It was Eadweard Muybridge who painstakingly proved that horses are airborne when they gallop.
In 1878, after six years of hard work, it was the British photographer who finally showed with the help of 24 cameras in a work called Sallie Gardner At A Gallop that all four hoofs came off the ground. How Muybridge might have struggled today to capture the machine gun action of Ertijaal, Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid's sprinter who will go off favourite for the new-look Al Quoz Sprint on Saturday.
Simply put, Ertijaal is the fastest horse ever to grace Meydan since the UAE’s leading facility was built for the 2010 season. Since he won over 1,400 metres at Abu Dhabi in February 2015 he has been beaten only once in seven starts.
That sole defeat was to Australian raider Buffering in last season’s Al Quoz, and jockey Paul Hanagan made an error in not letting the headstrong son of Oasis Dream run the pace he clearly wished to go.
Last month, Ertijaal became the first horse to dip under 56 seconds over 1,000 metres at Meydan, and lowered Amber Sky’s 2014 Al Quoz Sprint record by over half a second. If he can replicate that sort of performance over an extra 200 metres then the US$1 million (Dh3.6m) prize is surely his.
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Talk to trainer Ali Rashid Al Raihe about Ertijaal’s whirring stride and his whole face lights up and he starts to laugh. Sitting on the sofas in his office at Grandstand Stables, the dual UAE champion trainer says he has never seen a racehorse run like him.
“When we galloped him on dirt the first few times he rubbed his pasterns on the surface and often took off his skin,” Al Raihe says enthusiastically. “He hit the ground so hard that he used to come back with bleeding pasterns.
“We put cotton around them now, and then bandages and a plastic patch to protect him.
“There is no problem on turf, but we still bandage him up just in case. He can probably go on soft ground because of this action.”
Anybody who thinks Ertijaal will not last home over the extra 200 metres has forgotten the first time he ran at Meydan over Saturday’s new Al Quoz distance just two weeks after his Abu Dhabi run.
Ertijaal came steaming out of the gate and never saw another horse. He broke the track record that day, too, and his time of 1 minute, 08.98 seconds remains unbeaten.
With such a huge talent in his stables Al Raihe is regularly asked whether Sheikh Hamdan’s European operation will absorb Ertijaal. After all the six-year-old bay began his career in England with William Haggas.
To ask Al Raihe that question is to miss the point. Al Raihe has previous international experience, having taken the sprinter Happy Dubai and his Dubai Turf winner Al Shemali to Singapore. More recently he won the Chengdu-Dubai International Cup at Jinma Lake in China in 2014.
Ertijaal is a gelding, too, so chasing pots of money around the world is more likely than sire-defining races in Europe. Should Ertijaal prevail over the likes of British raider Limato, Godolphin’s Jungle Cat and Hong Kong’s Amazing Kids on Saturday, then perhaps the new Everest, the AUS$10 million (Dh28m) turf sprint over 1,200 metres at Randwick Racecourse in Sydney in October would be a possibility. So, too, could be the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, or even Hong Kong. Whatever the future may hold, nothing is yet set in stone and Al Raihe seems genuinely content to go with the flow.
“We are just waiting for the big boss to make a decision,” Al Raihe says, referring to the Minister of Finance. “If he suggests we go somewhere, then obviously we go. I would be happy for him to run for the big trainers anywhere in the world if there is any chance for him to go. We’ll see.”
Al Shemali holds pride of place in Al Raihe’s office. There is a big picture of the trainer with his horse in 2010 when they struck on World Cup night and they are stood alongside Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
Despite Al Shemali’s success, it is the versatile Tropical Star who still holds the dearest place in Al Raihe’s heart. Tropical Star won a Mahaab Al Shimaal and an Al Shindagha Sprint at Nad Al Sheba, in 2006 and 2007, and even had the versatility to step up to contest mile races.
“Tropical Star is No 1,” says Al Raihe, who will turn 70 next month. “He won at six furlongs and almost a mile.
“Ertijaal would be the best I have trained on grass. It is a blessing that I have got to train a horse like this.”
There is a suspicion that Tropical Star will be supplanted should Ertijaal do the business on Saturday.
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