Horse Racing In Dubai

As September closes......

Our thoughts go out to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum on the death of his eldest son, Sheikh Rashid bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who owned the Zabeel Racing Stables in Dubai. I will leave the obituaries to the international media and instead take a brief look at racing in Dubai which as a very different environment to the British scene.

The race tracks of Dubai today are a very far cry from the dusty camel track used in 1981 for the very first race horse meeting. The races were a sprint, a mile and a mile and a half in that first experience of thoroughbred horse racing.

In 1986 the Nad Al Sheba Racecourse was opened.  Willy Carson and Lester Piggott both made an appearance at the time although neither rode in the races. Later updated and renamed The Meydan Racecourse in 2007 this track now hosts that Dubai World Cup with upwards of 50,000 spectators taking it all in.

Entrance to the course is free, a feature of racing in Dubai, as is the ‘Pic 6’ competition in which punters fill out a form and predict the winner of 6 races. If they win they receive a monetary price but it is of course not connected to any ‘odds’ or betting as gambling is of course banned in Arabic lands.

The Al Quoz Stables began in 1992 with a small single block of stables and a small office. They are the international hot spot for Godolphin Racing. That name comes from The Godolphin Arabian a stallion who with two others established today’s  modern bloodstock. Now thanks to the Maktoum family it is a state of the art training centre with the welfare of the horses to the fore.

The Zabeel Racing Stables was also established in 1992 with the same ethos.  200 acres of real estate state of the art air conditioned boxes, 3 race tracks, equine pool, treadmills, and individual training and diet programmes for each horse bring great success. A private facility for the Maktoum horses originally private owners can now train their horses at Zabeel but  by invitation only.

With training fees of £1000+  per month it is the prize money that makes it viable to private owners. The Dubai World Cup race on the day is worth $10,000, 00 (£1,500,000+) in prize money. Our own William Buick winning in 2015 on Prince Bishop. It makes prize money in Great Britain look somewhat lack lustre.  

Dubai provides a racing environment very different from that of the west. Relatively young state of the art training facilities, warm weather all year round,  free entry at the gates, Pic 6 competitions, and no rushing about to find the best odds or being at the back of the queue at the betting windows.  It is impossible to imagine racing in Australia, the USA or Great Britain without betting on course, in the betting shop or on line; for us westerners what is the point of racing a horse if you can’t bet on what the result would be.

What a wonderful innovation it might be if on one day a year, at a race track somewhere in the UK, an entrepreneur duplicated the weather and the racing environment without betting of Dubai and we all had a day out and the betting men had the day off. 

Jemima J Jones - Blog Writer