Tadhg O’Shea looks set to extend his reign in Jebel Ali and Dubai World Cup

Abu Dhabi: Tadhg O’Shea signed of with four winners to establish a handsome lead in the jockeys’ championship while Ernst Oertel saddled three of those winners to regain the lead in the trainer’s championship after the final Abu Dhabi meeting on Sunday night.

O’Shea has 32 winners — eight more than Richard Mullen. With the last domestic meeting at Jebel Ali being held on Friday and the Dubai World Cup on March 30, the reigning champion looks set to extend his time at the top.

However, the battle for the trainers’ championship is still on and. With Sunday’s three, Oertel now has 34 — two more than Mosabah Al Muhairi. Ali Rashid Al Raihe and Satish Seemar are in hot pursuit with 30 each.

Even as Oertel and O’Shea had much of the spotlight on the final race meeting of the capital on them, Emirati Trainer Majid Al Jahouri added another Group 1 race to his kitty while Doug Watson’s Jutland won the capital’s richest race for thoroughbreds, the Abu Dhabi Championship (Group 3) race.

Al Jahouri, a former endurance rider who is now a flat-race trainer, continued his big-race winning spree when Musharab under Harry Bentley won the Emirates Championship Group 1 race. Musharab, one of the six runners owned by Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs, hit the front on the home stretch and then did well to finish well ahead of Sahib Du Clos (Dane O’Neill up) to land the winners Dh200,000 race.

With Dh370,000 on offer, it was the Abu Dhabi Championship, a Group 3 race for thoroughbreds, which was the feature of the night and Jutland under Patrick Dobbs just about managed to stave off Malthouse to take home the winner’s share of Dh222,000.

“Well done to Doug (Watson) and all the team as this fellow has had a few tough races this season so to come out here and do that is a big effort. And it rode like a proper race so when we quickened about 600m out he really dug deep to keep going all the way to the line,” said Dobbs.

While Oertel and O’Shea swept the first three races with Bedayer Al Asayl, Richlore and Najm Alemarat, the Irish jockey went one further with a superb win in the Wathba Stud farm Cup over close rival Mullen.

Sunday’s Wathba Stud Farm Cup was a race between all the previous winners in the 14 races of the series this season and O’Shea on AF Lafeh gave owner Khalid Khalifa Al Naboudah another success in this series which is reserved for Private Owners.

Richard Mullen on Yazan, a two-time winner in the series was the fancied win, but AF Lafeh, repeated his fine form from a fortnight ago.

O’Shea, with his fourth win in four races on the night exclaimed, “What a great evening — what else can you say?”