf pedigrees in One Man Band (Ire) (Pivotal {GB}) and Muarrab (GB) (Oasis Dream {GB}). And we think it's the Americans who are short-sighted?

Postponed Not Hindered By Stable Switch 
No less than when we are surprised by the end of an apparently harmonious marriage, we are seldom qualified to pass judgement when a trainer and his patron fall out. Few could resist a sense of injustice on behalf of Luca Cumani when Postponed was among 35 horses abruptly moved across Newmarket by Sheikh Obaid last September–less than two months after he had won the G1 King George VI & Queen Elizabeth S. at Ascot. But none of us should presume what kind of private differences can have vitiated so obvious and recent a debt in the Sheikh's mind: whether a failure of chemistry, or some more specific grievance. After all, the two observations do seem legitimately to suggest themselves, after events on Saturday, are too contradictory to take us a great deal farther.

One is that the Sheikh will hardly be regretting his decision. In the G1 Sheema Classic all the world could see that Postponed (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) looks better than ever for his new trainer, Roger Varian. Fewer people registered the success of Barsanti (Ire) (Champs Elysee {GB}), in a handicap at Kempton, 90 minutes earlier. But the 4-year-old was so impressive that the conjunction of the two performances can only consolidate the impression that Varian, now supervising one of the biggest strings in Newmarket, would plainly represent an upgrade on the vast majority of trainers in Britain.

But that is not necessarily to say that Cumani would be among them. Both Barsanti and Postponed were given a trademark grounding, of the type that has enabled Cumani to coax sustained improvement from so many maturing horses over the years. He must have had a cruel certainty that both these horses (and many others, no doubt, whose development he has managed with equal forbearance) would make radical strides this year. His only comfort, cold as it must seem, is that their new trainer did not just learn professional acuity from his late mentor, Michael Jarvis, but also a faultlessly understated style. It is Cumani's misfortune, however, that Varian–in contrast with Churchill's assessment of Clement Attlee–should be a modest person with so little to be modest about.

Johnston and Ward Unleash Juvenile Battalions
There was a time, not so long ago, when smaller yards in Britain were able to target the early juvenile races with cheap, precocious sprinters competent to rack up a few wins, often in muddy going, before being swatted aside by the Royal Ascot types. You have to feel for those trainers, men like David Evans and Bill Turner. At Doncaster this weekend they will bump into Wesley Ward himself in the Brocklesby Stakes – historically, the first juvenile race of the turf season. The three 2-year-old races already staged, meanwhile, have all been won in devastating fashion by streaks of lightning trained for the Maktoums by Mark Johnston.

Evans saddled no fewer than nine of the 18 runners in two divisions of a fillies' maiden at Kempton on Saturday–and watched aghast as two raking daughters of the rookie sire Helmet (Aus) (Exceed And Excel {Aus}) exploded out of the gate and bounded clear to win by seven and six lengths, respectively. The previous day, Evans had saddled the heavily backed favourite for the first maiden of the year at Wolverhampton, only for a son of Invincible Spirit (Ire) (Green Desert) to open up by nine lengths in the straight.

But this feels like a different syndrome from the farming of all-weather races during the winter by Godolphin, which has caused much resentment. Rest assured, Johnston will be saddling plenty of green, gawky youngsters during the months ahead–many of whom will make striking improvement on a modest debut–but it makes a lot of sense to get the natural born racehorses up and running, away from extreme ground. One or two of them could well progress towards the elite of their generation. But if Johnston happens to come up with even better ones himself, in the meantime, he will know exactly where he stands. All trainers like to treat their first juvenile runners as a guide, but not all of them realise that they need to be good enough to take you somewhere worthwhile.