Eye of Dubai

What makes Eye of Dubai worth watching is his versatility on the track. He is a genuine course specialist at Ripon, with two wins from five races there, and he has a marked preference for wet or muddy ground, where he wins roughly one in every four races compared to his overall rate of one in six. His regular jockey, Jason Hart, has ridden him to three of those five wins and understands how to get the best out of him — the secret, Hart has said, is to let other horses give Eye of Dubai something to aim at rather than asking him to lead from the front. The joint-trainer, Sean Quinn, reckoned after a big-race win at Doncaster that Eye of Dubai was showing genuine quality for a five-year-old and could develop into a genuinely capable competitor.

Racing for the Norton-based yard of John and Sean Quinn, Eye of Dubai remains active and competitive. His recent form has been mixed — two finishes outside the placings in his last six races — but he raced just a day ago and appears sound. At five years old, with five wins and multiple top-three finishes to his name, he sits somewhere between a promising improver and an established Class 2 performer, the kind of horse that punches above expectations on the right day, on the right ground, at the right track.