Sheikh reaps rewards from vision

On Saturday, horses from 19 countries are due to compete at the Dubai World Cup, the brainchild of the world's most powerful owner, Sheikh Mohammed, and hailed by its organisers as 'the Olympics of racing'.

Sheikh Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai and the United Arab Emirates defence minister, clearly took his cue from the schmaltzy Kevin Costner baseball movie Field Of Dreams in creating the meeting. A mysterious voice told Costner to construct a baseball field in his back garden to summon some of the game's greatest players from the grave. "Build it and they will come," the voice said.

Well, five kilometres outside Dubai city centre, Sheikh Mohammed built the Nad Al Sheba racecourse, and so attracted some of the greatest Flat racehorses of the last 10 years. The champion American runner Cigar was lured to the inaugural running in 1996, when the race was worth a 'mere' £3m. Cigar won in an epic finish in which he eyeballed Soul Of The Matter, owned by composer Burt Bacharach, before edging his way to the front.

There was more drama two years later when Silver Charm became the first modern-day Kentucky Derby winner to compete - and win - overseas. The Dubai World Cup was also the race in which the ill-fated Dubai Millennium revealed to a stunned, global television audience of more than 2 billion that he was a colt of outrageous talent by winning, appropriately, in 2000.

This year, Sheikh Mohammed's Godolphin operation can confidently expect to win the big race again, for a third time in four years, with Sakhee, the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner who was second in the Breeders' Cup Classic last year. As the sky darkens and the stars come out, as if on cue, for the big race, Nad Al Sheba and its desert backdrop provide a stunning stage for the World Cup, the final contest of the day. Yet it is also an odd one. Betting, the lifeblood of horseracing in any other country, is forbidden under Muslim rules.

So instead a quasi-lottery is held with cash prizes worth nearly £35,000 on offer to those who pick the most winners out of seven races. Oh, and there are also raffles to win a Bentley and a Jaguar X-Type.

Even though admission is free to locals, this is no egalitarian sports event. The Maktoum family sit in their own plush, cushioned part of the grandstand. The increasing number of western visitors gather in separate areas, where alcohol is served, hoping for a sighting of one of many celebrities there - Rod Stewart and Vinnie Jones are among the World Cup stalwarts.

It is a supremely well-marketed event, but what's behind it? It's for business as much as sport, all part of a grand plan to promote Dubai as a major tourist destination. The state is no longer oil dependent, which is a good job as the black stuff is due to run out in 20 years. Oil accounts for only 10 per cent of Dubai's gross domestic product. By bringing the stars, both equine and human, to Dubai, the Maktoums are, in the words of Cigar's late owner Allen Paulsen, "advertising a race, a city, and a country".

Or, as the senior brother Maktoum al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, puts it: "It is the perfect opportunity to showcase Dubai and the United Arab Emirates to the world and feature the enormous steps we have made in the fields of commerce, communications and tourism."

Job done, just as it has been with high-ranking events in other sports such as golf 's Dubai Desert Classic. It is 25 years since a modest filly called Hatta provided Sheikh Mohammed with his first winner in Britain. The extent of his involvement and ambition since then has been staggering. Having grown tired of the patronising, secretive approach of some of his British trainers, the Sheikh set up Godolphin, a central racing operation that sought to give his horses an advantage by wintering in Dubai before returning to take on Europe's finest.

Many thought it couldn't be done. But it has. And now Godolphin has a similar, American-based satellite in America to try to prise the Kentucky Derby from determined US hands. Ambitions are ever-global, although Dubai remains the centre of the Maktoums' plans.

Breeders in England, Ireland, and America can hardly have been soothed by another ground-breaking move last year to stand a top American-bred stallion, Timber Country, in Dubai.

It means his progeny will compete in Europe and America with a treasured (UAE) suffix to denote their place of origin.

It seems barely thinkable that Dubai could become a leading centre for breeding racehorses. But not so long ago the same was said about training and racing them there.

And now look what's happening.