Dubai Hills registers sixth win at Southwell

Dubai Hills is becoming a standing dish at Southwell after registering his sixth win from seven visits to the Nottinghamshire circuit yesterday.

Trainer Bryan Smart could not believe his luck when the 32Red Handicap was framed as the feature event on a seven-race programme hastily arranged earlier this week due to current cold snap decimating the turf fixture list.

An impressive winner over the course and distance at the start of the month, Dubai Hills was slammed with a 10lb rise in the weights by the handicapper, but it was nowhere near enough to stop him going in again.

Despite being brought wide to challenge, the 6-4 favourite moved smartly to the lead a furlong out under Tom Eaves and kept on strongly to beat Docofthebay by three-quarters of a length.

“That was a performance and a half. He’s gone round the world to avoid the kickback,” said North Yorkshire-based Smart.

“He was always going to win as he kept finding a bit. He just loves it round here.”

n Yesterday’s meeting at Doncaster was abandoned due to snow. The fixture was due to feature the first major event of the Flat season, the William Hill Lincoln, but clerk of the course Roderick Duncan called off the card following a 6am inspection.

The meeting will now switch to next Saturday.

The meeting at Newbury yesterday was also abandoned because of snow. Clerk of the course Richard Osgood found the track fit to race on first inspection, but called a further check for 10am as snow was starting to fall. He then reported the course unraceable.