It is three hours before the start of the 2009 Dubai World Cup, the richest race meeting in the world (total prize money $21.5m (£14.2m)) and climax of the Arab emirate’s annual two-month racing carnival. At the Nad Al Sheba racetrack, thousands of spectators are already installed, and in the free public enclosures people are shedding their shoes and spreading carpets on any spare patch of terrace or grass.
Women in black abayas, some wearing veils that cover all but their eyes, dish out family picnics of curry and flatbread. Groups of men in white dishdashas squat down to pore over newspaper form sheets. Others, in rope-circled keffiyehs, stride up and down the concourse discussing the prospects of local trainers and riders against the invaders from the US and Britain, from Hong Kong and South Africa, from Australia and Japan.
Along the track at the 300m mark, the atmosphere among paying customers – at what is regarded as Dubai’s social event of the year – is a cross between Ascot and Cheltenham. In the “Irish village”, young male expats enjoy a Guinness or three, while in the “Bubble Lounge” girls in floaty mini-dresses and high heels drink champagne before teetering off for a photoshoot with Hello!-style magazine Ahlan! If, as economic commentators have suggested, Dubai’s bubble has burst, there is little sign of it here.
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