Abu Dhabi's first meeting of the new season is a six race affair with a quality Purebred Arabian handicap over 1600m and an intriguing Thoroughbred handicap over 200m shorter the undoubted highlights.

They are the last two races on the card as racing returns to the Capital's turf and the feature is first up at 7.00pm. Nine have been declared with Doug Watson's Barag heading the weights having been highly tried in her two local runs last campaign. Barag is owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, as are both Eric Lemartinel-trained runners Baher and Dahes and all three have run in Group 1 company and will appreciate this drop in class.

However, the four-year-olds Royal Class and Jazeerat Alsadyaat were both very useful in their age group last season and remain open to a lot of improvement. Gill Duffield's Royal Class is a course and distance winner but was beaten by Simpson's Jazeerat Alsadyaat on three occasions – though over further. Simpson also saddles Le Gusta Bailar who won both her most recent starts.

The concluding Thoroughbred handicap, over 1600m, provides three lighly-raced horses a chance to advertise their 2010 Dubai International Racing Carnival aspirations. Musabah Al Muhairi's Ibn Battuta is a course and distance maiden winner who will be having only his third start, while Dhruba Selvaratnam's Envisage will be returning from a 470 day lay-off. He won twice for Godolphin though, on seasonal debuts and is an interesting recruit, as is Montmorency. Only three, he represents the Satish Seemar/Richard Mullen pairing we saw register a Jebel Ali double on Friday.