Amid geopolitical tension and logistical chaos, the Dubai World Cup meeting unfolded with remarkable resilience, underscoring racing’s enduring global appeal. While conflict simmered across the Gulf, Meydan staged a spectacle of elite competition, crowned by standout performances from Calandagan and Magnitude. The event highlighted both the sport’s economic significance and its fragile existence worldwide, as contrasting fortunes in Britain and India revealed racing’s uncertain future beyond the glamour.

In 1939 the Second World War denied one of British horseracing’s most celebrated names, Blue Peter, from completing the Triple Crown of the Two Thousand Guineas, Derby and St Leger, a feat long regarded as the Turf’s test of true greatness. The St Leger was abandoned as the war escalated.

This year’s Classics are almost on us with the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket on May 2 - world crises permitting. Comparisons may be drawn if racing here is interrupted given that the 30th Dubai World Cup has just been held in the middle of a war zone around the Persian Gulf. The Dubai authorities showed that racing isn’t just a trivia – that it sustains an important part of many lives, in both entertainment and economics.

But then neither is the Middle East war trivial.

The Dubai meeting was only cancelled once, due to the Covid germ in 2020. In Britain there’s a war of words over the health of racing – Chelmsford racecourse has closed and several tracks are under threat, mostly from developers. India isn’t the only country where horseracing has existential problems.

Pity Iran doesn’t have a racing culture. Then they might have interrupted hostilities (alright, a fantasy) to join thirteen racing nations which showed no inhibitions when gathering just 21 kilometres across the Straits of Hormuz. to contest fiercely, but amicably, the Dubai World Cup extravaganza in March. Meanwhile drones and missiles criss-crossed the skies but the only bangs at the Meydan track came from the clash of starting gates – either that or the noise of drones being intercepted.

We’d been forestalled on our Indian visit which was intended to revolve around the Invitation Cup in Mysuru. I must, given time, stop calling this magic city Mysore. And I’m told to get ready to add an ‘m’ to Kerala’s State title. As a colonial recidivist I still hanker for Bombay.

Reports of the threat of glanders infection kyboshed the Invitation Cup, as did the death of Economics for our visit to Kunigal. I’d witnessed the latest Indian stallion import on numerous winning occasions in the UK – you could hardly miss him with his startling white features – and his premature death was as much bemoaned in Newmarket as it was in the Poonawalla camp.

The disruption to our plans allowed us to spend more time on other objectives, not least my umpteenth visit to Usha, more of which later. But our return journey home to the UK put matters into perspective. Our hotel was strategically placed at the end of the main runway of Indira Gandi International Airport giving us a front row seat for plane spotting but our flight wasn’t among them. It was repeatedly cancelled and only by jumping through many hoops were we able to get back home via Oman, obliterating any hopes of returning to Dubai for world’s richest meeting.

The Dubai World Cup was graced by the world’s best racehorse Calandagan landing the £2.5m Sheema Classic Group One, with the meetings only ‘disaster’ being the defeat of the world’s highest-rated dirt runner, Japan’s Forever Young in the Dubai World Cup, Group One. He was downed by the American runner, Magnitude, for the £5.1m first prize. Forever Young still took home over £2m for running second, raising his career winnings to just short of the total Dubai prize money of £23m! The Stars and Stripes anthem of the USA blared out defiantly on behalf of Magnitude…though had it carried across the Straits of Hormuz to Iran there would have been the risk of targeted retaliation.

Calandagan’s esteem can’t be measured in profit. He was home-bred at the late Aga Khan’s French stud but gelded after his first race – which he lost. He has five Group One victories in a row, stretching from the UK to Japan but as a gelding he is outlawed from the most cherished prize of all, his home championship of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. So Calandagan is enjoyed for his own sake and hopefully for a few years yet.

