Dubai awaits Meydan as race season opens

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- As the horse racing world turned attention to the Breeders' Cup in California, racing action quietly resumed in the United Arab Emirates this weekend.

There were season-opening cards on dirt and turf for thoroughbreds and Arabian purebreds at Dubai's Jebel Ali racecourse and neighboring Emirates Sharjah and Abu Dhabi. Dubai's signature Nad Al Sheba racecourse has closed in advance of the Jan. 28 opening of the world's largest racing circuit at Meydan, finishing construction at an adjacent site.

Meydan will host nine evening meetings of the 2010 International Racing Carnival Thursdays and alternating Fridays before the Dubai World Cup on the season's final race day, March 27. Meydan is the latest in a series of big ticket projects which have put Dubai on world financial and tourist destination maps.

The racecourse will serve as the hub of what will become self-sustaining Meydan City. Plans call for the new city to become home to more than 300 new buildings and a man-made canal that will wend its way through the development, now barren desert. There has been no publicly announced change in those plans though Dubai has been affected by large construction-debt during the current worldwide financial credit crunch.