Thunder Snow stormed to a shocking victory in Saturday’s Dubai World Cup to give Godolphin their seventh win in the race, after holding off favorite West Coast.
Under Belgian jockey Christophe Soumillon, four-year-old colt Thunder Snow led from the front ahead of West Coast and cruised to victory by five-and-three-quarter lengths to win at odds of 8-1 in a track-record time of 2 minutes, 01.38 seconds.
It gave trainer Saeed bin Suroor an incredible eighth Dubai World Cup win and first since Prince Bishop in 2015, as Godolphin took four of the Group-One races on the richest day in international racing.
Photo: AP
“When I came in the straight, I could feel nobody was following me,” the 36-year-old Soumillon said. “I knew that I had to concentrate because when he sees the big screen, he can do something sometimes. It’s magic. I work hard every day to make sure that someday something crazy like this would happen.”
Bin Suroor was delighted to have claimed an eighth Dubai World Cup for the race’s founder Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
“We have the best owner in Sheikh Mohammed. He is the best leader and gives us the best horses,” he said. “It was always on my mind to run him in the Dubai World Cup and he will have a break now, before running in Europe or America.”
It was a third near-miss in big races for the Bob Baffert-trained West Coast, after finishing second in the Pegasus World Cup and third in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
However, Thunder Snow earned redemption, after refusing to run at last year’s Kentucky Derby, by winning the US$10 million race.
North America had been seen as the likeliest challenger to West Coast, but missed the break to effectively end his chances.
The mile-and-a-quarter contest quickly became a straight fight between the leading duo, and although West Coast looked well-placed on the outside of Thunder Snow coming into the home straight, the three-year-old colt was left trailing and only just hung on for second.
“I had a nice position outside the winner. He was balanced and in a good rhythm,” West Coast’s jockey Javier Castellano said. “I had every chance in the world to win the race, but the best horse clearly won. He fought very hard to the line to keep second place — very happy with his run.”
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