DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – MARCH 30: Laurel River under Taghd O’Shea passes the winners post for … [+] the first time on his way to winning the 10f Group 1 Dubai World Cup at the Meydan Racecourse on March 30, 2024 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Amin Mohammad Jamali/Getty Images)
Breaking from the very last stall in the gate, heavy longshot Laurel River, whom Juddmonte Farms moved to the Gulf at the top of the year, put on a demonstration of pure racing puissance on Saturday to take the 2024 Dubai World Cup with a dominant victory over favored late-running Ushba Tesoro by eight-and-a-half lengths. In a kind of echo of what the touts had been thinking, last year’s defending champion did bring his run, and worked his way handily through the traffic.
But the front-running Laurel River was just too much horse. After a fine break and leading for much of the race, at the wire, under Irish jockey Taghd O’Shea, the victor looked like he could have gone for another ten furlongs, Secretariat-style. Which is not to imply that the six-year-old, with quite a bumptious career behind him, is of Secretariat’s muster. But the immense margin and style of the win certainly was. Neither the place horse, Ushba Tesoro, nor Senor Buscador, who showed, had anything in them that resembled the fuel upon which Laurel River’s engines were firing.
He was supposed to be the speed, at 16-1 stateside and higher overseas — on Britain’s Oddschecker, Laurel River was slotted in behind true longshots Dura Erede and Crupi. And he was the speed. But he was also a lot more.

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