One horse who won’t be lining up at the Dubai World Cup meeting is Eagle Mountain.
The Hong Kong Cup winner has suffered a setback and will miss about two months work, which means for the second year running he will be ruled out of the Dubai Sheema Classic.
A pelvic injury curtailed his season last year while this year an injured suspensory ligament has done the damage.
“Sadly Eagle Mountain will again miss the Sheema Classic and the World Cup meeting,” said De Kock.
“He has damaged a suspensory but we think we have been lucky and detected the problem very early on.
“There is certainly no point in risking such a good horse and we will probably give him six to eight weeks off now and then re-assess the situation.
“The plan remains to send him to England next month.
“Obviously it is a blow but we have Front House for the Sheema Classic and hopefully a couple more for a race we won last year with Sun Classique.”
De Kock will still have a strong Dubai World Cup night team, headed by Asiatic Boy and Honour Devil in the big race itself and Archipenko and Bankable in the Dubai Duty Free.
However, having won the last two UAE Derbies, it looks unlikely he will have a runner in either that race or the Dubai Golden Shaheen, the one thoroughbred race on the card the South African has yet to win.
