Seemar aiming to replicate success at Dubai Sale after busy buying spree

Champion UAE trainer Bhupat Seemar returned to a familiar source of stars as the busiest man at the Racing In Dubai Sale at Meydan on Tuesday evening.

Among a haul for various owners was the AED1,000,000 (£216,000/€251,000) top lot and three-time winner First Sight (lot 45), just after Al Nafir, a brother to Godolphin's world champion Ghaiyyath, who won the Old Rowley Cup at Newmarket, had made AED600,000. Both had shown recent form for Godolphin at Meydan.

First Sight was signed for by Mohammed Khaleel Ahmed while Vibhav Shah will be among the new owners of Al Nafir. "He's wanted to have a horse with me for a while and I said I'd find him the right one," Seemar joked about the latter.

The sale has been a fruitful one for the family's Zabeel Stables, with Seemar earlier signing for the AED425,000 Secret Manner (39), an unraced three-year-old gelding by Dubawi out of Listed winner Show Day, a sister to the very classy Usherette who has already produced a few winners.

"He's unexposed and he's a Dubawi, so he had a lot of appeal," the trainer said of Secret Manner. "He's for an existing client. We've had a lot of success buying horses like this, including those who have gone all the way to the Dubai World Cup meeting itself. Hopefully he can be one of those!"

North America had been a spectacular purchase from the 2016 edition by Satish Seemar, Bhupat's uncle, for AED140,000 (around £31,000/€35,000) after a few runs for Charlie Appleby.

He earned many times that sum on the track, winning at Group 1 level on the dirt and featuring behind Thunder Snow in a couple of editions of the Dubai World Cup.

Touch Gold Racing’s Leading Spirit was also acquired in the ring by the Seemars at a sale staged in September 2018 for AED400,000. A standing dish in the sprints on the circuit, he has a shot at Saturday’s Dubai Golden Shaheen after a recent victory in the Group 3 Mahab Al Shimaal among a stack of runners for the top local yard.

Bhupat Seemar was in busy buying action on TuesdayCredit: Laura Green

Derby-winning owner Khalifa Dasmal was earlier in action at home in Dubai as he picked up the immaculately bred Inner City (30), who was third in a maiden at Sandown last year, for AED380,000. Dasmal, whose pink colours were carried to glory by Shaamit at Epsom in 1996, was struck by the fact the gelding was by Dubawi out of Pretty Polly Stakes winner Urban Fox. He had been an expensive Tattersalls purchase as a yearling.

"He's very well bred and I just thought he was a good buy," Dasmal said. "I haven't decided which trainer I'll send him to yet."

Some 49 lots had been entered to go through the ring, the vast majority of which were being consigned by Godolphin. They included frequent faces from the Dubai Carnival along with a few lightly-raced three-year-olds who had begun their education in Europe.

With a ring in the centre of Meydan’s vast saddling enclosure behind the grandstand, the sale was held by the Emirates Racing Authority with the assistance of Tattersalls and auctioneers John O’Kelly and Harvey Bell and has been staged for a few years with the idea of presenting horses to be raced in the United Arab Emirates for different owners.

It has been given a more prominent spring-time position, not only because there is no breeze-up sale this year, but in order to give trainers time to prep new purchases for the autumn when racing begins again.

The horses sold included those likely to be at the level of future Carnival campaigns along with some rather more suitable for the lesser tracks. The only stipulation is that they cannot be exported for a year, until the end of next season. Other subsequent UAE Group winners acquired for reasonable sums at the venue include Drafted, Golden Goal and Raven’s Corner.

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