Dubai Modern City Embraces Racing

There is no place in the world right now building and expanding like Dubai. This is truly a now city, in the way that New York was a now city in the early part of the 20th century or Athens back in the 5th century B.C. Most of the Dubai infrastructure has been built since 1990 and the city is growing up and out on a daily basis adding new construction and new population. Dubai is at a major crossroads of trade. It is a meeting point of goods and services between Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe. It is good for the future of racing that it is an integral part of the Dubai culture. Sheikh Maktoum uses racing as a primary tourist attraction in the Go To Dubai campaign. Compare that to New York where racing is marginalized and rarely mentioned as a tourist attraction. Most tourists would hardly be aware that Aqueduct or Belmont is a world class racing facility easily accessible from Manhattan. The new Meydan racecourse under construction promises to be the grandest racing facility in the world, you can count on the Dubai World Cup to continue to be a major target on the racing calender.

Year after year the Dubai World Cup is expanding its profile and it has become the dominant late winter top class racing event in the world. The fields are more global than the Breeders Cup and represent a large cross section of Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Australia and Africa. Saturday's upcoming Dubai World Cup card may just be the most exciting card run all year any where in the world. As Dubai continues to expand its profile on the world stage it is good that racing has secured a spot in one of the most important international cities.