Dubai World Cup, the world’s richest day of horseracing, returns on Saturday with $35 million prize purse on offer at Meydan Racecourse.
Bringing together the world’s top horse owners, jockeys, trainers and thoroughbreds, the Dubai World Cup meeting features nine races that run both on dirt and turf and over a variety of distances from 1200 metres to 3,200 metres.
The biggest sporting and social event on the Dubai calendar will this year close with an entertainment show headlined by US singer Gwen Stefani, state news agency WAM reported on Friday.
Total purses for the race card, which will feature six Group 1 and three Group 2 fixtures, was increased from $30 million to $35 million.
The Group 1 Dubai World Cup sponsored by Emirates Airline receives a $2 million boost to $12 million and boasts a $7.2 million purse to the winner, the highest first-place prize in global thoroughbred racing.
The accumulative purse for the prize money on offer – $35 million – eclipses events like the Epsom Derby Festival, Royal Ascot, The Breeders’ Cup and Melbourne Cup.
The inaugural run of the Dubai World Cup was held in 1996 at the Nad Al Sheba Racecourse when the total prize money was around $3.41 million.
Almond Eye, Beauty Generation, Thunder Snow, Magical, McKinzie, Santa Ana Lane and Roy H lead the international nominations for the race day while defending champion Thunder Snow and North America lead the UAE-based nominations.
Dubai Racing Club received 1,440 nominations for 739 horses from 20 countries, including Australia, France, Japan, Hong Kong, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the United States, the United Kingdom, for the 2019 Dubai World Cup day.
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