It’s Monday afternoon and Hong Kong trainer Chris So is in an unusually quiet Dubai shopping mall not far from the Meydan Hotel where he is staying alongside a raft of racing folk and star jockeys including Oisin Murphy, Mickael Barzalona and another of the Hong Kong stranded, Karis Teetan.
Ryan Moore is also grounded after riding at Dubai’s Super Saturday meeting at which Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum watched trackside before drones and missiles were seen in the distance, across the city’s skyline.
Dubai, neighbouring Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia were on high alert all weekend as their air defence systems worked overtime to prevent Iran’s missile and deadly drone barrage from wreaking havoc and horror. They are still on alert. Most of the airports remain closed. Life is largely on hold.
“It’s so quiet,” So tells Idol Horse. “Dubai feels like a peaceful place now.”
But at least three people have died in the UAE after Iran launched what the UAE defence ministry tallied up as 137 missiles and 209 drones into the country’s airspace on Saturday in retaliation to devastating Israeli/U.S. airstrikes on Iranian targets. Those strikes on Iran killed the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and have led so far to a death toll of at least 555 people across 131 Iranian counties, according to Al Jazeera.
The question is whether Dubai is now experiencing the calm after the explosive storm or the storm’s deceptive eye with more bombardments to come.
Monday morning, far to the north, the day started with Israel responding to attacks from Hezbollah in Lebanon with strikes on Beirut; it continued with fighting words from Iran, stating its intent to hit the U.S. fleet in Cyprus, and more from the U.S, with the latter’s president Donald Trump telling CNN he “didn’t want to see (the conflict) go on too long … I always thought it would be four weeks,” adding, “We’re a little ahead of schedule.”
What tonight or tomorrow or the next day will bring is unknown. As the casualty count rises, as stocks fall and oil and gas prices soar, people are hoping for a peaceful resolution and soon.
“This is the fight of the big people,” says Silvestre de Sousa, the man currently leading the UAE jockey premiership. “It’s scary, you just don’t know what to do. When you finish your work, is it the end of the day or is it the end of your time? Will I be having this phone call with you tomorrow? It makes you think.”
The Brazilian was focused during racing Saturday night – “You do your job” – but he was aware of what was brewing and there was talk behind the starting gate about the situation.
On the other hand, Murphy, Britain’s champion jockey, says he “Feels safe here,” adding, “There was no conflict that I was aware of, aerial conflict, while we were riding, it really wasn’t going on in my mind. I wouldn’t say we’re involved in any direct conflict.
“It’s just we don’t know when we can leave. We are just waiting like everyone else for more information.”
De Sousa has not waited around. He has moved temporarily from his apartment to what he hopes is a peaceful spot away from the city.
“We’re about two hours outside the city,” he tells Idol Horse. “We’re trying to avoid the cities, you know, where the high buildings are. I don’t think we are 100 percent safe, but I think if you’re away from Dubai where the activity is … Where I usually stay, that’s close to everything that was happening.”
There is a lot of not-knowing around the Gulf’s racing scene and that makes for rumour and conjecture.
“Is the Dubai World Cup cancelled? I heard that,” one person asked. Others wondered if racing would be on this week.
“It goes ahead at this stage,” one official source at Meydan says.
Japan’s great dirt track runner Forever Young is already at Meydan ahead of the Dubai World Cup on March 28, and trainer Yoshito Yahagi’s stable social media showed the horse and his groom appearing happy there on Monday morning. But owners and trainers of other candidates for that fixture, from Japan, the United States and Europe, will be watching closely and decisions will have to be made about travel and participation if the conflict continues.
Entries and declarations are still being processed for this week’s racing fixtures in Dubai, Qatar and Bahrain. Business as usual in unusual circumstances is the general approach: deal with things as they happen, and the ‘will it, won’t it’ will be decided by those far, far above the racing club pay grades.
Dubai postponed Jebel Ali races on Sunday but the Emirates Racing Authority and Dubai Racing Club have Meydan races scheduled for Friday; Qatar has fixtures on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday; and Bahrain has its prestigious King’s Cup meeting on Thursday and Friday.
School classes have gone online, and sports and entertainment, including football and basketball leagues, have already been shut down temporarily in Qatar and Bahrain, but there is no word as yet about horse racing.
Neil Callan rode in Bahrain last Friday and then boarded a flight home to England. The Bahrain General Command reported in the early hours of Sunday that its defences had downed 45 missiles and nine drones as Iran targeted the island state, striking the naval base where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is stationed, as well as residential properties in the capital, Manama. One death has been reported there.
Callan is scheduled to return to Bahrain to ride at the two-day King’s Cup meeting but as he speaks there are no flights in or out.
“We’ll have to see what happens the next couple of days, no one really knows, but the racecourse isn’t close to Manama and it’s away from those American targets,” says Callan, who is scheduled to fly into Saudi Arabia and drive across the causeway to Bahrain.
“Saudi is the only place in the Gulf you can fly in or out of at the moment,” he adds.
Fawzi Nass, Bahrain’s most high-profile trainer, is taking things as they come.
“So far racing hasn’t been cancelled, but there’s talks about it,” he says. “It all depends on what happens in the next couple of days. But I’m not sure what the plans are, with the military involved. Horse racing, I don’t know, maybe it will go ahead without many spectators.”
Nass says that the initial strikes were worrying but now he feels he and others have got used to the situation.
“It’s different parts of Bahrain (to where the horses are), but even towards our area, you can see the missiles from a distance and the Patriots exploding them there, otherwise, we’re far away, the racecourse: where I live is far from the town. The target is the navy at Juffair, and some buildings around it. Otherwise we’re well away from harm, I hope.
“It was shocking when it first started,” he adds, “but now we’re desensitised.”
That was Monday afternoon. By 7pm, Bahrain’s state media reported its air defence systems had intercepted a further 79 missiles and 59 drones.
Qatar is in a similar position to Bahrain, racing is scheduled and the processes required for any race meeting are being carried out, but whether it will go ahead is not certain.
When the Al Rayyan track had issues previously, fixtures were switched to Al Uqda racecourse, about 45 minutes out of the city, so that might be an option if needed and if allowed.
But so far at least 20 people in Qatar have been injured in Iranian missile and drone attacks, which targeted infrastructure and the Al Udeid airbase near Doha.
One source in Qatar has told Idol Horse that most people are staying inside and markets and malls are being kept open 24 hours to avoid panic-buying. Each morning at 8am the government has sent an alarm telling citizens not to go out other than for necessities, and to work from home.
Back in Dubai, So is hopeful that his horse, Sing Dragon, will be able to take his scheduled flight out on March 6, and that he will be on his way back to Hong Kong around the same time, hopefully before.
“We had to register with the Chinese Embassy, just to be safe,” he says, referring to the Hong Kong Jockey Club contingent that also includes mafoos and club staff.
“The first night we saw the missiles flying over, I saw them from the balcony, I saw the explosion, well, you don’t know if it’s the bomb or the defence system, but anyway, now it seems pretty safe here.
“We just have to wait now,” he adds. “We just don’t know when.”
But Monday evening had the beginning of an answer: a Dubai Airports statement saying flights would resume immediately, with Abu Dhabi opening up Tuesday.
Horse racing’s stranded should soon be on the move, but how much destruction, fear, death and sorrow there will be before this conflict is over is something no one knows. ∎
