Fourth Godolphin Super Saturday success as Dream Castle leads home Jebel Hatta 1-2-3

Dream Castle continued his faultless 2019 campaign at Meydan, UAE, when gaining a breakthrough first G1 success in the Jebel Hatta Sponsored By Emirates Airline on Super Saturday, 9 March.

The Saeed bin Suroor-trained five-year-old stayed on strongly under Christophe Soumillon to beat Wootton (William Buick) and First Contact (Mickael Barzalona), both representing Charlie Appleby, as the Godolphin trio fought out the finish to the nine-furlong turf highlight.

Five-year-old Dream Castle, already successful over the same course and distance during the Dubai World Cup Carnival in the G3 Singspiel Stakes and G2 Al Rashidiya, was switched off in second last as First Contact led the 10 runners.

The son of Frankel still had almost the entire field in front of him as First Contact kicked on with two furlongs to race, but produced an impressive turn of foot down the outside of the straight to take up the running passing the furlong-pole.

Wootton came from towards the rear of the field as well and showed good acceleration, but could not cope with Dream Castle, who prevailed by a length and a quarter in 1m 48.17s on good ground, with a further two and three quarter lengths back to First Contact.

Saeed bin Suroor said: “Dream Castle is doing really well and he reminds me of Benbatl, who also won the Singspiel Stakes and Al Rashidiya last year before finishing second in this race.

“In the old days, some of the jockeys would get off Dream Castle and say that he was a sprinter and should be racing over five or six furlongs, but I believed that this distance would be his best trip.

“We have campaigned him over nine furlongs this year and he has shown his class, winning a G3, a G2 and now a G1 race. It is a great result for us.

“We will leave it to His Highness Sheikh Mohammed to make a decision. but we could take him to the G1 Dubai Turf (9f) on Dubai World Cup night (Saturday, 30 March).”

“All of the team work very well and this victory gives us lots of confidence going forward.”

Christophe Soumillon declared: “The last two wins were quite impressive and I was really confident with him today, even with the nine draw.

“The race went well for us, with a nice pace. When I saw I was behind Wootton, I was very confident, because I knew he was going to take me quite far.

“When I asked Dream Castle to go, he really quickened sharply. When I hit the front, he was looking around for a while. He’s a really different horse compared to last year, when he was a colt.”

William Buick, who partnered Wootton, said afterwards: “I was pretty happy with him throughout the race. I knew he was going to pick up the horse in front of him and I knew Christophe would be following me.

“He got the nine furlongs and I think he might even get 10.”

First Contact’s jockey Mickael Barzalona reported: “He was travelling very strongly in front and he was battling away a lot until the end. I’m very pleased with him.”