Fairy absent from World Cup acceptors list

Ed Dunlop’s super racemare Snow Fairy was not amongst 99 horses in the acceptors list for the Dubai World Cup at Meydan on March 31, still being in the process of a steady recovery from an injury sustained whilst preparing to defend Hong Kong Vase crown at Sha Tin in December, writes Elliot Slater.

Owner Cristina Pattino’s pride and joy was training at Sha Tin in a bid to follow up her stunning second success at Kyoto in Japan in November in the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Commemorative Cup where she came from a seemingly impossible position to scythe through the field in the last 150 yards to beat Aventura by a neck in what must have been one of former champion jockey Ryan Moore’s best ever performances in the saddle.

Just as it appeared all was set for the daughter of Intikhab to go on to produce a similar performance in Hong Kong she suffered a training setback that ruled her out of the big race and was flown straight home to Dunlop’s Newmarket base to begin her recuperation. Those following the best horse racing betting will have been disappointed.

Dunlop reports the five-year-old to be making steady progress and hopes that she will return some time around the middle of the 2012 Flat season where she will bid to add to her already glittering list of prizes that include both the 2010 Epsom and Irish Oaks, as well as the two richly endowed Far Eastern contests during the same calendar year.

Last season Snow Fairy failed to score in Europe but ran a series of terrific races in defeat, memorably going down with all guns blazing when beaten just half-a-length by So You Think in the Irish Champion Stakes in September, then subsequently finishing third to Danedream in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and to Cirrus des Aigles in the Dubai Champion Stakes at Ascot 13 days later.