Somoud came good on his third start of the season to land the President’s Cup Prep for Purebred Arabians under Antonio Fresu in Abu Dhabi on Thursday.
Trained by Jean de Roualle for Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed’s Yas Racing, and the winner of the President’s Cup in the last two years, Somoud took the lead approaching the 200-metre mark and kept on well to win from Richard Mullen and Mujeeb by a short head.
Fresu completed a treble on the night after earlier steering rookie trainer Hamad Al Marar’s ES Sudani to victory and then bagging the Abu Dhabi Colts Classic on Ahmed Al Mehairbi’s Fadwaan.
Tadhg O’Shea completed a double on Jaber Bittar’s Muram, an impressive winner of the Fillies Classic, and the concluding thoroughbred handicap on Bhupat Seemar’s Western Writer.
Meanwhile, Meydan Racecourse stages the third meeting of the 2023 Dubai World Cup Carnival on Friday, highlighted by the Group 2 Zabeel Mile and the Listed UAE 1000 Guineas.
Godolphin appear to have strong claims in the 1,600m turf feature as they are represented by five of the eight runners.
Saeed bin Suroor won the prize last year with Real World under Daniel Tudhope and the master of the Al Quoz Stables account for three of the five Godolphin runners.
Pat Cosgrave partners Land Of Legends while Pat Dobbs is on Desert Fire and Louis Steward on Laser Show.
“Desert Fire, Land Of Legends and Laser Show have been working well, but this looks a tough race for the three of them,” Bin Suroor said.
“Desert Fire has won over this course and distance in the past, so dropping back to a mile won’t be a problem, while Land Of Legends enjoys racing around Meydan.
“Laser Show has had soundness issues, which has kept him off the track for a long time, but I was pleased with his latest piece of work and he is ready to go again.”
Fellow Godolphin handler Charlie Appleby has landed this prize five times since 2015 and has a pair entered with William Buick opting to ride Master Of The Seas and James Doyle on board Modern News.
“Master Of The Seas hasn’t been seen since the Earl of Sefton but has settled in well out in Dubai,” Appleby said of the five-year-old Dubawi gelding.
“Modern News is a consistent horse, who showed some decent form in Group and Listed races in the UK last year.”
Completing the line-up are David O’Meara’s Shelir, Michael O’Callaghan’s I Am Superman and Ahmad bin Harmash’s Erzindjan.
The UAE 1000 Guineas over the mile trip on the dirt surface appears to be an exciting and wide open race.
Mimi Kakush, under Mickael Barzalona, was an impressive winner of the trial over the 1,400m distance four weeks ago, and the Frenchman retains the ride trained by Salem bin Ghadayer.
Results
5pm: Jebel Jais – Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 1,200m
Winner: AS Jezan, Oscar Chavez (jockey), Ahmed Al Mehairbi (trainer)
5.30pm: Wathba Stallions Cup – Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 1,400m
Winner: ES Sudani, Antonio Fresu, Hamad Al Marar
6pm: The President’s Cup Prep – Conditions (PA) Dh100,000 (T) 2,200m
Winner: Somoud, Antonio Fresu, Jean de Roualle
6.30pm: Abu Dhabi Fillies Classic – Prestige (PA) Dh110,000 (T) 1,400m
Winner: Muram, Tadhg O’Shea, Jaber Bittar
7pm: Abu Dhabi Colts Classic – Prestige (PA) Dh110,000 (T) 1,400m
Winner: Fadwaan, Antonio Fresu, Ahmed Al Mehairbi
7.30pm: Jebel Hafeet – Handicap (TB) Dh80,000 (T) 1,600m
Winner: Western Writer, Tadhg O’Shea, Bhupat Seemar
Brief scores:
Toss: Kerala Knights, opted to fielf
Pakhtoons 109-5 (10 ov)
Fletcher 32; Lamichhane 3-17
Kerala Knights 110-2 (7.5 ov)
Morgan 46 not out, Stirling 40
It's up to you to go green
Nils El Accad, chief executive and owner of Organic Foods and Café, says going green is about “lifestyle and attitude” rather than a “money change”; people need to plan ahead to fill water bottles in advance and take their own bags to the supermarket, he says.
“People always want someone else to do the work; it doesn’t work like that,” he adds. “The first step: you have to consciously make that decision and change.”
When he gets a takeaway, says Mr El Accad, he takes his own glass jars instead of accepting disposable aluminium containers, paper napkins and plastic tubs, cutlery and bags from restaurants.
He also plants his own crops and herbs at home and at the Sheikh Zayed store, from basil and rosemary to beans, squashes and papayas. “If you’re going to water anything, better it be tomatoes and cucumbers, something edible, than grass,” he says.
“All this throwaway plastic - cups, bottles, forks - has to go first,” says Mr El Accad, who has banned all disposable straws, whether plastic or even paper, from the café chain.
One of the latest changes he has implemented at his stores is to offer refills of liquid laundry detergent, to save plastic. The two brands Organic Foods stocks, Organic Larder and Sonnett, are both “triple-certified - you could eat the product”.
The Organic Larder detergent will soon be delivered in 200-litre metal oil drums before being decanted into 20-litre containers in-store.
Customers can refill their bottles at least 30 times before they start to degrade, he says. Organic Larder costs Dh35.75 for one litre and Dh62 for 2.75 litres and refills will cost 15 to 20 per cent less, Mr El Accad says.
But while there are savings to be had, going green tends to come with upfront costs and extra work and planning. Are we ready to refill bottles rather than throw them away? “You have to change,” says Mr El Accad. “I can only make it available.”
On Instagram: @WithHopeUAE
Although social media can be harmful to our mental health, paradoxically, one of the antidotes comes with the many social-media accounts devoted to normalising mental-health struggles. With Hope UAE is one of them.
The group, which has about 3,600 followers, was started three years ago by five Emirati women to address the stigma surrounding the subject. Via Instagram, the group recently began featuring personal accounts by Emiratis. The posts are written under the hashtag #mymindmatters, along with a black-and-white photo of the subject holding the group’s signature red balloon.
“Depression is ugly,” says one of the users, Amani. “It paints everything around me and everything in me.”
Saaed, meanwhile, faces the daunting task of caring for four family members with psychological disorders. “I’ve had no support and no resources here to help me,” he says. “It has been, and still is, a one-man battle against the demons of fractured minds.”
In addition to With Hope UAE’s frank social-media presence, the group holds talks and workshops in Dubai. “Change takes time,” Reem Al Ali, vice chairman and a founding member of With Hope UAE, told The National earlier this year. “It won’t happen overnight, and it will take persistent and passionate people to bring about this change.”
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The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
ETFs explained
Exhchange traded funds are bought and sold like shares, but operate as index-tracking funds, passively following their chosen indices, such as the S&P 500, FTSE 100 and the FTSE All World, plus a vast range of smaller exchanges and commodities, such as gold, silver, copper sugar, coffee and oil.
ETFs have zero upfront fees and annual charges as low as 0.07 per cent a year, which means you get to keep more of your returns, as actively managed funds can charge as much as 1.5 per cent a year.
There are thousands to choose from, with the five biggest providers BlackRock’s iShares range, Vanguard, State Street Global Advisors SPDR ETFs, Deutsche Bank AWM X-trackers and Invesco PowerShares.
'My Son'
Director: Christian Carion
Starring: James McAvoy, Claire Foy, Tom Cullen, Gary Lewis
Rating: 2/5
Director: Laxman Utekar
Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna
Rating: 1/5
