Trainer Mike de Kock is due to arrive in Saudi Arabia this week to saddle his 3yo Bella Fever in this weekend’s inaugural Saudi Cup meeting.
Bella Fever, unbeaten in four starts in her native Uruguay, made history at Meydan recently when she became the first Uruguayan-bred to win in Dubai.
Bella Fever contested the $100,000 Meydan Classic Trial over 1400m, her first attempt beyond 1000m, and she ran on strongly under a well-timed ride from jockey Dane O’Neill.The photo is shown above.
By Texas Fever, Bella Fever joined Mike de Kock’s barn in Dubai last year, following a trip via Jane Chapple-Hyam’s yard at Newmarket, where she had surgery and was looked after in recovery.
She is owned by Jorge Wagner and Victor Azambullu.
A leap year doesn’t come around every day, and neither does a $20 million horse race. But on Saturday, these two will combine to bring the world a racing spectacle like never seen before.
While the race meeting carries total stakes of $29.2 million (R438 million) the main race carries the bulk of the pot, with the winning horse earning a cool $10 million (R150 million) and horses down to 10th place sharing another $10 million300- between them. It will be run over 1800m on dirt.
Day one of the meeting, on Friday, will also see some of the best jockeys in the world compete in the Kingdom Day STC International Jockeys Challenge
It has been reported that Phumelela is in the process of negotiating with the rights holders to broadcast this benchmark event on Tellytrack.
The event is sandwiched perfectly between the Pegasus World Cup and the Dubai World Cup.
