Dubai World Cup: Meydan racecourse turns things up a notch

Dubai World Cup day is rapidly drawing ever closer and, on Wednesday morning, Meydan turned things up a notch, hosting the very popular Breakfast with the Stars which kicked off in darkness over a floodlit racetrack.

For me, seeing Meydan at this hour, lit up in all its glory is one of my special Dubai delights. Newcomers to our jewel in the sand are, without fail, always stunned at their first glimpse of the gigantic grandstand that rises up like a huge bird into the sky.

A substantial throng of people (considering no tickets had been marketed) turned out through the course of the morning and it was particularly enjoyable catching up with old acquaintances and making new ones after a two-year hiatus for most of us.

The British contenders were all out on track and both the turf and dirt courses were in full use. A few were allowed by their riders to stride along a bit faster for a couple of furlongs or so, but I didn’t witness any scintillating pieces of work, but as I was lucky enough to spend some time with Laura King and Marcus Hersh on the Dubai Racing Channels’ morning show, I could well have missed something.

Tuesday evening had taken most of the racing crowd to the Dubai Opera House to watch the Post Position Draw for the main event, the Dubai World Cup.

In general, connections were as satisfied as they could be with the gate number they drew. Hot Rod Charlie got gate 7 which was as high as assistant trainer Leandro Morales wanted for him.

Jimmy Barnes, assistant trainer to Life Is Good trainer Bob Baffert gave the quote of the night when he stated, “It’s not often you run in a 20-million-dollar race [Saudi Cup] as a prep race for a 12-million-dollar race !!”

Were you listening Life Is Good?

The author is a former Derby-winning trainer and the mother of world-renowned jockeys James 
and Sophie Doyle