Abu Dhabi: No matter how good you are, there are days when even the best can bungle and jockey Adrie de Vries learnt it the hard way on Sunday.
Given an option to choose his horse for the evening, he let go his prized Nymphea Du Paon to jockey James Doyle, who went on to clinch the Arabian Triple Crown Round.
De Vries had ridden Nymphea Du Paon to an authoritative win on her Emirates debut two weeks ago in the Listed Abu Dhabi Championship.
However, on Sunday, De Vries didn’t keep his faith on Nymphea Du Paon and opted to ride the stable companion Molahen El Alham, whom he rode to a second place in the Abu Dhabi Colts Classic earlier.
Doyle comfortably rode Nymphea Du Paon to victory by a neck over second-placed from AF Al Hazer under Royston Ffrench and Molahen El Alham was third a further four-and-three-quarter lengths behind.
Trainer Ernst Oertel was also stunned with De Vries’ decision and revealed that he had warned him against that move.
“Adrie wanted to ride the colt and I told him he was mad. The jockey’s rule is never to get off a winner and he did. She’s a champion and to get off her was a mistake,” said the Oertel.
De Vries was also quick to put his hands up and said that he “blundered”.
“Molahen was better in the workout. Had I not ridden both of them during workout, I would have chosen to ride Nymphea. It was a big mistake,” accepted De Vries.
Oertel went on to reveal that Nymphea Du Paon, who has been unbeaten in her two starts since arriving from France, will now go for the second round of the Arabian Triple Crown, which is over 2,000 metres.
“That distance would suit her better than the 1,600m trip she has run twice in two weeks,” revealed Oertel, who could not win in any other race for the evening where he had fielded 14 entries across five of the six races.
In the Al Khaznah race for the thoroughbreds, jockey Richard Mullen rode Inthar to victory by three quarters of a length over Amaan ridden by Noel Garbutt.
“He [Inthar] is a good turf horse and if he can’t get the rating to run at Meydan, we’ll have to keep coming back to Abu Dhabi.
“I think he’s OK for the Dubai World Cup Carnival in the manner he won tonight, yet he needs to get his rating 100 plus to get that opportunity,” said trainer Satish Seemar.
The highlight of the evening was also a grand double for jockey Harry Bentley for two different trainers. Bentley won the second race Al Mafraq by leading Duzar, trained by Majed Al Jahouri, to victory.
Buoyed by the success, Bentley later went on to win the fifth race, the Wathba Stud Farm Cup on Safir Bainuna. Three fourth of a length behind was Girl Powerrr and AF Asefah.
The first race of the evening saw Live Rich under Xavier Ziani finally coming good in his fourth attempt. Live Rich was the runner-up twice and third once in his four starts this season.
