Arabian nights for Will Clarken ahead of Friday’s Blue Point Sprint at Meydan

Cover image courtesy of Bronwen Healy

Dubai, at this time of year, isn’t unlike South Australia. The mornings are fresh and warm before the beating sun of the afternoon, and the evenings are cool.

It’s been just about perfect for the Morphettville trainer Will Clarken, who arrived in Dubai earlier this week. And it’s been more than ideal for his pair of horses, Parsifal and He’s A Balter, who have settled right into life in Dubai since their arrival a month ago.

The two horses have embarked on Clarken's first experience in the Gulf.

On January 28, less than a fortnight after they touched down, they competed in respective events at Meydan. He’s A Balter ran a belter for second, while Parsifal had a pipe-opener running sixth in a Listed race.

Both horses will run again on Friday night in what Clarken says is their grand final of sorts, the G2 Blue Point Sprint at Meydan over the 1000-metre straight turf-course.

“For Parsifal, this is his race,” Clarken said, speaking to TDN AusNZ. “It’s a distance that I like for him and it’s down the straight, which he’s good at. This is a race that we picked up and looked at, and we thought if we could get him to run well over here, this is the race that he’d be right in.”

He’s A Balter is also in the nine-horse field and, after his slashing runner-up effort in his Dubai debut, Clarken thinks anything is possible.

“This fellow has come so far that there's no end game,” the trainer said. “He’s just rolling around on Friday night in this field, and I like the 1000 metres for him too. Although there is another race or two that they could have before they head home, Friday night’s race is the one that really appealed to us.”

In the footsteps of good ones

Parsifal and He’s A Balter are on a path well-trod.

In the past, so many notable Australian stars have headed to Dubai to contest the rich purses of the Dubai World Cup Carnival, and they have included the likes of Buffering (Mossman), Ortensia (Testa Rossa), Elvstroem and Helmet.

Gallery: Some of the Australian stars who competed in the Dubai World Cup Carnival, images courtesy of Sportpix

There hasn’t been an Australian horse to contest Dubai since 2019, when the Lindsay Park horse Faatinah (Nicconi) won over 1000 metres before an ultimate second to Blue Point (Ire) in the G2 Meydan Sprint. Faatinah also won in Dubai in 2018.

Traditionally, the Carnival has suited good Australian sprinters, and it was with this in mind that Clarken opted to nominate his horses this year.

Both Parsifal and He’s A Balter had winning runs on the board, with Parsifal, in particular, running out of options at home.

The 7-year-old gelding was second and third respectively in his last two Melbourne starts. His last outing saw him place behind the undefeated Marabi (I Am Invincible) and Away Game (Snitzel) in the Listed Christmas S. at Caulfield.

Meanwhile, the 5-year-old He’s A Balter has been up and running since April last year. He strung together four consecutive wins through the winter before a last-start third in the Listed Christmas H. at Morphettville in mid-December.

The horse is co-owned by Anthony Panozzo, who had Illustrious Lad (I Am Invincible) compete in Dubai in 2018, and He's A Balter was narrowly beaten in his Dubai debut on January 28, going down by just a neck to the French-trained Batwan (Fr) (Kendargent {Fr}).

The perfect pair of horses

“These were two older horses in the yard that had hit their benchmark in Australia,” Clarken said. “There was no real end game for them, if that makes sense. Running in stakes races in Melbourne they’d get a bit of weight and there’d be horses on the minimum end that might be a bit better than them, and there weren’t a lot of options for them in Adelaide.”

Clarken’s yard is right in the mix of things on Ellis Avenue at Morphettville. The trainer said his local Listed races were very good, and his horses might run into a Behemoth (All Too Hard) or Kemelpasa (Magnus), horses with excellent open-handicap form.

“There wasn’t really a race in Australia for either of these two horses,” Clarken said of his Dubai entrants. “Anthony Panozzo then, who’d been in Dubai before, knew the ropes over here, and he toyed with us on the idea of bringing the horses here. And the more I thought about it, the more I felt we had the perfect set of horses for it.”

Clarken said his horses were already well-travelled long before they jumped on a flight to Dubai.

Their over and back in trucks and floats between Adelaide and Melbourne, a 10-hour trip one way, had equipped them with good travel legs, and this was a major impetus for considering Dubai.

“They’re basically a pair of old codgers that you can do anything with,” Clarken said. “If there were ever two horses that we could experiment with and use as a fact-finding mission, these were the perfect two.”

