A decade on from when Mossfun sliced through the Rosehill mud to claim a first Golden Slipper for Emirates Park, Manaal is aiming to become the third winner of the famous two-year-old race in the green and white silks of His Excellency Nasser Lootah.
Emirates Park’s record in the Slipper would be the envy of any breeding operation, with Mossfun’s win in 2014 followed by Estijaab in 2018.
Unlike both of these winners, Manaal is an Emirates Park homebred and a filly that, by design, has been bred for the Golden Slipper. But as Emirates Park general manager Bryan Carlson tells The Straight, it doesn’t make the race any easier to win.
“The Golden Slipper is a high-pressure race and it always has been,” he says. “When Mossfun won it 10 years ago, she missed the start and it was just a case of luck where James McDonald had her come up the rail for that win. A lot of things can go wrong in a Slipper and you need a lot of luck.”
Emirates Park has had nine individual runners in the Golden Slipper; Manaal will be its 10th. Should she win, she will be the farm’s third winning filly and, in time, add further to its regal broodmare band.
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