Comicas Leads Home Godolphin One-Two In Trial

Comicas, trained by Charlie Appleby and ridden by William Buick, won well on his first start since July in the Meydan Classic Trial Sponsored By Gulf News Classifieds at Meydan on Thursday, February 11.

The three-year-old Distorted Humor colt was smartly away and a little keen as William Buick held him back to race in third on the rail in the seven-furlong conditions race on turf.

Comicas, switched between runners, came through smoothly to lead with a furlong remaining.

Pure Diamond (Saeed bin Suroor/Frederik Tylicki) was slightly slow into stride and ridden along before settled third last of the 14-strong field. The Street Cry filly could not find a clear run initially after turning for home but finished strongly.

Comicas was three quarters of a length to the good over Pure Diamond on the line and stopped the clock at 1m 24.46s. There was another two and three quarter lengths back to the third Ajwad.

Charlie Appleby said: "I was very pleased with Comicas. He is a good-looking individual, who progressed with each run last year in England, and we purposely wanted to put him away and bring him out here.

"We put him in the UAE 2000 Guineas as well but we had Rouleau in that race - he has got that bit of experience on dirt and I didn't want to run them together.

"Comicas is a hard horse to assess at home because he looks after himself. I feel that a mile is going to be his trip and I wanted to make sure that he was up on the bridle and travelling, so we put cheek-pieces on him.

"William gave him a great ride in the box-seat. He has travelled round very well and picked up nicely. The natural progression will be to go for the Meydan Classic (Listed, March 3, Meydan, 7f) now."

William Buick added: "We thought quite a lot of Comicas as a two-year-old and we gave him a break after he won at Doncaster.

"He has come back here in good shape and will improve for this race, so he is a lovely horse to look forward to in the future.

"You are always wondering how well the horse on your outside is but I had plenty of horse left - as it turned out, it worked out well."