Fawzi Nass and Satish Seemar complete doubles in all-thoroughbred card at Meydan

Bahraini trainer Nass celebrates his third winner in three days

Sean Kirrane on Speedy Move wins the Emirates NBD Private Banking Thoroughbreds race at Meydan. Reem Mohammed / The National

Fawzi Nass and Satish Seemar won a double apiece in the six-race all-thoroughbred card at Meydan on Saturday.

Lancienegaboulevard and Al Mukhtar Star, both under Adrie de Vries, bagged the first two races for Bahraini trainer Nass, who celebrated his third winner in three days after Salute The Soldier was successful at the Dubai World Cup Carnival Week-5 on Thursday.

Speedy Move under Sean Kirrane provided Seemar his first winner before stable jockey Richard Mullen completed the double for him on board Dolman in the concluding turf handicap.

De Vries produced a perfectly timed run on Lancienegaboulevard to claim the opening prize from Seemar’s pair Enchanting Man (Tadhg O’Shea) and Leadership (Mullen) by a length and four lengths, respectively.

The four-year-old gelded son of Shanghai Bobby showed plenty of improvement from his first run for the season over the 2,000m distance for his first success in five attempts.

Adrie de Vries on Al Mukhtar Star won the Emirates NBD Thoroughbreds race at Meydan. Reem Mohammed / The National

“We were not concerned on the drop-back in trip,” De Vries said after his win on Lancienegaboulevard over the 1,400m trip.

“I think it suits him. He ran a good first race (on reappearance) over nine furlongs. He didn’t do much in between but he seemed in good form.”

De Vries kept Lancienegaboulevard close on the heels of the early leaders in fifth before challenging on the 400m home stretch.

“I didn’t go for everything, to be honest,” the 12-time Dutch champion jockey added.

“He reached the leader without me even giving him a smack. I just had to give him two-three to just get past that horse and he did it pretty nicely.”

Having taken the opener quite comfortably, De Vries replicated that win 35 minutes later on board Al Mukhtar Star over the 1,600m trip on the turf.

He raced in mid-division and led close to home to pip Varsha (Fabrice Veron) and Godolphin’s Colour Image (Patrick Cosgrave) by half-a-length and a short head.

Sean Kirrane followed up his double in Al Ain on the previous night to grab a third prize at Meydan.

The Irish apprentice was runner-up twice on his previous two starts atop Speedy Move and made sure he was third time lucky on the Seemar-trained eight-year-old Iffraaj gelding.

“I know the horse well, riding him for the third time,” Kirrane said. “He’s had a couple of hard races in succession and to come here and win a competitive race like this wasn’t a surprise.”

Not to be outdone, Mullen rounded off the meeting by taking the concluding turf handicap for Seemar to take his tally to 28 winners, three more than Doug Watson in the UAE trainer’s championship.

Salem bin Ghadayer and Erwan Charpy shared the remaining two prizes with Xavier Ziani making all on Gundogdu to win the third race and Dane O’Neill successful on board Moqarrar in the fifth.