Blue Trail leaves Meydan rivals toiling

Blue Trail produced a remarkable display at Meydan, UAE, on Friday, 10 February, as he smashed the 10-furlong turf course record when taking a handicap by 11 lengths.

James Doyle pushed along the Charlie Appleby-trained four-year-old leaving the stalls and the duo established a half-length advantage after the first furlong.

Blue Trail went clear down the back straight and continued to enjoy himself in front, stretching his lead to six lengths approaching the home straight.

The son of Teofilo kicked further clear down the lane, with his winning time of 1m 59.20s shaving more than half a second off the previous best set by Star Safari at the 2020 Carnival.

Charlie Appleby said: “Blue Trail is a horse who has showed us ability and he brought a good level of form over here from Europe. In his first run out here, he was very keen and Mickael Barzalona said he never got into a rhythm at all.

“From tonight’s draw, I told James to get him out and get a position. James said ‘once I gave him a hoof out the gates, he suddenly latched on and was running away with me’. He did not realise he was as far clear as he was turning for home and it was probably one of those races that fell apart halfway through.

“I think a few of the riders behind will wish that they had laid up a bit more and I doubt they will allow that to happen again in the future. It was a funny race to watch and you could see from halfway how it could potentially develop because Blue Trail has an engine. Once he slipped the lead, he was always going to be hard to peg back.“He has probably put himself into Pattern company now and deserves to have a crack at it.”

James Doyle said: “Blue Trail did not begin all that well but I wanted to hold a prominent position and, once I got there, he didn’t really drop the throttle at all. He wanted to get on with it and, when we started to turn, he really started motoring. It felt like he was getting a bit leg weary near the finish but I could not believe it when I looked behind me.

“He is a high-class horse and we have always thought that he is capable of big performances. He has not quite got it together for whatever reason and even again tonight he was not 100 per cent bombproof – he took a fierce grip going down and in the early stages he did plenty wrong. It shows that he has an engine even when things do not go to plan.”