Luis Carvajal Jr.-trained Imperial Hint, was once in Dubai preparing for the Dubai Golden Shaheen in 2017 before illness prevented him from competing in a race eventually won impressively by Mind Your Biscuits. Since then, he has been nothing short of brilliant, winning 6-of-8 races, finishing second in the 2017 Gr.1 Breeders’ Cup Sprint and returning in 2018 to dominate the American dirt sprint division.

Still, the question remains what might have been that night, had Raymond Mamone’s compact son of Imperialism clashed with Mind Your Biscuits. They did subsequently meet once: in the aforementioned Breeders’ Cup Sprint, with Imperial Hint finishing two lengths ahead of Mind Your Biscuits in third. Subsequent 2018 Dubai Golden Shaheen third-place finisher Roy H won by one length that day. Both Roy H and Imperial Hint are currently preparing for a highly anticipated rematch in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint on Saturday at Churchill Downs.

“I would love to go back to Dubai,” said Carvajal. “This year we wanted to, but we lost some time with him and would have had to run him in a race at Tampa in February and he wasn’t ready. If everything goes well this year (between now and March 2019), we would like to go back.

There is much on the line in the Sprint. Pride aside, a year-end championship will likely be determined with none other than Imperial Hint and Roy H being the leading candidates.

“This is a championship here and not an easy race. There are some really nice horses,” Carvajal continued. “After this, though, he’ll get a little break again and go down to Florida. Most likely he’ll come back and run one time there and then try to go to Dubai.

“We’ll look at Tampa for a prep race because he loves that track, broke his maiden there and won his first stakes there. The good thing this year, compared to before when we went to Dubai, is that we would be training in warm weather in Florida. Before, we were stabled at Parx (in greater Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) in the winter and it was about zero degrees. We had to ship up to New York for two days and they had to cancel the flight and then went from zero degrees to very hot. I think that’s why he got sick (with a fever and fluid in his right lung).”

Press Release and News Credited To Emirates Racing Authority (ERA)