Three victories for two trainers and one special night for jockey Tadhq O’Shea

O’Shea rode a superb treble on Sunday night at the capital’s racecourse to take his tally to 22 wins and cut Richard Mullen’s lead in the UAE jockeys championship to five wins, writes Amith Passela.

Jockey Tadhg O'Shea atop Nashmee, left, races to victory in the Ajban race during the eighth race meeting at Abu Dhabi Equestrian Club in Abu Dhabi on January 18, 2015. Christopher Pike / The National

ABU DHABI // Tadhg O’Shea rode a superb treble on Sunday night at the capital’s racecourse to take his tally to 22 wins and cut Richard Mullen’s lead in the UAE jockeys championship to five wins.

The Irishman scored contrasting victories on Nashmee and Molahen El Alhan for Al Asayl Stables trainer Salem Al Ketbi, and he produced a scintillating late run on Girl Powerr to clinch the fifth race for another Emirati trainer, Saeed Hadher Al Mazrouei.

O’Shea burst through the pack inthe final 200 metres to take the opener on Nashmee in the 2,200m conditions race and then made every yard of the running on Molahen El Alhan to take the fourth, the most valuable handicap of the six-race card, run over 1,600m.

Molahen El Alhan bounced back from his worst defeat, beaten by more than 22 lengths, to record his seventh career victory in a dozen starts.

“He’s got plenty of ability and he’s a horse that likes to bowl along and do his things,” O’Shea said of the five-year-old gelded son of Al Nasr.

“His last run was quite disappointing. I don’t know why because he’s a horse that can’t put up a bad run for whatever reasons.

“But he’s a very good horse in the stables and loves it here at Abu Dhabi. We ran him in Sharjah and Al Ain, but this is his favourite hunting ground over the 1,400m and 1,600m distances.”

Nashmee won for the second time in four starts after his debut victory at Al Ain last March.

“He travelled around well. It was a nice, even gallop and strung-out field so I could settle him well for most of the way. Thankfully, he showed us tonight what she showed at home,” O’Shea said.

O’Shea had Nashmee tucked behind the front-runners and progressed from the last 1,000m before bursting through the pack from the 200m pole to win by more than a length from Merzal, who tried to make all under the Emirati apprentice Majed Al Jahouri.

The Al Ketbi-O’Shea partnership narrowly missed out on two more wins when Al Yawazi went down to Silk Stockings by a neck in the second race and Shahryar was beaten in the third by a neck and head by AS Fayz and Barek W’Rsan.

Harry Bentley, winner of the third race on AS Fayz, said: “He won here before disappointing last time in Sharjah. He was back to his best distance and loved it in Abu Dhabi. He travelled 10 times better than he did in Sharjah.”

Grilletto under Adrie de Vries took the concluding prize for thoroughbreds.

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