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| Staff Writer |
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On the eve of the most iconic races in the world, McGuiness speaks about his plans for repeating his historic win in Doha, finding success in Dubai and Riyadh, and his travel-loving owners.
Q: And what are your plans for the five horses you have coming into the region?
A: Harry’s Bar has already raced at Meydan. He was eighth in the Dubai Dash. We ran him off the plane. We just feel he is more of an all-weather specialist. So, he needs a very level track. And I think he might do some good on grass. And if he runs well in Dubai, we keep him out there for as long as we can, and if not he comes back and he will run in All-Weather finals in the New Castle on Good Friday.
We hope to send Current Option to Saudi for the 1351 Turf Sprint and then come back to Dubai for the Gr.3 Nad Al Sheba Sprint on Super Saturday. We hope to run him in the Gr.1 Al Quoz Sprint on World Cup night.
A Case of You will also race on Dubai World Cup night in the main Gr.1 Dubai World Cup. He will have a little bit of a break after Dubai and he will be targeted in the campaign which will consist of the Gr.1 Flying Five Stakes on the current Champion’s Weekend. Then we'll head for the Abbaye which he won this year. And fingers crossed we can get back to the Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland
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Q: You were previously considering Saudi for A Case of You. What happened?
A: We've diverted now, we believe the Dubai trip will be ideal for A Case of You.
Q: What about Dream Today, Pierre Lapin and Casanova? What are your plans for them?
A: Casanova won't travel. We are keeping him for the Irish Lincolnshire in March. (1600m Premier Handicap run at the Curragh Racecourse) at home. While Dubai Today will race on January 27 in the 1200m Dubai Sprint. And we have Pierre down for the 1400m Business Bay Challenge.
Q: What about your plans for Pretreville?
A: Last year Bowerman won the Gr.2 Irish Thoroughbred Marketing Cup, under Ronan Whelan in Qatar. We bought Pretreville out of France. He is quite a high-class horse. We believe that the Doha race might suit him and we're looking at targeting him for that race if we can.
Q: And what are your own travel plans?
A: Stephen, our assistant trainer will be travelling for the initial meetings and then I hope to take over from there for the other races. I will definitely be there on Super Saturday and World Cup night. Because I plan to travel to Saudi myself if we can get to Saudi. And I have a race to win in Doha, a race we won last year in Doha.
Q: Please tell us about your owners and what's your journey has been like with them?
A: Our main owner is a syndicate called Shamrock Thoroughbreds. It's run by Stephen Thorne, the managing director of Shamrock thoroughbreds. He has a number of partners for each horse. Some of them travelled to Saudi last year, the Breeders’ Cup, and they have been to Royal Ascot. They love travelling. Gary Devlin owns A Case of You also loves travelling. Our owners are treated well at these meetings and there's a great level of prize money, so for our level of horses, we come with a lot of praise for these meetings.