The John and Thady Gosden-trained Lead Artist (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) heads the entries for the $1 Million Bahrain International Trophy on Friday November 15.
The Group 2 contest has attracted runners from Great Britain, Ireland, France and Japan. The field includes last year's winner, Spirit Dancer (GB) (Frankel {GB}), along with this year's Arlington Million winner, Nations Pride (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}), and the Japanese-trained Group 1 scorer, Killer Ability (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}), the mount of British champion jockey, Oisin Murphy.
Lead Artist is the only three-year-old in the line-up. The Juddmonte-owned colt won the Group 3 Darley Stakes at Newmarket over 1m 1f on his last start and the Gosden team are looking forward to the trip.
Thady said, “The Bahrain International Trophy is an event that has gone from strength to strength over the past five years. To date, we have run three horses in the race, all of whom have finished second.
“Lead Artist is a horse who has always had a lot of natural speed, as such he was running over a mile and also over seven furlongs this summer. He won a Group 3 at Goodwood over what is a pretty slick mile but he improved again for the step up in trip in the Darley Stakes and the fast ground in Bahrain should suit. It's a race where you need a bit of pace.
“Kieran Shoemark will ride. He's ridden him in all his starts, knows him very well and he has had riding contracts in Bahrain before, so he knows the track well too.”
He added, “Lead Artist is a three-year-old, whereas our previous runners were older horses, but he has not had a hard season. He has been relatively lightly raced and travelling a horse when they're turning from three to four can help them mature a lot, it can be a really good experience for them ahead of their four-year-old season.”
Not a subscriber? Click here to sign up for the daily PDF or alerts.
