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DEL MAR, CA - NOVEMBER 01: Forever Young, left, ridden by Ryusei Sakai, wins the Longines Breeders' Cup Classic during the 42nd Breeders' Cup Thoroughbred World Championships on November 1, 2025, at Del Mar Racetrack in Del Mar, CA. (Photo by Karl Anderson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
The complex web of human tragedy and global financial and logistical challenges spun up by the war in the month since the outbreak of hostilities on February 28 have not stopped the Dubai Racing Club and the Meydan from forging ahead this weekend with their $30.5 million series of races, the lodestone of which is Saturday’s $12-million Dubai World Cup. The March 25 post position draw at the Meydan only confirmed the resolve. Hewing to the Middle Eastern habit of staging the feature races in the evening, post time is at 12:45 p.m. EDT/8:45 p.m. Dubai.
Note: As in the Saudi Cup, the Meydan saddle-cloth/program number of the horse does not — repeat, does not — reflect his post position. We order the field here according to post position, with the Meydan’s saddle-cloth/program number in parentheses. We will update the odds as the weekend progresses toward post time.
Here’s the refresher on the field:
Post Position, (Saddle Cloth/Program Number), Horse, Jockey, Trainer, London Odds
1.(2) Magnitude, Jose Ortiz, Steve Asmussen, 7-1
2.(4) Meydaan, William Buick, Simon and Ed Crisford, 7-1
3.(7) Walk of Stars, Mickael Barzalona, Bhupat Seemar, 40-1
4.(8) Heart of Honor, Saffie Osborne, Jamie Osborne, 50-1
5.(3) Hit Show, Florent Geroux, Brad Cox, 10-1
6.(1) Forever Young, Ryusei Sakai, Yoshito Yahagi, 2-5
7.(5 ) Imperial Emperor, Tadhg O’Shea, Bhupat Seemar, 8-1
8.(9) Tap Leader, Pat Dobbs, Doug Watson, 50-1
9.(6) Tumbarumba, James Doyle, Hamal Al Jehani, 16-1
As per habit and favor among many Japanese owners and trainers at this still springlike time of year in the Gulf, top favorite Forever Young and his connections have been aiming for the Dubai Cup since, arguably, well before they won their second, decisive Saudi Cup at King Abdulaziz on Valentine’s Day. They prefer to stick it out at the Meydan. By all accounts, Forever Young has looked in fine fettle over the last six weeks.
One of this earth’s most successful colts at some $29-million-plus in earnings (and counting), the six-year-old Forever Young is viewed by many as more or less a sure thing Saturday evening. Compared to the favorite, the eight other contenders who make up the field are, to a man, considerably less endowed with tactical ability, experience, and in earnings against the best international competition than is the favorite.
Which is arguably why, in London — which are the odds to watch since so many British jockeys, trainers, and breeders work in the Middle East — Forever Young carries 2/5 odds at this writing, or an implied probability of winning of an eye-watering 71%. His two nearest competitors in the eyes of the take-no-prisoners London bookies is the horse Meydaan and the American hope Magnitude, trained by Steve Asmussen, who both carry odds of 7/1, with an implied probability of 12.5%. That 58.5% drop from first to second-favorite is vertiginous, to put it diplomatically.
The only horse in the field to have beaten Forever Young is the only other U.S. runner in the pack, the Brad Cox-trained Hit Show, who beat Forever Young exactly a year ago in the Dubai Cup’s 29th running. It will remain an entertaining irony of this race that Hit Show is considered a close contender. It’s fair to say that, in last year’s running, Hit Show went off as an extreme long shot at 41-1 and more or less survived the contest rather than triumphed. Trainer Cox has acknowledged as much, without stating it directly, that his colt will need the race to unfold in a very specific way to best Forever Young.
Certainly, at this point in the tumultuous history of the Middle East, staging the weekend is an exercise demanding more than a little derring-do, a number of rounds and/or debris from their interception having peppered (but not permanently closed) Dubai International over the last weeks, some 14 miles north of the track. Sixteen miles west-southwest of the track, the luxe Fairmont The Palm Hotel on Palm Jumeirah took a random debris hit and sustained minor damage on the first day of Iran’s willy-nilly counterattack on its neighbors, February 28, as did the Burj al’ Arab hotel on its island a day later. Arguably the best way to characterize Dubai’s stance in the face of the war is resolute. Business as usual. Resolutely, then, the Dubai World Cup weekend goes forward.
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