Rilfor returns with a bang

Rilfor, the seven-year-old Djelfor son and a former Group One winner, returned to the tracks yesterday after a short stint at the stud to win the evening-s feature event for Purebred Arabian horses at the Abu Dhabi Equestrian Club race course here.

Apart from Rilfor-s superb return, Yancey Carter Jr-s Kal Barq completed a hat-trick of wins while South African jockey Craig Arnold picked up a popular double.

Rilfor, who went to stud, came back to post a good win in the six-furlong shorter trip yesterday.
Now being trained by Jeff Frazier Jr., Rilfor (Michael Hussey up) hit the front with about 400 metres to go and looked comfortable until Dreamerr (Willie Ryan up) came up with a fast finish.

But Hussey managed to keep Rilfor ahead to carry home the winner-s purse of Dh 27,500 with half a length separating the winner from Dreamerr.

Dreamerr-s run came a bit late, but the Yancey Carter Jr.-trained bay mare finished strongly with top weights Eldjani and Fine Fellow following in that order.

Later, in the fifth race, a 11-furlong for Purebred Arabians, Yancey Carter Jr.-s Kal Barq completed a hat-trick of wins in his last three starts.

Making his second run of this season, Kal Barq (Craig Arnold up) had much in reserve to take the race from Erwan Charpy-s Djolly Good (Seb Sanders) the latter being a front runner for most of the race. The win completed the double for Craig Arnold.

Earlier in the only thoroughbred race of the evening, trainer Mazin M. Al Kurdi picked up his seventh winner of the season when Mesozoic ran a well-judged race over 1000 metres.

In a close finish Mesozoic (Sebastian Hamel up) finished half a length ahead of Saabrin (Gary Hind astride) and stablemate Tala Ya (Wayne Smith) a further half a length away.

Craig Arnold had earlier notched up a fine win on Moktar Du Causse trained by Deeb Saif El Din in the first of the two maiden races for Purebred Arabians.

After Mawwal (Michael Hills up) had done all the running and led with about 300 metres to go when Houriya Bouzika (Richard Mullen astride) made her run. But on the outside came Moktar Du Causse with a superb run and won quite comfortably in the end.

"He is a nicely-built horse and did well on the home stretch. He kept lengthening his strides and should do well in future too," said Arnold, in his first season here in the UAE.

In a strongly run race over 11 furlongs, the Jaci Wickham-trained Cronos Al Maury (Richard Mullen) finished ahead of Salem Al Ketbi-s Al Sayoud (Anthony Whelan up) with Yancey Carter-s Sarrab (Craig Arnold) running wide outside and finishing in third place.

Rod Simpson-s Futtoon was well-ridden by Chris Avery to bag the last race of the night, a seven-furlong for UAE-bred maidens.