His trainer, French champion, Francis-Henri Graffard said: “I’m relieved. He is the best racehorse in the world so I felt a lot of pressure. But he has never let us down and is a true champion” a comment endorsed by the World Rankings and underlined by his constant jockey Mickael Barzalona. He said: “My horse has his own way of doing things (he habitually comes late) but he always gives everything. He is every jockey’s dream. I put my trust in him.”

Owner-breeder Princess Zahra Aga Khan said: “West Wind Blows (runner up, trained at Newmarket by the Crisford’s father and son) gave us a fright but when Calandagan unleashed his turn of foot it was an incredible moment. We must savour this important victory.”

Ombudsman (by Night of Thunder), like a journeyman jockey, has plied his trade on all racing continents never finishing out of the first two in ten races, the last five at Group 1 level. In the Dubai Turf (Gr1) over nine furlongs he maintained his sequence beating Simon and Edward Crisford’s Quddwah. Ombudsman is owned and bred by Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin operation and trained in Newmarket under the care of the Gosdens, father and son. West Wind Blows, and Fairy Glen in the Group 2 Dubai Gold Cup for Sheikh Hamdan, plus Quddwah runner up to Ombudsman, made it a magic meeting for the Crisfords, and gave British racing one of their better Dubai World Cup adventures.

Ombudsman was beaten by Calandagan in last season’s Champion Stakes (which was the swansong of Economics) at Ascot. He earned £2.1million from his Dubai victory. While he was justifying short odds at Meydan his stable companion Gamrai (Lope de Vega) was winning the major prize back home that day at Kempton Park, the Rosebery Stakes Handicap - worth just £55,000 to Kuwaiti owner Ahmad Al Sagar. The disparity between rewards at Meydan and London’s nearest racecourse, Kempton, under threat of closure to become a building site, is something British racing hardly dares dwell on – yet all the while background internecine warfare persists, seemingly heedless of the day of reckoning.

The Dubai World Cup was first run in 1996 the brainchild of Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed and came only four years after the inauguration of his Godolphin operation. The Sheikh already had a racecourse, Nad Al Sheba but deemed it nowhere near prestigious enough to host what some call the world’s foremost race meeting – certainly in respect of its lavish prize money. Nothing compares with the 1200 metre grandstand at Meydan which, though impeccable in its exoticism, is unlikely to replace Royal Ascot as the world’s most prestigious meeting.

In the circumstances it was understandable this year’s Dubai World Cup attendance dropped by three quarters from the anticipated 60,000 – most expatriates clamouring at Dubai International airport, previously the busiest in the world, to escape. Still, the atmosphere, already charged by imminent threats of attack, was utterly unique and in some senses made up for the lack of an audience.

Our disappointment of missing out Kunigal was compensated by the visit to Usha. Ameeta Mehra is a long standing friend who one day we hope to tempt to race in the UK even if the Gulf is her immediate objective. We also met Ameeta’s associate, Hemant Lamba, who has produced an archetypal blueprint for the revival of Indian racing by stimulating interest among a new generation of fans. The words of his mission statement have spread to racing’s movers and shakers in Britain.

“My hope is of a freshman entering a school. I could help with new ideas and possibly try move the inertia of heavy government machinery. As my shelf life here is very short there is a handful of gun powder of ideas available to spark a disruption. If things don't work then reminiscence of good old times will always stay,” Hemant said. Well said.

Immediate interest at Usha concerned Ameeta’s perspicacity in purchasing a few years ago the prize mare Brioniya, winner of three races in Europe and placed in Listed company in France. The governess of Usha could reap a huge reward through Brioniya’s daughter Zanthos (by Sioux Nation). Trained by the Crisfords Zanthos won one of last season’s foremost Group races for juvenile fillies, the Rockfel Stakes (Gr 2), at Newmarket. As result she is one of the leading fancies for this season’s first fillies’ classic, the One Thousand Guineas back on the Rowley Mile on May 3.

Brioniya, by Pivotal a renowned maternal grand sire, has offspring at foot by top Indian sire Speaking of Which, who stands at Usha of course. Watch this space.