Mubtaahij will be campaigned in the United States this season by Kiaran McLaughlin after Mike de Kock conceded he was overstretched in South Africa and England.
Mubtaahij ran a huge race up the inside at Meydan on Saturday to become the South African trainer’s third Dubai World Cup runner-up behind popular winner California Chrome.
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De Kock said immediately after the race that he was keen to run Mubtaahij in the US this year, as he did last season when the son of Dubawi was eighth in the Kentucky Derby and fourth in the Belmont Stakes.
De Kock said a US campaign, however, was contingent on avoiding California Chrome, who is based at Los Alamitos on the West Coast.
McLaughlin has bases at Belmont, New York, on the East Coast and in Florida during the winter and after extensive talks with owner Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa it was agreed Mubtaahij will transfer to America.
"I was asked to take Mubtaahij to the US, but as it is I am stretched between the Southern and Northern Hemispheres and I don't want to put my assistants under too much pressure as US racing and training is highly scrutinised by the media," De Kock told the Sporting Post in South Africa. "It would be unfair to subject them to that pressure."
Mubtaahij will only be loaned to McLaughlin and will return to De Kock for the 2017 Dubai World Cup Carnival with the aim of going one better in the world’s most valuable race.
Vale Dori, who was fourth behind Lani in the UAE Derby and is also owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa, will move to Bob Baffert but will not return to Dubai. After this season she will be lined up for a career at the breeding sheds with Tapit, the sire of McLaughlin’s Frosted, the early front-runner.
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