RIYADH,
Saudi Arabia - FEBRUARY 24 : Jockey Junior Alvarado riding Senor Buscador (Number 12) wins ... [+] the Saudi Cup (G1 Dirt 1800m) at King Abdulaziz Racecourse on February 24, 2024 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (Photo by Lo Chun Kit /Getty Images) The 2024 Dubai World Cup's eye-watering purse of $12 million brings a ton of heat to the race-day questions flying around this surprisingly strong field, and none of those questions burn more brightly than this: Can the late-blooming Senor Buscador grit out this mile-and-a-quarter with something left in the tank, or will the hearty defending champion and top favorite Ushba Tesoro find the mettle to hold him — not to mention his Japan-owned rival Derma Sotogake — off? Did we mention that Senor Buscador, who is still touted and who definitely has his fans since last month in the kingdom, is not even one of the top three favorites? And what about that Kazakh mystery man, Kabirkhan, at the moment touted as second-favorite, to say nothing of the improving Bob-Baffert-trained Newgate, who has been looking fresh? The race-day money is starting to speak on these points, but as yet, there is no race-day clarity kicking in. For now, with scant time left before post time, there remain as many questions as there are dollars in the pot, and that, with the world's richest horse race, is telling us something. Instead, what's clear is the amazing amount of work all these favored horses will have to put in to have things go their way. But before we get into the finer points of this strong field, first, an odds refresher. Nota bene: At the Meydan, as at King Abdulaziz last month, the saddle-cloth number does not correspond with the post position. The saddle cloth numbers, in which order the athletes are listed in the race program, are ordered alphabetically, by the horse's name (in English). Below, we include the post positions in parentheses. DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - MARCH 25: Yuga Kawada riding Ushba Tesoro during the Dubai
World Cup ... [+] at Meydan Racecourse on March 25, 2023 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Sajad Imanian ATPImages/Getty Images) (Saddle Cloth, Post Position, Horse, Odds) 1) (7) Clapton, 50-1 2) (1) Crupi, 14-1 3) (9) Defunded, 50-1 4) (8) Derma Sotogake, 4-1 5) (3) Dura Erede, 12-1 6) (2) Kabirkhan, 3-1 7) (12) Laurel River, 16-1 8) (4)
MILITARY Law, 50-1 9) (6) Newgate, 8-1 10) (10) Senor Buscador, 8-1 11) (5) Ushba Tesoro, 5-2 12) (11) Wilson Tesoro, 20-1 (Odds: CBS Sports/SportsLine, 3/30/2024) Laurel River looks to be the speed, and that is worth remembering because one-and-a-quarter miles is going to stack up as a long race for this field — the distance of the Kentucky Derby. Ushba Tesoro has got that distance in him, as he well proved last year at this time. Less certain of that will be Senor Buscador's connections. He one by a nose last month, bravely, at the Saudi Cup's nine-furlong distance, and there hovered a question in the last seconds of the race as to how much fuel he had left in the tank. He certainly had no afterburners cutting on in the last two furlongs at King Abdulaziz. Another way to put this would be to say that Senor Buscador is looking good, and certainly held off disaster recently, but at a mile-and-a-quarter he's going to have to show a lot more down the stretch than he managed last month. This, at bottom, is one reason the oncoming Baffert horse, Newgate, fresh off his Santa Anita triumph — and, according to Baffert, his long, late maturing spell — is slotted in on quite a few totes as a co-favorite of Senor Buscador, at 8-1. Lightly raced, this one, but his trainer claims he's ready. We shall see about that shortly, but anytime a big-money race hosts a Baffert horse, the connections of the other runners should, by rights, give that fact a bit of worry.