Ahead of the Dubai World Cup, on Saturday, The National has talked to trainers and race officials about their fondest memories of the event. Today's subject is American trainer Doug Watson.
I arrived in Dubai in 1993 to work for trainer Satish Seemar. I was his head man and the racing community here was very small.
Lord John Fitzgerald ran racing at the time, and asked me to drive the ambulance for the first Dubai World Cup night in 1996. They just wanted somebody who knew where to go if something went wrong.
I took the job as it was a free place to watch the race. I got paid Dh400 for it but never had to do anything. I can’t even remember what Satish ran that night because, for me, it was all about one horse.
I had never seen Cigar in the flesh. I had watched his races and knew what to expect. It was just so fantastic that it was the first World Cup and the best horse from the United States was running half way across the world on a track we had been watching horses run on for three years. It was so exciting.
When you are a fan of the game, you want to see the best horses in the flesh. Ruler Of The World is coming here to race on Saturday and I want to see the Epsom Derby winner up close.
I left the vet’s room only once to watch Cigar in the paddock. Otherwise, I was sat on a little chair in the vet’s room where they did all of the post-race testing, watching it all on television.
To see Cigar come over and win so well was such a huge boost to the World Cup concept.
It has gone crazy since. The publicity it gave Dubai was phenomenal. When I first came over, I’d go home to America and say I’d been to Dubai and people would look at me blankly and say, “Is that in Saudi Arabia?”
It put Dubai on the map, and everybody in the world now knows where Dubai is.
For me, though, the most defining World Cup was obviously Dubai Millennium’s in 2000.
The whole name of the horse and what he had done on the track beforehand built up such a great expectation.
We are all here racing in Dubai because of the Maktoum family and Godolphin, and it was a dream that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid had to have this horse win. The boss was so excited about it – so it was easy to share in his moment.
I watched the race in the Irish Village area among the crowd at Nad Al Sheba, which is the equivalent to the Apron Views area at Meydan.
The crowd was going wild – it was just the whole atmosphere of the night that made it so amazing.
I was a furlong up from the wire and I was watching it from up against the rail, and when he flew by us you just could see he was never going to be beat – he was gone.
I liked Nad Al Sheba. I think we all did – it was more of a community there – but Meydan is great and every year it keeps getting better.
When you move out of your first home and into a new one, you miss your old one. Meydan is just a top-class facility and it is the next step.
Last year, Versac Py just getting beaten in the Kahayla Classic was real tough. Erwan Charpy has been a trainer here for 20 years and to see his horse run so well, and Reynaldothewizard win the Dubai Golden Shaheen for Satish, was just fantastic for all of us trainers here.
It is great to see local trainers do well on the night as it gives us all a big boost – it is a pretty small community here still and I like to think when we lose we hope another of us wins. It also gives us all hope that it is possible to win on World Cup night.
Most of the time we root for each other – I was screaming home Versac Py so much that I went hoarse.
Trainer Doug Watson was talking to Geoffrey Riddle of The National
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