RACING POST NEWS

Abdullah aims to break dirt duck with Hatches
BY JON LEES

KHALID ABDULLAH is a Breeders’ Cup fanatic who has enjoyed four winners at the event but despite supporting stables on both sides of the Atlantic, he has yet to win one of the dirt races.

He got nearer when Close Hatches took second behind Beholder in the Distaff a year ago and after four straight wins this year the filly was the leading player for this renewal, even before the defending champion was scratched from the race.

But an unexpected defeat at odds of 1-5 in Keeneland’s Spinster Stakes, which Juddmonte sponsor, has put her candidacy in doubt and left bookmakers to favour the three-year-old Untapable as the more likely winner of their eagerly awaited showdown.

Close Hatches’s trainer Bill Mott said: “The only thing that we can think of, and I can’t guarantee why, but maybe she didn’t like that racetrack. I don’t know and that’s the only thing I can come up with. She’s pretty honest.

“She’s been fine. She looks good and has been doing good. She was doing good going into the last one, so it was a little bit of a head scratcher.”

Untapable is the mount of Rosie Napravnik and meets the older generation for the first time. Trainer Steve Asmussen said: “I feel very good with how she’s coming into the race. She’s an extremely talented filly. This is as good as she’s been. We’re expecting another big race from her.”

Europe’s L’Amour De Ma Vie was a Group 2 winner in Dubai this year and finished second in the Windsor Forest Stakes at Ascot. She has never raced on dirt but has experienced the surface. No European horse has won the Distaff with Pachattack (third) the only one to finish in the frame.

Trainer Pia Brandt said: “She has been trained in the United States before when she was at Churchill Downs. The grass track here would have been too tight for her but she has been training very nicely on the surface.

“She has been unlucky in her last two races. I am not too happy about being drawn one but I hope she can show what she can do.”

In the Dirt Mile last year’s winner Goldencents, transferred to Leandro Mora after Doug O’Neill was banned from having runners, seeks to confirm placings over Golden Ticket, who he beat last year.