Big Dreams, One Horse: Ross Burdon’s Dubai Challenge
Mdmar – UK
The Dubai Racing Carnival welcomes a new face this winter, when up and coming trainer Ross Burdon arrives from the UK later this week.
Newmarket-based Burdon, 40, is in just his first full year with a licence and will break new ground by bringing Mesaafi to Meydan.
The five-year-old, formerly trained by Charlie Fellowes for owner Sheikh Ahmed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has won four times for his new trainer, most recently over 1200metres at Kempton in September.
Mesaafi’s form makes him an interesting contender in the Carnival’s handicaps, but he is part of a bigger picture for the enterprising Burdon.
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“When I watch racing at Meydan; it’s a spectacle,” he says. “For us as a smaller yard trying to get going, to be able to have a runner at a place like that is huge. I think it’ll open other people’s eyes to the fact that we’re quite forward thinking; we’re not afraid to take on big challenges.
“If Mesaafi was to go and place in a race out there or even win one, what it could do for our profile is potentially massive.”
It’s a good strategy and one which will hopefully pay dividends for the young trainer, who has an impressive CV. After a short stint as a jockey, he worked for a host of G1-winning trainers, including Richard Fahey and Jeremy Noseda.
“Jeremy Noseda, at the time, was probably one of the biggest trainers in Newmarket in terms of quality of horses,” he says. “While I was there, we won an Irish Guineas, two July Cups, two Sussex Stakes. I just wanted to surround myself with good horses as that gives you that hunger to have more of it.
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“If I do something, I sort of throw myself into it a little bit and as soon as I started being a bit more involved in better horses, I wanted to do more with them, which led me to going to Henry Cecil’s.
“I was there from Jacqueline Quest right until the end, so Midday, Chachamaidee, Timepiece, Twice Over and of course Frankel.”
Keener still to broaden his horizons, Burdon did a stint in Australia before returning to Newmarket. He worked for Kevin Philipart de Foy during his Carnival success with Vafortino, before taking the plunge and setting out on his own.
Now, RB racing has risen to a stable of 20, based in an historic yard in Newmarket with Sir Mark Prescott among his neighbours. There’s perhaps a little pressure, then, on Mesaafi’s broad shoulders, but Burdon has solid reasons for choosing him for his Dubai excursion.
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“He’s a proper summer horse and going to a hot country is going to suit him,” he says. “He recovers from his races well and eats everything. Generally, he’s quite laid back and I think you’ve got to be that be able to go travelling.”
Burdon, who has never been to Dubai, will accompany Mesaafi himself and stay until the gelding settles in.
“We’re going to run him on the dirt first, on 20 November. He’s by Exceed And Excel whose progeny don’t have a bad record on it. Mesaafi is a big, powerful horse and he’s got quite big feet for a fast ground horse, which I think will help him. If he doesn’t act on the dirt, then we’ll just use it as a prep for a turf race in December.”
Burdon it seems, has it all worked out, an illusion which is shattered when he admits his packing process is well behind schedule. Assuming that happens, we’ll welcome him to Meydan very soon.
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The “Mdmar” website which was Founded by Khaled Makhlouf in 2007 for horse and equestrian races is keen to cover and follow all competitions related to horses, from show jumping, Horseracing, speed and endurance races, and purebred Arabian horse beauty shows, which belong to the Arab Gulf countries at home and abroad in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the State of Qatar, the State of Kuwait, the Sultanate of Oman, and the Kingdom of Bahrain.
