Make Me King crowns his landmark season with Abu Dhabi success

Trainer Hamad Al-Jehani’s first winner in Britain. Then his first Group winner in Europe. Now, as National Day celebrations erupted in a starburst of firework parties across Abu Dhabi, the dappled grey Make Me King was first again – in the HH The President Cup for thoroughbreds.

It wasn’t easy. Drawn three on the tight-turning Abu Dhabi track, Make Me King took up a position behind the leaders under stable jockey James Doyle. Threading his way through a busy field, the pair hit the front with barely half-a-dozen strides of the contest yet to run, denying Marbaan (a Group 2 winner at the Qatar Goodwood Festival) and Laneqash (who also boasts G2 form in Britain over this seven-furlong trip).

The next event, and the finale of a great day’s racing, was an equivalent contest for Purebred Arabians, a Group 1 affair worth $2.2m also called the HH The President Cup. The defending Champion, Wathnan Racing’s Abbes – so impressive when winning here last season and now the hero of eight Group 1 races – came here with high hopes of lifting the crown again. But it was not to be: from an unfavourable high draw, he had to work too hard too early to find a position on the heels of the leader, only to have little energy left for a finishing effort, fading to finish in mid-division.

A disappointment, certainly, but it failed to dim the joy of the trophy presentations, which came after the final race and saw the Wathnan team on the podium with Make Me King’s silverware.