Right at home

Parsifal and He’s A Balter shipped out on January 17. They travelled perfectly, touching down in the illustrious surrounds of Meydan Racecourse a day or so later.

For Clarken, it’s his first experience in Dubai and he’s impressed. From the facilities to the track to the horse care, every detail has been covered by the Dubai Racing Club.

“I’d never been here before and they’ve been so good to us,” the trainer said. “The Club is fantastic, all the support staff are amazing and the training facilities are really, really good. John Nicholls, the head of quarantine here, has been a great help to me regarding the lay of the land and, short of sounding arrogant, it’s been very easy.”

As often happens, the two Australian horses have soaked up the environment and blossomed.

Parsifal has put on 16kg and, by his trainer’s account, he’s doing better in Dubai than he regularly does in Australia. The horse raced on January 28 simply because he was doing too well.

“Parsifal travelled so well that I was worried about him getting away on me, about him getting too fat,” Clarken said. “So we ran him more or less to have a look at the straight, because the grandstand is very imposing, and he blew out so that saved me doing all the hard galloping on the track. He’s come on in leaps and bounds since it, so much so that I’ve put the blinkers on him for the first time.”

Both horses work under Morphettville jockey Caitlin Jones, who rides work for Clarken at home alongside the trainer's stable jockey Todd Pannell.

Jones partnered the pair on their journey to Dubai and she has ridden each in their respective races to date. On Friday night in the G2 Blue Point Sprint, she will pilot He’s A Balter.

“’I’m very proud of the way Caitlin’s embraced the whole thing,” Clarken said. “If someone had told her six months ago that we’d be in Dubai together, she’d have said it was 20 million to one. But she said yes when I asked her, and it shows that she’s got some up-and-go."

Being realistic

Jones flew with the horses to Dubai in Clarken’s absence because circumstances prevented his travelling.

After time at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale earlier in the year, during which he bought five yearlings for a $985,000 output, Clarken caught COVID and he missed his horses racing on January 28.

Gallery: Some of the yearlings purchased by Clarken Bloodstock at the 2022 Magic Millions Gold Coast Sale, images courtesy of Magic Millions

Nevertheless, he said Jones had done a brilliant job and that handling the horses from afar hasn’t been difficult. He’s had more than enough access to weight and temperature data, and he’s got heart and speed trackers with the horses locally.

“I can really manage them from abroad,” Clarken said. “We’ve had great vision of them trotting up and we can get their weights through the scales. Like I said, it is just so easy dealing with these two horses so it has all worked perfectly. They almost train themselves.”

Friday’s race is the feature sprint on a card that also contains the G3 UAE Oaks and G3 Nad Al Sheba Trophy.

It’s a race worth US$180,000 (AU$250,000), so it’s hardly the dazzling prizemoney that Australians are growing used to, but it will be a tidy return if Parsifal or He’s A Balter get home.

“I told the owners of these horses that we’re not coming over here expecting to make a huge profit,” Clarken said. “It’s not like we’ve discovered a little gold mine. We’re just coming over here to enjoy the experience and see what happens, and some of the ownership group are coming over to watch on Friday night. We’re all really looking forward to it.”

If either horse finishes in the top three on Friday, Clarken said there was the possibility of their being invited into the very rich Dubai World Cup meeting on March 26. It’s a long shot, but he who dares wins.

“Obviously we’d be absolutely mad not to do that if the opportunity came up,” the trainer said. “But we’re under no illusions. These are not Group 1 horses; they’re good, open-handicap horses.”

Hindsight and far-sight

For Clarken, the whole experiment has been bountiful. He’d heard about how much travel could change racehorses, but he’d never witnessed it with his own eyes.

“I’d heard David Hayes say this, that physically the horses change but their personalities do too because they’ve got one person basically with them all day,” he said. “And I’ve seen these horses change and do so well here. It’s been a real experience in that respect.”

Clarken will certainly repeat it in the future, even if he does it a little differently.

“I think if you were bringing a horse along, like a younger horse that had less starts than these two, if you were to bring them here you could really get them to the next level,” he said. “It’s something that I want to do in the future, and now that I’ve seen it all, I can see how I can get more out of a horse.”

The trainer cast his mind back to previous horses he might have brought to Dubai.

“Had I had my time back again, a horse like Beau Rossa would have been perfect,” Clarken said. “He was a horse that lacked confidence early and, while it takes a bit to get them here, once the horses are here, it just makes them so much stronger mentally.”

Parsifal and He's A Balter will contest the G2 Blue Point Sprint on Friday night local time.