Somoud lands Al Ain Mile to star in doubles for Meharbi and Beasly

Al Ain staged the biggest race of their season on Thursday evening when 13 went to post for the 1600m Group 3 Al Ain Mile and it lived up to its billing by providing a thrilling contest in which seven of the 13 runners held serious claims entering the final 200m, where Somoud put his nose in front, which is where it stayed to cause something of a surprise outcome.

Trained by Ahmed Al Meharbi, celebrating a double on the card, for Yas Racing, Somoud entered the starting stalls with an official rating of 80, but was competing against runners rated as high as 120 in the shape of local and dirt debutant Shahm.

It was the latter who looked the most likely winner for a long way, but the new surface, lack of a recent outing and a trip probably short of his best perhaps caught him out, although he plugged on at the same pace to finish sixth.

MH Rahal, Brraq, AF Momtaz and finally Shadd’Ad had all led or threatened to snatch the prize in the final 300m, but with little more than 100m remaining, Connor Beasley drove Somoud to lead and his mount was able to thwart a renewed challenge from Shadd’Ad.

Completing a brace for the jockey also, the homebred 6-year-old entire was registering a fifth, but by far most important, career success and fourth on a dirt surface. He actually arrived on the back of a 2200m turf handicap success at Abu Dhabi and, in December, had landed the 1700m Dr Sheikh Sultan Bin Khalifya Al Nahyan Cup, a Prestige race at Sharjah.

Dahawi and Antonio Fresu turned the only Thoroughbred race, what had appeared a very competitive 1000m handicap, into a procession with a seemingly effortless victory. A 4-year-old gelded son of Heeraat, Dahawi landed both his first two career outings, on all-weather surfaces at Chelmsford then Kempton, early last year when trained in Britain by Hugo Palmer, but was winning for the first time since.

A third was the best he mustered in four subsequent outings before being sold at Tattersalls in July for 20,000gns to Nasir Askar in whose colours he won here. Gelded before making his local debut, this was his fifth UAE appearance, third on dirt, but first at Al Ain and on his initial attempt at the minimum distance. His best previous run for Al Mheiri was his latest, 18 days ago, when third on turf at Abu Dhabi over 1400m.