Friday, 30 July 2010: The teams for this year's Dubai Duty Free Shergar Cup at Ascot a week on Saturday (August 7) are close to being finalised, with stars like Kieren Fallon, Christophe Soumillon and Pat Smullen signed up in the last 10 days for the world's premier international jockeys team competition.
 | Christophe Soumillon
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Both Soumillon and Smullen will be making their Shergar Cup debuts, while Fallon has not participated in it since 2004. All three of the Rest of the World jockeys – three times South African champion, Anton Marcus, top Japanese rider, Yasunari Iwata, and Melbourne's reigning champion jockey, Luke Nolen – will be making their UK debuts.
Just four jockeys need to confirm their participation once they know whether they will be required by their retained stables – Ryan Moore and William Buick for the Great Britain team, Richard Hughes for the Ireland team and Frankie Dettori for the European team.
At The Races, for whom this is a stand-alone afternoon card, will be the host broadcaster for the Dubai Duty Free Shergar Cup and will be looking to capture the whole flavour of the event.Racing will start an hour later than in previous years at 2.10pm, with the 12 jockeys signing autographs between 1pm and 1.30pm and the Opening Ceremony following straight on from that.
In the races, the jockeys will wear team colours for the first time, with the ROA having given its support to the initiative which should help bring alive the team competition more vividly for racegoers on the track and ATR viewers at home.
Colm McLoughlin, Managing Director of Dubai Duty Free, said: “We are delighted with the way the day is shaping up and look forward to another exciting competition.
“We are very pleased that special guests Joe Mercer and John Reid will be joining us to judge the Dubai Duty Free Ride of the Day, a new award we introduced last year that we expect to be keenly contested once again.”
Ascot Head of Communications and International Racing Nick Smith commented: “In recent years the Dubai Duty Free Shergar Cup Day has been our best attended race meeting outside the five days of Royal Ascot and there should be another fantastic atmosphere here next Saturday.
“It's great to have a lot of new faces in the competition this year, all with tremendous international or domestic achievements to their name. For instance, it will be fascinating to see Frankie Dettori riding alongside fellow countryman Umberto Rispoli, the young rider who last year smashed Frankie's father's all-time record for the number of winners in an Italian season.
“And it will be just as interesting to see Yasunari Iwata from Japan, the only rider from his country to win Australia's greatest race, the Emirates Melbourne Cup, riding alongside an up-and-coming Aussie star, Luke Nolen.
“Overall we have an outstanding array of jockeys taking part and a great line-up of acts for the post-racing concert. It all points to a vintage Dubai Duty Free Shergar Cup Day and with advance bookings on a par with last year, we should be on for another crowd not far short of 30,000.”
- Ascot Racecourse Media Release
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