Like every superstar, Curlin is well aware of the presence of cameras. While he usually enjoys posing, sometimes the paparazzi get on his nerves.
As exercise rider Carlos Rosas steered the colt around the training track at Nad Al Sheba on Wednesday in their first return to exercise following Monday's half-mile workout for the Dubai World Cup (UAE-I), he heard the whir and click of a battery of cameras.
"I didn't look over at the photographers there, but I heard the cameras on the backstretch-and so did Curlin. And he wanted to go. He got a little aggressive," Rosas said.
Sitting still in the saddle, Rosas cajoled Curlin into settling down, but it was clear that this red colt has turned into a tiger ready to pounce.
Slowing to a trot to join assistant trainer Scott Blasi aboard his pony, Pancho, Curlin was still charged up, displaying his intensity by reaching over and nipping Pancho.
Remaining electrified while walking with Pancho off the track, Curlin was greeted by more journalists and their equipment, including a British television commentator who walked alongside the strapping chestnut as a videographer taped her saying, "This is the world's best horse."
As if indicating his patience for the media was at an end, Curlin leapt up into the air slightly, giving an indication of what he could do if really provoked.
Yet the media persisted, with one European photographer running ahead and shooting while standing near a scrubby desert bush.
"He could have been dead," Rosas said of the photographer, noting that the man was lucky Curlin did not strike out with a well aimed kick.
"He wouldn't have done it to be mean," Blasi explained. "But you can't get a horse ready for the race of his life and not expect him to feel good and express it."
Everything about Curlin's body language is telling his team that he is honed for Saturday's $6 million race.
"He's acting like we want him to do coming into a big race," Blasi said. "His energy level is good, especially after we teased him a little with that half-mile work. He knows he's ready."
Rosas finds a taller kind of mount
Curlin's exercise rider Carlos Rosas enjoyed a rare day off on Tuesday. But, in an Arabian version of a busman's holiday, he wound up atop a camel, way out in the sands of the 
desert.
"Curlin's better than a camel!" he declared on Wednesday while relating his adventures. "But I do like riding the camels - they are so much fun. I might stay out here in the desert."
Rosas joined Julie Asmussen, the wife of Curlin's trainer Steve Asmussen, and the Asmusssen's three sons, Keith James, Darren Scott and Eric Mark, on a desert safari that also included sand skiing. Assistant trainer Scott Blasi, who is overseeing Curlin in Dubai, gave the rider the time off on the day Curlin walked following his final workout for the Dubai World Cup (UAE-I) on Monday.
Steve Asmussen is not due to join his family and Curlin until Friday, the day before he will tighten the girth on the colt as he tries to win the world's richest race.
