3 minute read

Macau hosted its last race meeting on Sunday and Singapore's days are numbered.

While not a major racing jurisdiction Athens also closed down this year.  And now there is a large question mark over Dubai with the once mighty Godolphin only having a handful of runners on Dubai World Cup day.

This week there was a big dispersal sale of Godolphin horses and next week there will be more in the horses in training sale.  The UAE Derby, once almost exclusively a Godolphin "given", doesn't have a Godolphin runner.  Where are the 3yos? 

When racing moved into the big time in Dubai it was after the Maktoum brothers used to have a coffee under the four palm trees in the garden of Zabeel stables and now that lovely building and its training track are about to be demolished.  Is this a sign?

In recent times strong competition has come from the Middle Eastern neighbours of Saudi Arabia (they have put up a huge amount of prize money), Qatar and Bahrain.  The Saudi meeting is only 3 weeks before Dubai and this has proved very attractive to the Japanese who sent a large contingent this year.  Dubai changed the format of their lead-up Carnival to try and attract more international runners but this hasn't proved to be the answer.

In the early days there used to be a "breakfast at Al Quoz" where around forty Godolphin horses were produced for the benefit of the visiting media and generous gifts handed out.  Alas that no longer happens.  A few years ago they tried to establish stables in France in addition to their Newmarket yards but it didn't work out and so some horses were handed to French trainers mainly Andre Fabre. 

One of the Godolphin runners on Saturday was trained by the Gosdens.  At least the Sheema provided some glory for the Godolphin brand with the surprise win of Rebel's Romance for the Appleby-Buick team.  It will be interesting to see how the Godolphin horses fare in Europe this summer.

For Dubai itself there was strength in the home trainers especially Bhupat Seemar and Doug Watson who have provided competitive runners at the top level.