Sheikh Mohammed rides Dubai World Cup horse race to sell UAE image
“Sheikh Mohammad has used his love for horse racing as a platform to introduce people,” said Carter Carnegie, a veteran of 12 World Cups who promotes British horse racing. “This event shapes the image of Dubai and brings influential people together. A lot of borders are crossed.”
If a test of soft power is to produce intriguing moments and unexpected cultural cross-pollination, the World Cup constantly satisfies. Two years ago, the sheikh entertained Chechen Republic President Ramzan Kadyrov as former Hollywood bombshell Bo Derek lingered nearby. These days Mr. Kadyrov owns racehorses, and Miss Derek sits on the California Horse Racing Board. They might have simply discussed the race, while perhaps mixing in a little talk on Chechen investment in California.
“People who meet at horse races tend to have more intimate conversations,” said an American diplomat attending the event in an unofficial capacity. When asked to identify himself, he merely winked.
Long time coming
This soft power triumph took years to develop. In the 1960s Dubai was a poverty-ridden settlement of 30,000 on the Arabian Gulf. During that time, the future Shiek Maktoum was a teenager away in England studying.
Young Maktoum soon discovered European horse racing, a sport that also honored his Arabian heritage. During his Bedouin childhood he had learned to read desert sands and often shared breakfast with his horse. In England he quickly became a successful horse owner.
Upon returning to the UAE to be groomed for power, the sheikh held the Emirates’ first thoroughbred race on a dusty camel track in 1981. A basic racecourse soon opened, and he reached out to adventurous horse owners from North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Enough of the invitees made the journey for the inaugural World Cup to be run in 1996.
Along the way, Dubai’s policymakers pushed economic diversification. The tiny port transformed itself into the futuristic commercial capital of the Arab world.
At the Meydan Racetrack, that branding of the UAE as a forward-thinking and tolerant outpost in the region was on full display. European crowds wearing wide-brimmed hats, pinstriped tuxedos and revealing dresses drank cocktails among Arabs in flowing white robes. In some parts of the Muslim world, that culture clash is messy and tense, but not here.
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