Nations Pride  and Ami Please  provide some North American interest in the seventh night of the Dubai World Cup Carnival Feb 17 at Meydan Racecourse—but for very different reasons.

Nations Pride, a Godolphin homebred by Teofilo , starts his 4-year-old season in the Dubai Millennium Stakes (G3) after a hugely successful summer in New York. Ami Please, a Goldencents   filly, ships in from California to contest the U.A.E. Oaks (G3) with just one win from five starts back home.

The Dubai Millennium is a steppingstone to bigger turf races at the end of the Dubai season and, for Nations Pride, likely for more international travel. The Oaks is a leg of the Churchill Downs Road to the Kentucky Oaks and trainer Doug O’Neill is looking in that direction.

“Nations Pride has been pleasing us at home and coming back to a mile and a quarter should suit,” said trainer Charlie Appleby, who has won this race six times, including with Royal Fleet  in 2022.

“There will be some improvement to come for whatever he does on his seasonal return, as we hope that he has another international campaign ahead of him this year. Depending on how he goes here, we will consider potentially looking at the Jebel Hatta or the Dubai Turf,” Appleby added.

The Jebel Hatta (G1) is run at 1,800 meters (about 1 1/8 miles) on Super Saturday, March 4. The Dubai Turf (G1), always a tough international race, is run on Dubai World Cup (G1) night March 25 at the same trip. The difference is the purse—$350,000 for the Jebel Hatta vs. $5 million for the Dubai Turf.

The opposition for the Dubai Millennium includes another of Appleby’s Godolphin herd, Ottoman Fleet , and a Saeed bin Suroor charge, Desert Fire . Ottoman Fleet makes his third start of the Dubai season after a pair of third-place finishes while Desert Fire needs a serious wakeup call after two disappointing Meydan starts. 

The U.A.E. Oaks, on paper, looks to be Mimi Kakushi ‘s to lose. The Kentucky-bred City of Light   filly won her last two starts, including a romp in the U.A.E. One Thousand Guineas.

The “American filly,” Ami Please, got her sole victory in October going one mile on the Santa Anita turf. She later finished second, six lengths behind a longshot winner, in the Pike Place Dancer Stakes on the Golden Gate Fields grass. Her final 2022 effort produced a third-place finish in the Blue Norther Stakes at Santa Anita, also on the turf.

“She’s a beautiful filly. A lot of talent,” O’Neill said. “She tends to run equally well on dirt or turf. We’ll know a lot more about her in two days.”

The U.A.E. Oaks offers 50 Road to the Kentucky Oaks points to the winner with the next four receiving 20, 15, 10, and 5, respectively. Asked if a good performance would incline him to point Ami Please back across the Atlantic to Kentucky, O’Neill said, “That would be a fair assumption, yes.”

O’Neill also trains Tall Boy , winner of the Feb. 10 U.A.E. Two Thousand Guineas (G3), who is teed up for a shot at the U.A.E. Derby (G2) on World Cup night. The Lookin At Lucky   colt was 0-for-4 in California as a juvenile but ran impressively to win the Guineas.