A racing fanatic gets his first taste of the UAE turf
▶ Rupert Hawksley, a British turf fanatic, has his first taste of the sport here as the season gets off to a start
It is only a few metres from the glitzy winners’ enclosure to the free grandstand at Meydan Racecourse, close enough for the public to see the owners of New Trails – winner of the big handicap on the season’s opening night – receive a Dh126,000 cheque.
But to be perturbed by this is to misunderstand horse racing, sport’s great leveller. Week after week around the world, rich and poor descend on the same patch of earth, brought together by a shared emotional investment in the thoroughbred.
Every time these horses run, we saddle them with hopes and expectations. When they respond – when they really knuckle down to the task – it stirs something deep within us. It has nothing to do with money.
Which is a good thing, since winning any money at Meydan seems to be an aspiration reserved only for the dreamers. Thursday evening’s meeting was my first experience of racing in the UAE.
I’m more accustomed to enduring horizontal rain in a corner of England that sunshine forgot, as three horses slog through the mud.
What I quickly learnt on arrival is that, rather than placing a traditional bet with a bookmaker, racegoers here are invited to pick the winners of six races on the card, with Dh12,000 as the first prize.
It turns out that this is quite tricky. Full disclosure: one winner, five unplaced horses. Work to be done.
No one seems to mind, though. Well before the first race at 6.30pm, the stands were alive with crowds of people, all wearing the blue “Meydan” caps handed out at the gate.
It was a carnival atmosphere, no doubt partly because of Flag Day but also, I sense, because the frustration of a summer without racing was finally over.
With meetings taking place at Meydan almost every Thursday evening through to March, racing in Dubai is clearly something that has become enmeshed within people’s weekly routine.
Some were eating picnics on rugs, others were making use of the comfy, cinema-like seats in the grandstand (note to British racecourses: this is an excellent idea).
The restaurants were busy and the Kids’ Zone was as chaotic as it should be. The weather helps, of course, but an evening meeting in Britain would not attract many people.
And once the racing started, the cheers that greeted a tight finish or a particularly impressive display from an exciting two-year-old (Ahmad bin Harmash’s Walking Thunder is definitely one for the notebook), confirmed that this was all about racing lovers enjoying some first-rate action.
The place erupted when, in one valuable handicap, champion trainer Doug Watson’s Pillar of Society and bin Harmash’s Rodaini enjoyed a proper ding-dong in the home straight, with Watson’s horse eventually prevailing by a length and a quarter. Watson had four winners on the night.
Like everything in Dubai, the horse racing industry has developed at great speed, underpinned by investment from Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai.
His racing operation, Godolphin, is enjoying a resurgence and the “Boys in Blue” will surely dominate come the Dubai
Like everything in Dubai, the horse racing industry has developed at great speed
World Cup Carnival, which runs from January through to March, culminating in the Dubai World Cup.
Until 2009, race meetings in Dubai were held at Nad Al Sheba Racecourse, close by but a far cry from the curved, futuristic stadium built to accommodate thousands at Meydan.
One woman, who has been going racing in Dubai since 1996, said: “To see what it was then, compared to now, is just amazing. It has totally evolved. The vision of Sheikh Mohammed is amazing. This is what he wanted in the 1990s.”
The investment is paying dividends and not just when the racing world descends on Meydan for the Dubai World Cup, worth $12 million (Dh44m) to the winner.
The National spoke to people who travelled from Britain for Thursday’s meeting and had already booked a return trip.
“Everybody is willing to help you here,” one British man told me. “When you go to Ascot or Epsom, you’re just a number, they take your money and that’s that.”
His daughter, who lives in Dubai, said: “It’s a lovely night out and when you have family over from Britain.
“To see this something like this is on a different scale.”
Once the seven races were over – the performance of the night came from Jaber Ramadhan’s three-year-old filly, Litigation, who dismantled a handicap field in the final race by nine lengths – people quickly made for the exits.
There wasn’t much appetite, it has to be said, for the afterparty. I’m sure the band won’t have enjoyed playing Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance with
Somebody to an empty floor. But you know what? Perhaps this was further proof that people are coming to Meydan for the right reason: to watch the horses.