Dubai City of Gold (G2)
This is a very easy job on certain days. Sometimes you just look at the horses that need to be covered on the schedule and you know it will be an enjoyable watch. There are just a small handful of horses who can be considered to be genuinely 125+ performers on the Flat. Calandagan is top of my list, closely followed by Forever Young. Ka Ying Rising has his fans in Hong Kong and we really must also include Rebel’s Romance in any calculations. Saturday saw him visit the winners enclosure for the 21st time and he was simply magnificent on his first start of the year in the Dubai City of Gold at Meydan. It wasn’t the strongest renewal of this race that there has ever been and he will almost certainly face much stiffer tasks in a month’s time when he will hopefully take on the great Calandagan on World Cup Night, but it’s hard not to find yourself shouting home a horse like Rebel’s Romance. A prize money haul that now exceeds £12m pounds probably doesn’t do justice to a horse who is now entering his 7th year of training and who has won races across 4 continents. When his career finally does come to an end, the victory in the 2026 Dubai City of Gold probably won’t be at the top of the list of his achievements, but it shouldn’t diminish from another brilliant display from Charlie Appleby’s stable star. Here’s what the data can tell us;
Highest Top Speed? Rebel’s Romance 39.64 mph. Highest Late Speed? Rebel’s Romance 37.67 mph. Longest Average Stride Length? Rebel’s Romance 25.37 ft. Fastest Individual Furlong? Rebel’s Romance 11.51s (10th). I’m sure by now you can see where I am going with this analysis. It wasn’t the easiest race for William Buick to try and work out tactically, with no obvious pace angle and every chance that he might have to make the running himself. With that in mind, it was no surprise to see Rebel’s Romance bounce out from stall 1, taking 7s to reach 50 km/h and getting to the first furlong pole in 15.63s. He had the opposition largely covered from that point and once Kihavah came across to give him a lead, the great horse simply settled behind the pace and waited. The injection of pace came around the turn and with an 11.51s 10th furlong, Rebel’s Romance eased his way to the front. Fort George, himself a battling winner of the Dubai Millennium Stakes earlier in the season, did his best to go with Rebel’s Romance and from a form point of view he was the right horse to do the chasing, but he simply wasn’t in the same league as the winner. Some may look at the sectional times and question that Fort George was faster in the final furlong (12.13s), but Rebel’s Romance was coasting by that point and a difference of just 0.12 mph in their respective run-out speeds would back that up. It seems almost impossible to think this form could be reversed.
He was only 4th behind Danon Decile in the Dubai Sheema Classic last April and he has work to do to reverse the form with Calandagan if he is going to win the race for a second time. His top speed figures and his final 2 furlongs were significantly slower than Francis-Henri Graffard’s star and even with a fitness edge, it seems a difficult leap to think that Rebel’s Romance will reverse that form if they both run their races. However, Charlie Appleby’s 8-year-old is one of the great horses of the modern era and he is going in search of his 10th success in Group 1 company, so he can never be entirely written off. Even if it doesn’t happen for him on World Cup Night, that 10th success at the highest level is surely not too far away in 2026. What a horse!