The surface does us no favours, says de Kock

Dubai: Top trainer Mike de Kock believes that a better training surface would encourage more European trainers to send their best horses to race in Dubai.

The South African, who has nine runners in the Dubai World Cup on Saturday, including fancied World Cup horse, Asiatic Boy, says the surface at Nad Al Sheba is hard on horses.

That fact, coupled with the intense racing season in Dubai, can make it hard to keep a horse sound.

"The track does us no favours," said de Kock.

Future

"It's a very, very harsh climate and the track is very firm and apart from that there's the Dubai International Racing Carnival concept of only having ten meetings and you tend to push.

"You need to have the horses ready for those meetings and there's no inch given and very little time off."

De Kock says that five of his Group 1 winners have broken down this season and that whenever possible he uses a treadmill instead of trackwork to exercise his horses.

"The treadmill has been a godsend for me," he went on.

"We have had one here for the last four or five years and I work them on there.

"It helps us a hell of a lot if we don't have to go to the track every day."

In the future de Kock says he would like to see a synthetic track available for training, perhaps as an addition to the eagerly-anticipated Meydan development, set to open in 2010. "I would think that with Meydan a lot will change here for us and change for the good" he said. "A synthetic track would certainly help us.

"I think the Carnival will become definitely a lot more competitive if there was a better training surface. I think a lot of European trainers are keeping their horses away because of how difficult it is to keep horses sound."