Classic dreams for Gill Duffield

There are times when you just have to give yourself up to the joy of the occasion and bask happily in anticipation of future success.

Purebred Arabian trainer Gill Duffield celebrated saddling her first winner in the Emirates at Friday's Jebel Ali race meeting and was quick to turn her thoughts to the prospect of winning some of the big races for the breed.

"I'd like to win the Kahayla Classic on Dubai World Cup," reveals Duffield, who trains Arabian racehorses owned by Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Minister of Finance and Industry, at Lester Piggot's yard in Newmaket.

"That's the one that we all want to get. It's like the Derby. It's so special."

The season may have barely started for Duffield, who has so far introduced three runners from a ten-strong string based at John Sadler's Oasis I Stables, but it will do well to provide an insight into her capability.

Kardaillan broke the ice for the jockey-turned-trainer when winning a handicap at Jebel Ali on Friday after Eau Royal and Monseiur Al Maury earned a great deal of respect in earlier defeats.

Duffield's principal ambition is revealing. She says: "I'd like to hopefully win with all of them and I'd like to have ten sound horses at the end of the season.

"In the past my horses came here and went to either Kiaran (McLaughlin) or Erwan (Charpy). This time I've been given the chance to come here and train them myself. It's a lovely opportunity to have and I'm hoping to make the best of it," she says with genuine gratitude.

"It's nice to have had my first winner. I was unlucky with Eau Royal and Monsieur Al Maury, but I'm more than pleased with the way Kardaillan won."

When Duffield, who has trained Sheikh Hamdan's horses at Newmarket for the last 15 years, talks there's an excitement in her softly lilting English accent. She reveals herself as a horse lover, a flat-racing enthusiast and a willing learner.

"I think I've got a lot to learn," she acknowledges of her new responsibility in Dubai. "I'm very lucky to share a yard with John Sadler and I keep asking him all sorts of questions. Paddy (Rudkin) and Erwan have been very helpful as well and so have everyone else."

Duffield's objective is to do well and ensure that her horses remains healthy and happy.

"It's a bit hard on them. They race essentially in England or France, where the conditions are quite different to the Emirates. So it's a lot to ask of them to carry that form here," she maintains while revealing her love for Arabian horses.

I adore them. They fascinate me," she says. "I don't think you train them, you work with them the whole time. I go into the yard in the morning and I don't know what I'm going to do until I look at them.

"They're great little characters and I think if they're happy then they'll give you everything. I adore training them, definitely."

Duffield, who regrets that Arabian racing is not taken as seriously in England as it is in France and Germany, singles out the four-year-old Shadwell-bred Jiyush as her possible Classic hope.

"He's a pretty good horse," she says. "He ran three times in England and won all three. He's excellently bred and he's very genuine. He won the Dubai International Stakes (Group 1) at Newbury in July and was unlucky when we took his to Chantilly where he did not have the best of runs.

"He's been training very well and I hope he can repeat Nivour de Cardonne's feat of winning the Kahayla Classic.

Nivour de Cardonne raced in the emirates under Kiaran McLaughlin's licence and won the Arabian Classic on Dubai World Cup day in 2000.

"He won a maiden when I had him in England but when he came out to Dubai and the following season won the Kahayla Classic, it was so exciting," says Duffield, clearly sparked by the memory.

Sheikh Hamdan's Arabians, it appears, could not be in better hands.