Tadhg O’Shea the big winner in Abu Dhabi: ‘It’s a big team effort at Al Asayl’

Tadhg O’Shea, the four-time UAE champion jockey, rode three winners from four races in Abu Dhabi. Pawan Singh / The National

ABU DHABI // It is business as usual for Tadhg O’Shea, the four-time UAE champion jockey. He completed an excellent week of four meetings in as many days across the UAE with a treble at the Abu Dhabi track and took his season’s tally to 10 on Sunday night.

O’Shea rode the Eric Lemartinel-trained RB Rich Surprise to win the third race, came from last to first to take the next on Satish Seemar’s Carbon Dating and claimed the fifth race on MH Tawag for Elise Jeanne.

He raced RB Rich Surprise in second behind the pace-setting Karbalas under Omani rider Anas Al Siyabi for most of the 2,200-metre race before kicking on in the final bend to win by two-and-a-half lengths from Sataar Al Reef.

“This fella knows his job,” O’Shea said. “He went on a good gallop as soon as the gates opened. He’s a lovely horse to come forward. He was good last year and has started off with win this year.”

O’Shea is the stable jockey for the Grandstand Stables of Ali Rashid Al Raihe, but with the majority of the Emirati trainer’s inmates being thoroughbreds, he gets plenty of opportunities to ride the Purebred Arabians from the Al Asayl Stables.

“It’s a big team effort at Al Asayl and it’s nice to be part of it,” he said.

Lemartinel, the Al Asayl trainer who won the world’s richest prize for the Purebred Arabians with RB Burn seven days ago at the track, saddled a double to take his tally to eight winners and move to the top of the UAE trainer’s leaderboard.

Gerald Avranche rode Eswarah to victory in the second race.

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