Nymphea Du Paon draws a leg closer to claiming Arabian Triple Crown

ABU DHABI // Nymphea Du Paon underlined her status as the best four-year-old Purebred Arabian filly in the country with another impressive run to win the middle leg of the Arabian Triple Crown.

Jockey Tadhg O’Shea had the Mahabb filly tucked behind stable companion and pacemaker, Burj Khalifa under Daniel Muscat ,before kicking for home on the final turn to win the featured Group 3 prize Sunday night at the capital’s racecourse.

Swwing, ridden by Ted Durcan, made late headway to finish one-and-a-half lengths back in second, while Hanoof, under Andrew Nienbar, was third.

O’Shea was completing a double, having won the Emirates Colts Classic – the main supporting event in the six-race card – 30 minutes earlier on Molahen Alham.

“She is a very nice filly and was impressive again over the longer trip,” said Ernst Oertel, the UAE champion trainer.

“Obviously, we’ll see how she has come out from this race and see if she can be back for the Round 3 prize over the 2,400m distance next week.”

Nymphea Du Paon won both her local starts over 1,600 metres, but was stripped of her second win, the Arabian Triple Crown Round 1, after testing positive for the prohibited substance furosemide in her post-race urine sample.

Molahen Alham, also trained by Oertel, got the better of AF Al Hazer in their third meeting.

A change of riding tactics saw the bay son of Al Nasr make all the running under O’Shea to win the prize for the local-bred four year olds run over 1,600m.

O’Shea said: “He is a horse with a lot of ability. We adopted a different riding plan and it worked perfectly well.”

Trainer Eric Lemartinel also had wins with two different jockeys. Gerald Avranche was aboard Ain Jaloot in the opener, a maiden for local breds, and the apprentice Noel Garbutt rode Simbar Du Loup to victory over stable companion Ibn Battuta Monlau in the Al Wathba Stud Farm Cup, the fifth race.

The Satish Seemar-trained Inthar made it three wins in three starts in Abu Dhabi with another solid run under stable jockey Richard Mullen in the concluding Abu Dhabi Championship Prep.

“He loves the track here and ran another excellent race,” Mullen said.

“We can only hope he stays in good shape from now and returns for the main Group 3 race in three weeks.”

Mullen burst through the pack in the final 200m to win by two lengths over Sefri, under Dane O’Neill, and Ukrainian, ridden by Royston Ffrench.

apassela@thenational.ae

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