Seven races in three countries and some 16 months have passed since William Haggas-trained Dubai Honour was first set for the international racing stage at the 2021 LONGINES Hong Kong International Races at Sha Tin.<\/p>
On that occasion, he more than confirmed the quality of his three-year-old form with a closing one and a quarter lengths fourth to Japan\u2019s Loves Only You, who earlier that year had also won the G1 FWD QEII Cup (2000m), in the G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Cup (2000m).<\/p>
However, a fruitless 2022 season followed and some debate continues as to whether he has recaptured his best form or improved in 2023 despite his two Gr1 wins in Australia in March and April. That debate may well be adjudicated in Sunday\u2019s HK$25 million G1 FWD QEII Cup (2000m).<\/p>
Issy Paul, the gelding\u2019s regular rider and assistant to Haggas, has been by his side – and on his back – in Australia and Hong Kong and is best placed to offer some insight into his progress.<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column]
Dubai Honour scores a stylish win in the G1 Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Randwick.<\/p>[\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
\u201c<\/span>I\u2019<\/span>d love to think he has improved,\u201d Paul said,\u00a0 \u201cAnd I do think he\u2019<\/span>s in better form than he was last year but we\u2019<\/span>ll see what happens in the season to come. The one-on-one attention he certainly enjoys and even the silly stuff like having the sun on his back in Australia and a good roll in the sand has seen him thrive.<\/p> \u201c<\/span>Perhaps, he was a little below his best last year. Obviously, he was a very good three-year-old so whether he\u2019<\/span>s improved now or gone back to the level of that very good three-year-old form I\u2019<\/span>m not sure.<\/p> \u201cWe do have some very nice mile and a quarter, 2000 metres horses at home (England) and how he would fare against them this season I guess remains to be seen.\u201d<\/p> First is the matter of Sunday\u2019s race where he faces small but select opposition headed by last December\u2019s G1 LONGINES Hong Kong Cup (2000m) winner Romantic Warrior.<\/p> \u201cFrom my perspective, he still feels great as he did in Australia. It will be a really tough ask but the boss (William Haggas) is very shrewd and wouldn\u2019t have him here if he didn\u2019t think he had a flying chance.<\/p> \u201cHis weight is good, he takes everything in his stride and he feels like he\u2019s in really good form so fingers crossed we see another very good performance on Sunday,\u201d said Paul.<\/p> Paul harbours an ambition to train in her own right but not in the immediate future.<\/p> \u201cMaybe one day but no rush on that. William is brilliant to work for her and we get the opportunity to work with some great horses. We have lots of communication with the boss, of course, but it\u2019s amazing how he trusts us to get the job done.<\/p> \u201cI\u2019m very fond of this horse (Dubai Honour) and by Sunday, I\u2019<\/span>ll have been away with him for nearly two and a half months so I\u2019m hopeful he\u2019ll run very well again and I\u2019m sure he will,\u201d Paul said.<\/p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”20388″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Seven races in three countries and some 16 months have passed since William Haggas-trained Dubai Honour was first set for the international racing stage at the 2021 LONGINES Hong Kong International Races at Sha Tin.On that occasion, he more than confirmed the quality of his three-year-old form with a closing one… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":20391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"2normal","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20385"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20385"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20396,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20385\/revisions\/20396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/campaigns.hkjc.com\/champions-day\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}