Hopes high for Dancer bid

Connections of Japan Cup winner Fleetstreet Dancer are keeping a realistic view of their prospects in Saturday’s Dubai World Cup.

The Doug O’Neill-trained American raider showed remarkable tenacity to get the better of home favourite Admire Don when the pair slugged it out in a remarkable duel in Tokyo last November.

But he will have his work cut out to beat Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Pleasantly Perfect judged on the form of their last meeting at Santa Anita at the end of January.

In fact, Fleetstreet Dancer has been beaten by that rival in all of their meetings thus far, as was pointed out today by Leandro Mora, assistant to O’Neill who has not made the trip after the death of his father earlier in the week.

“I still think that he is beatable but I suppose I would love to finish in the top five,” said Mora.

“Of course I want to win, we all want to win. But he has some very good horses to beat here.

“He is a tough, game horse, as we saw in Japan. But it was a very sloppy track there so I will be doing a raindance before the race.

“He likes to be in the first three, hang with company and hopefully he will be near the pace. If they leave us alone then we’ll take it.

“The horse will always tell you whether he handles the track in his work and he is saying ‘no problem’.”