Tadhg O’Shea lightened the mood slightly at the Al Asayl Stables at Abu Dhabi racecourse on Sunday night, following the injury suffered by their stable jockey Gerald Avranche.
O’Shea signed off the seven-race card with a victory after Avranche was reported to have suffered two fractures on his pelvis after being thrown off RB Dixie Burning at the parade ring before the start of the fourth race.
“Gerald had a very bad incident and I wish this win raised the spirits of the stable lads,” O’Shea said after steering Snaffy first past the post in the concluding maiden race for Purebred Arabians at the capital’s penultimate meeting.
The win also took O’Shea’s tally to 42 winners, five ahead of his closest challenger Patrick Dobbs in the UAE jockey’s championship table.
“Pat is riding plenty of winners. I will go flat out too to get a few from the remaining meetings,” O’Shea said, when asked of the challenge as he bids for his fourth UAE jockey’s title.
O’Shea was placed third in two races and runner-up twice before getting into the winner’s enclosure on the Eric Lemartinel-trained four-year-old colt.
Fernando Jara completed a double when he made all of the running on the Satish Seemar-trained Invincible Strike to take the meeting’s solitary race for the thoroughbreds and the Dh 100,000 handicap, the most valuable prize of the meeting.
Jara completed back-to-back victories after steering the Musabah Al Muhairi-trained AF Ssayeb to claim the Wathba Stud Farm Cup half-an-hour earlier.
Nacer Samiri, too, saddled a double under two different jockeys. Harry Bentley produced a late run to win the third race on Haizoom, and Royston Ffrench produced a similar finish on Da’Areen to claim the next.
Abu Dhabi hore racing results from Sunday
Delma Maiden Winner: Bushrah Al Reef, Sam Hitchcock (jockey), Abdulla Al Hammadi (trainer)
Al Falah Handicap Winner: Madjanthis, Harry Bentley, Ernst Oertel
Mizzna Conditions Winner: Haizoom, Harry Bentley, Nacer Samiri
Hamdan Handicap Winner: Da'Areen, Royston Ffrench, Nacer Samiri
Wathba Stud Farm Cup Winner: AF Ssayeb, Fernando Jara, Musabah Al Muhairi
Khalifa Handicap Winner: Invincible Strike, Fernando Jara, Satish Seemar
Al Dinari Maiden Winner: Snaffy, Tadhg O'Shea, Eric Lemartinel
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