Thursday 15 January 2009

A year to the day and so....


After settling down on the couch today to watch the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship and some Horse Racing from Nad Al-Sheba in Dubai it stirred the memory.

This time last year I was there in person, both on the Golf course and at the Race track in the United Arab Emirates. As a spectator, not as a participant may I add.

It was Thursday January 17th 2008 and there I was, standing alongside Arab dignitaries and respected business men from around the world. Prominent jockeys like Johnny Murtagh, Lanfranco Dettori and Jamie Spencer were within winking distance as they strode around the parade ring under the spotlights.

The fundamental differences here compared to those courses on British soil were clearly evident - no beer dispensers and not one betting stall insight. Absolute must haves on our patch. Not over there, though. The Muslim state doesn't allow for that kind of nonsense. Maybe we could learn a thing or two from them. So there we were, polystyrene cups of tea in hand along with some local 'delicacy' similar to an onion bhaji but pretty much tasteless but full of grease. Splendid. There was also minimal security and no turnstiles or entrance fees, which I found bemusing but pleasantly surprising.

A surreal night of racing followed. I recall Dettori landing a winner on Lucky Find in the second last race. Again, another big difference was the sedate atmosphere. The locals sat near the track on the ground on home made rugs playing cards, not for money of course, that would be illegal. When the horses were homing in and cantering through the final furlong, instead of raucous cheers and hysteria the jockeys aboard their beasts received the odd wave here and there from the spectators, nothing more than that. I suppose the monstrous shouts at home racecourses come from punters who try and lend a hand and pass on that last ounce of energy onto the creatures they backed financially. I have no idea why the locals turned up to be honest. Maybe a chance to get out the house, maybe a chance to avoid the housework. It wasn't to watch high quality racehorses as they barely lifted their heads to see what was going on. The rest of the Carnival went on into March. We never stayed for the firworks of the main event where the American horse Curlin took the honours after romping home. Not only did the horse win the race in convinving style, its success made the owners $3.5million better off by scooping the pot in the Dubai World Cup. Pretty handy.

We made it to the Golf on the Saturday, the penultimate day. A lovely course set out on the fringes of Abu Dhabi with the majestic Sheikh Zayed mosque in the distance, the third biggest in the world and with the dominant club house built in the shape of a falcon, the national bird of the country.

Young German talent Michael Kaymer led through Saturday and eventually won the following day. The event was littered with snobbish, successful and rich Westerners, predominantly from the States and the UK.

Not really my scene. Pompous, ignorant know-it-all types lambasting the shots that landed a yard or two off target. And it was difficult to take those wearing bum bags seriously. Perhaps it's just the etiquette. It's one sport I wouldn't want to be associated with. I'll stick to my working class up-and-at-ya types.

A year on however, I'm sat in Leeds, in the rain and the squalor that surrounds it. Smart.

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