A competitive field of seven runners go to post for the latest renewal of the Bahrain Turf Club Desmond Stakes at Leopardstown’s evening meeting on Thursday 7 August. The line-up includes old rivals Lord Massusus and Mutasarraf, the last two winners of the race who will be clashing in the one-mile event for a third year in a row.

The Group 3 race forms part of the Kingdom of Bahrain’s European sponsorship portfolio, coming in-between Newmarket’s July Festival, which features three Bahrain sponsored Group races, and the prestigious Royal Bahrain Irish Champion Stakes, the jewel in the crown of day one of the Irish Champions Festival at Leopardstown on 13 September.

In addition to the last two winners of the race, this year’s Bahrain Turf Club Desmond Stakes has attracted a British trained runner in Johan, trained by Jack Channon, and two talented representatives from trainer Johnny Murtagh’s yard, the four-year-old Chicago Critic and the only three-year-old in the line-up, Alakasi, carrying the famous green and red silks of the late H H Aga Khan.

Together with the Dublin to Bahrain race series, also hosted by Leopardstown, the European sponsorship portfolio provides a platform for the Bahrain Turf Club to promote the increasing number of opportunities available to internationally trained horses in the Kingdom’s racing season, which gets underway in October.

Last month the Bahrain Turf Club announced a doubling in the prize fund to $400,000 for the Group 3 King’s Cup and unveiled a strengthened international race programme, with a clearly signposted ‘road to the King’s Cup’, a pathway throughout the season for higher rated horses over both a mile and middle-distances, culminating in March with the two-day King’s Cup Festival featuring the $120,000 Listed Al Methaq Mile and the King’s Cup, run over a mile and a half (2400m).

The Kingdom’s headline race in the first half of the season remains the Bahrain International Trophy, with the $1million Group 2 contest taking place this year on 14 November. Broadcast to over 100 countries, the 2024 running attracted horses from six different racing jurisdictions and history was made when Spirit Dancer, trained by Richard Fahey and co-owned by Sir Alex Ferguson, became the first horse to retain the trophy, beating subsequent Group 1 winner, Lead Artist, in the process.

The popular and competitive Bahrain Turf Series returns with twelve races, worth a total of $1million and a further $80,000 available in bonuses. With both sprint and middle-distances races, the series gets underway on 19 December and concludes with two handicaps, each worth $100,000, at the King’s Cup Festival.