Success for purebreds at Hippodrome de Toulouse

Purebred Arabian horses owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed wins three races at the Hippodrome de Toulouse.

Purebred Arabian horses owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed won three races on Friday at the Hippodrome de Toulouse. The event saw the launch of the Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Cup, part of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage's (ADACH) Sheikh Mansour Global Flat Racing Festival, the opening race of which was won by Scoubidou De Carrere. The winning horse is owned and trained by Guy Dell'ova and was ridden home by Francis Lopez, ahead of Periander and Al Ryma with Saudi Arabia-based Nayef al Khalidiah in fourth. Nine horses took part in the Group 2 race, which is part of a three-race series that carries a bonus prize fund of ?20,000 (Dh98,000).

Scoubidou De Carrere earned five points for the win while Periander gets four and Al Ryma three. The next two races for the Bonus Fund will be in Holland and Poland. A large crowd of nearly 8,000 watched the night's racing as Sheikh Mansour won three of the four races for Purebred Arabian races. Salaamah won the first race of the meeting for Sheikh Mansour and Musharab won the second race to make it two wins in a row for the owner.

Sheikh Mansour's Dahwa then won the Prix de L'Elevage Group 2 race for fillies. "Tonight's inaugural race of the 2010 HH Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan Global Flat Racing Festival here in Toulouse has been a great success," said Mohamed Meer Abdalla Al Raeesi, the Ambassador-designate of the UAE to France. The UAE and France have been great supporters of the Arabian horses and such events will boost the ties between the two countries."

Added Abdullah Al Qubaisi, the director of the communications department at ADACH: "The racecourse here in Toulouse is one of the most important racing centres in Europe and to see it fully decked with pictures and placards of the UAE is a great sight. "Many fans here are aware of the great support that the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founder of the UAE, had extended to Purebred Arabian racing."

* Agencies