As a member of the thoroughbred horse industry, I have travelled to Dubai periodically over the last eleven years, since the inception of the Dubai World Cup. Deborah Campbell’s “Magic Kingdom or Glass House?” (September) catches the essence of the whirlwind that is Dubai, not least of which is Sheikh Mohammed, whom she was not able to meet but reflected accurately through the observations of others. To these, I would like to add my own little bit of history.
I came face to face with Sheikh Mohammed when I was a cub reporter for the Thoroughbred Record (now the Thoroughbred Times). The magazine is based in Lexington, Kentucky, as is the Keeneland Association, which conducts premier thoroughbred sales for yearling and breeding stock throughout the year. Sheikh Mohammed arrived on the scene (along with his older brother, then-ruler Sheikh Maktoum) at a sale one September more than twenty-five years ago, buying any yearling he fancied and sending the Kentucky hardboots into the kind of frenzy that can only be caused by the smell of new money.
The yearling sale was considered a mundane assignment by the older, more experienced Record staff, something to be sloughed off on a neophyte — that is, until Sheikh Mohammed showed up. My co-workers scoffed that even if I did get past the Sheikh’s entourage, he would never speak to a woman. So, I did the unthinkable: I asked for an interview. It was granted.
I put the usual questions to him, such as whether pedigree or conformation was more important in selecting a yearling. He looked at me inquisitively, then said that pedigree and conformation were worth considering, but even more important was to look into the horse’s eyes; he had to know about its soul. Sheikh Mohammed was a poet.
The hardboots hooted and hollered, pegging him for an easy mark soon to be separated from his money. How wrong they were. Yes, the Al Maktoums have spent a fortune on thoroughbreds since then, but they have systematically stayed the course, first establishing themselves as a dominant force on the European racing and breeding scene and then taking on North America. Success in the thoroughbred industry takes time, patience, and dedicated focus. Sheikh Mohammed has these qualities in ample amounts.
Few in Kentucky, or the world for that matter, would have predicted it, but the Al Maktoums are now positioned for global dominance in the thoroughbred industry. As for whether Dubai is to be a timeless monument or a castle made of sand, all depends on Sheikh Mohammed.
Susan Rhodemyre Willmot
Kinghaven Farms
King City, Ontario
Deborah Campbell captures the tensions, the contradictions, the glamour, the sleaze, the ambition, and the exploitation in Dubai. Emerging out of the desert, the emirate is, as Campbell aptly puts it, built on Arab leadership, British intelligence, American lifestyle, and labourers from the poorest parts of the world.
Campbell traces the contradictions between the towers that are rising in Dubai and those that went down in New York. It is the world’s new safe haven, built by Arab investors fleeing the US, and a home for those whose grandiose ambitions find expression in an unending competition for conspicuous consumption. It is in the Middle East, but not quite of the Middle East, the new economy embedded in an old economy, everything that Arab leaders love and loathe at the same time.
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