By MIKE DILLON
DUBAI - Disrespectful? Or are we New Zealanders blinkered when it comes to Sunline.
Saeed Bin Suroor, world champion horse trainer, committed the ultimate sin - if you are a Kiwi race fan - during an international open training session at Sheikh Mohammed's magnificent Godolphin stable in Dubai yesterday morning.
Asked what he thought of Sunline's chances in Saturday night's $US2 million Dubai Duty Free, Suroor said: "Well, he's not a bad horse, is he."
It was a classic example of how insular the European thoroughbred community is. And, to only a slightly lesser extent, how blinkered Australians and New Zealanders are to their own form.
Someone thought the reply was disrespectful to Sunline, yet disrespect is something you could never accuse Suroor of. He has greatly impressed many people with his graciousness during his forays with Godolphin horses to the Victorian spring racing carnival and in particular the Melbourne Cup, a race Sheikh Mohammed has vowed to win one day.
The truth is, Europeans simply do not rate Australasian form against their best horses. Statistics are on their side and that is something Sunline will get a chance to correct in Dubai on Saturday night.
Suroor was happy to declare his opinion on international form.
When asked by an Australian journalist how he saw horses from our part of the world, he replied: "The form in Australia and New Zealand is lower than that in America and in Europe."
Generally speaking he is right, but then Sunline is not a general sort of horse.
One who agrees with that and who is certainly a big Sunline fan is Michael Dillon, the chief odds-setter for the world's largest betting agency, Ladbrokes.
Yesterday morning, Ladbrokes released its odds for the four main races of the world's richest raceday on Saturday and had Sunline as a clear $2.75 favourite for the Duty Free.
"I've seen most of her races in the last two years on video and she's a great horse," Dillon said.
He was trying to get an inside edge watching the Godolphin gallops yesterday morning and picking up on which horses would be racing in England in the next few months - if in fact English racing continues in the short term with the country in the grip of foot-and-mouth disease.
Ladbrokes has French rival Jim And Tonic as 4-1 second favourite and Hong Kong's Fairy King Prawn at 5-1.
Dillon sees American runner Ladies Din next best at 10-1.
Suroor tried to evade the question when asked which of the three Godolphin runners he fancied against Sunline, but when pressed further he said Sobieski would be hard to beat.
Perhaps the best tip came two hours later at the barrier draw press conference when it was revealed that Godolphin's retained stable rider, world champion jockey Frankie Dettori, would ride Slickly.
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