Saturday's Doha races for the thoroughbreds start with the Durkham Sprint G3 over 1200m.

Taxiwala won this last year and will probably start favourite this year.  Osama Al Dofea trains and Ronan Thomas has the ride.

Millau is by Wooton Basset and is trained by Stefano Ibido with fellow Italian Alberto Sanna riding.  Bottom Bay and Regional could also go into the mix.

The Al Rayyan Mile is G2 for the 3yos on turf and Andrew Balding has Al Marmar here – a son of Kodiac he had a win and a second and Lingfield and David Probert rides.  He may be lacking a bit in experience when compared with horses like Nuance, a Frankel, and Scherzo, another Wooton Basset, with the latter having run second in the Prix de Chênes.  He's now with George Mikalaides and Tom Marquand has the ride.

The big race is the HH The Amir Trophy, G1.  Noor Al Hawa is an amazing horse who started his career in Germany before going on to France and is going for a 6th consecutive win and a second consecutive win of this race.  Mikalaides trains and Sanna rides.

French raider Mutabahi is a promising 4yo with H-A Pantall and will be in the experienced hands of Olivier Peslier.  In The Night has won his last three.  Outbox is from Archie Watson's yard and Hollie Doyle rides – great to see Tom and Hollie riding against each other.  Hellenistique is not the worst of them either.

Friday's races saw Bunglejungleparty win the Open Cup in a great week for his sire who had four offspring foaled on the same day during the week.  We've sent word to him and it should result in a few more carrots.  Zoltan Star was second and Bolton Abbey third, with Pocket Rocket fourth.

The Irish Thoroughbred Marketing Cup went to Pao Alto from Pretreville and San Andreas.  Jabalaly was fifth.  Pao Alto is trained in France by Christophe Ferland and recently won a race in Cagnes sur Mer.  Maxim Guyon rode.