Ambitious Dragon enters with the best credentials

Dubai: Hong Kong has only one victory in a Group 1 race at the Dubai World Cup meeting but this year, it is launching an all out assault in the Dubai Duty Free [1,800m] with Ambitious Dragon, California Memory and Xtension.

Of the trio, Ambitious Dragon has the best credentials. A five-year-old trained by Tony Millard he has been triumphant at 10 of his 17 outings.

Foremost among those are the Hong Kong Derby [2,000m] and Queen Elizabeth 11 Cup in which he defeated an international field.

Although the run of the race went against him in the Hong Kong Cup in December, Ambitious Dragon demonstrated that he is right back to form winning the Stewards Cup (1,600-metres) when resuming on January 29.

He followed that up with another brilliant victory in the Citibank Hong Kong Gold Cup on February 26 which indicates Millard will have him in fine fettle for tonight's assignment.

John Moore trained Extension shapes as a formidable second string to Ambitious Dragon. He produced a series of high class performances in England and France before joining Moore's Sha Tin operation.

Since then, he has been runner-up in the Hong Kong Derby and has won the Group 1 Champions Mile. At his two runs in this preparation he has again had to play second fiddle to Ambitious Dragon.

After being lightly raced in France, California Memory has established his qualifications for the Dubai Duty Free with a number of impressive efforts since being taken over by Tony Cruz.

Most notable of those victories was in the Hong Kong Cup [2,000m] when he lowered the colours of Ambitious Dragon.

The Luca Cumani-trained Presvis is returning for his fourth appearance in the race. A second place getter in 2009 he was a luckless 11th the following year and then broke through for a well deserved victory last year but the odds appear against him repeating the feat.

Another one back from last year is Wigmore Hall who ran into trouble before winding up a creditable third behind Presvis and River Jetez.Delegator is shaping as the better of the two Godolphin runners going into the event.

A runner-up behind champion Sea The Stars in the English 2000 Guineas three years ago Delagator's form has been hard to follow over the time since but seems back on track judging on his first-up success at Meydan.

The Prince Khalid Abdullah owned Cityscape is one who could sneak under the guard while Japan's Dark Shadow also merits respect.