Safety Check set for Turf Mile Stakes in bid to win place at Breeders’ Cup

Safety Check won three races on the bounce at Meydan this winter. Charlie Crowhurst / Getty Images

Dubai World Cup Carnival hero Safety Check could be in line for a tilt at the Breeders’ Cup after his failure to build on his seasonal reappearance at Doncaster.

Safety Check won three on the bounce at Meydan this winter before he made an encouraging start to the European turf season with a third-place finish in the Group 2 Lennox Stakes at Glorious Goodwood in July.

Safety Check floundered, however, in the rain-softened ground in the Park Stakes last week won easily by Limato and finished only 10th.

Trainer Charlie Appleby has won at the Breeders’ Cup before with Outstrip, and the tight twists of Keeneland would help the son of Dubawi to last home the 1,600 metres of the Breeders’ Cup Mile.

Appleby has earmarked the Turf Mile Stakes, sponsored by Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid’s Shadwell breeding operation, at the course on October 3 as a suitable prep race. As it is a Win And You’re In event, qualification to the Breeders’ Cup would be assured should Safety Check prove victorious.

“We decided to roll the dice as we are not going to get quick ground from now on in England and we needed to run him, so we took a chance,” Appleby said.

Outstrip won the Champagne Stakes at Doncaster before winning the Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket en route to his Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf win in America two seasons ago, and Appleby will plot a similar path for Emotionless.

Emotionless won the Champagne Stakes with ease last week, and the Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket on Future Champions Day on October 10 will be the next port of call.

“I am more excited now about Emotionless than I was about Outstrip at the same stage,” he said.

“He has come out of his Champagne Stakes well and now it’s all systems go for the Dubai Dewhurst.”

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