Chris McGrath: Curlin and Jalil's World Cup duel shows principles count as much as prize-money

There is a good deal more to this race than meets the eye, and that is saying something. After all, the Turf offers no more extravagant spectacle than the Dubai World Cup, climax of a gaudy, giddy pageant as darkness falls on the desert tonight. Of course, it all remains pretty drab compared with the scene that awaits in two years' time, when Meydan racecourse opens as the hub of an unprecedented citadel of glass, steel, canals and lawns. For now, it is merely the richest prize on the planet, with the world's best horse as hot favourite.

Yet the particular significance of this, the 13th Dubai World Cup, remains tacit. Its two defining contenders, Curlin and Jalil, themselves represent something of a line in the sand. People in the business are not willing to say how. But every bloodstock professional is aware that both horses have, in some indefinite way, become symbolic of deeper themes.

The majority owner of Curlin is Jess Jackson, whose winery has made him one of the richest men in America. Over the past couple of years Jackson has been involved in bitter lawsuits against a number of his bloodstock advisers, accusing them of receiving secret payments while advising him to buy horses at inflated prices. These have so far been settled out of court, with no admission of malpractice. Whatever the particular merits of his case, to many Jackson is a hero for making a stand in a marketplace long poisoned by a fairly brazen lack of probity.

His status as a knight in shining armour was underscored moments after he accepted an Eclipse Award for Horse of the Year, when he recalled watching Seabiscuit race in 1939. "This is a sport that needs heroes," he declared. "And since we need them so badly, we've decided to race Curlin again this year."

At $9.7m (£4.8m), meanwhile, Jalil was one of the most expensive yearlings ever sold at auction. In order to buy him, at Keeneland in September 2005, Sheikh Mohammed had to outbid his customary adversaries at Coolmore Stud.

During the same sales season, it emerged that the Maktoum family would no longer bid for yearlings by Coolmore stallions. Nobody has ever elaborated why. All that can be said with certainty is that they flagrantly undermined their own racing interests by refusing some of the world's best pedigrees. However misguided, and whatever the reasons, it was quite a stand.

Over the last year, of course, Sheikh Mohammed has responded to the stagnation of his breeding and racing empire with a series of dramatic investments, several of them giving him long-term access to Coolmore bloodlines – notably through the Derby winner, Authorized, and successive champion juveniles in the care of Jim Bolger, Teofilo and New Approach.

Now the flowering of Jalil gives his owner an unexpected opportunity to laugh last, and loudest. Even this prize would not, in itself, make sense of the money the Sheikh paid for the unproven, unbroken colt. But with those seductive genes, Jalil has every right to become a stallion in time.

He took plenty of cheap shots after that ungainly maiden success at Ripon last summer, but has been transformed by maturity and the switch to dirt during the Dubai International Carnival. Jalil clocked an outrageous time in his trial, and remains sufficiently lightly raced to post another new peak today. It is surely asking too much for him to beat Curlin, the crimson powerhouse whose performance in the Breeders' Cup Classic lit up that horrible day in New Jersey last autumn. At the odds, mind you, Jalil is certainly a solid each-way option.

Whatever happens, it is quite something when principles should still have a role when two of the most valuable thoroughbreds in the history contest its most valuable prize.

McCoy confounded by National choice

This is the longest week of the year for Tony McCoy. On Saturday, the champion jockey finally hopes to end the annual inquisition into his failure to win the John Smith's Grand National. But first he must torment himself over the choice between three runners owned by his employer, JP McManus. In principle, he has made up his mind to ride Butler's Cabin, but McCoy may yet switch to King Johns Castle if the ground were to deteriorate. And that looks increasingly possible.

Regardless, it sounds as though he has already ruled out L'Ami, his mount when 10th last year. "If I rode him again, he'd jump round again, give me a great ride again – but is he going to win the Grand National?" he asked. "If he still had any will about winning, I think he'd have won at Cheltenham last time. King Johns Castle has been a bit of a serial loser, and I don't know if he'd have the bottle. But there are obviously bits of form that suggest he could have a chance.

"Butler's Cabin won the Irish National last year, and the four-miler at Cheltenham, so hopefully he's going to stay the trip. I know he hasn't shown great spark this year. I thought he ran OK at Leicester first time, but he was disappointing behind Neptune Collonges at Wincanton. He would definitely prefer fastish ground. If the ground stays dry, I'd be favouring him. If it did happen to rain, and get good to soft, soft, it would sway me towards King Johns Castle." The present going on the National course is good to soft, good in places, but it is not just the weather forecast that can be described as unsettled.

Upper Class has the proper pedigree

There is no point pretending that the domestic programme this weekend can hold a candle to some force nine stuff elsewhere. But while the televised jumping from Newbury today is palpably caught between the rock of Cheltenham and that very hard place, Aintree, of its type it is certainly pretty competitive.

I Hear Thunder (2.20), himself a winner over the National fences, hinted at a revival until taking an uncharacteristic fall at Wincanton last time. He has plunged down the weights during his stable's quiet winter, and Bob Buckler has his horses in much better form now. The mares' novice chase has drawn a couple of interesting long-distance raiders, Scarvagh Diamond down from Cumbria after shaping well on her handicap debut last time and Souri Des Champs (2.55) all the way from Royan, in south-west France. Her first sortie to these shores, to Market Rasen, revealed her to be a sound jumper and the form has worked out.

Channel 4 also take in four Flat races from Kempton, where the most interesting runner is Diamond Tycoon in the Intercasino Magnolia Stakes. He thrashed no less a colt than Lucarno by six lengths in a Newbury maiden last spring, but disappeared after being thrown in the deep end in the 2,000 Guineas. He has clearly had his problems, and as an energetic son of Johannesburg is hardly guaranteed to get the extra two furlongs here.

In the circumstances preference is for Great Hawk (3.45), who shaped as though he might be yet another from his stable to thrive with maturity when third on his reappearance in the Winter Derby. Down the field that day was Philatelist (next best 3.10), but he was eased after being hampered and his reappearance form suggests he can win the historic Rosebery Handicap in this curious, modern incarnation.

But an even better bet might be UPPER CLASS (nap 2.05) when he steps up to a mile in the opener, both his pedigree and performances over shorter distances having implied he should improve past his revised rating.

Lush Lashes apple of Bolger's eye

The most instructive race staged in these islands all weekend is at the Curragh tomorrow, when Jim Bolger continues the unsparing education of Lush Lashes. Yet another of his young gems by Galileo, this filly made off with a huge prize on her debut in the Goffs Sales race for fillies last September.

All 21 of her rivals that day had the advantage of experience, but life does not get any easier tomorrow when she meets some older and wiser mares in the Lodge Park Stud Park Express Stakes. But then Bolger has always excelled with unusually tough fillies. This race is itself named after one of them, Park Express, whose own mating with Galileo yielded no less a foal than New Approach – Bolger's unbeaten champion juvenile of 2007. This will be the first card of the new Flat season in Ireland. But you can bet Bolger already knows his next young star. Teething problems would seem unlikely. If only they had put him in charge of Terminal 5.