We look back at the winners who lit up Meydan on the night the Dubai World Cup celebrated its 30th birthday.
A day of magnitude.
Dubai defied the climate – meteorologically (over 100mm of rain fell on the city in the run-up to raceday) and otherwise – to host a World Cup night that featured the 30th anniversary of its feature race.
It was Cigar who lit up the first running in 1996 and its 30th went again to America, Steve Asmussen’s Magnitude becoming the 15th US-trained competitor to be etched onto the roll of honour.
The day’s supporting card had got going with a PA Group 1, before three Group 2s and four Group 1s led us towards the namesake trophy.
G2 Godolphin Mile
Team USA got their name on the scoresheet long before the big one, David Jacobson’s Banishing doing just that to the rest of the field.
The Ghostzapper six-year-old is owned by his trainer (who had reportedly stayed home in Kentucky), Lawrence Roman and Sharaf Mohammed Al Hariri.
Put in the hands of the Brazilian-born but European-based Silvestre de Sousa, he reeled in Commissioner King and, despite hitting the front as late as the 100m mark, still managed to put two and a quarter lengths between him and the aforementioned longtime leader.
G2 Dubai Gold Cup
Britain’s Simon Crisford, Godolphin’s racing manager until he took to training in 2015 (he has run the operation on a joint licence with son Ed for the last half a decade) enjoyed quite a season in the Emirates.
It finished yesterday with a sprinkle of stardust from Fairy Glen, the five-year-old winner of last month’s Balanchine.
Weaving through runners before scraping the rail in the closing stages, the mare fended off Caballo De Mar as she took the spoils by half a length in the hands of Mickaël Barzalona.
G2 UAE Derby
Adrie de Vries, Holland’s best-known racing export, retired after riding Bhupat Seemar’s Raamaas in this.
Well into his late 50s, de Vries has been aboard a haul of global Group 1 winners through the decades and leaves weighing rooms as a familiar face in the Middle East.
Raamaas, however, couldn’t send him on his way with a winner, finishing ninth as Japan’s Wonder Dean claimed the spoils.
Six Speed, though, Raamaas’s stablemate, did manage second ahead of the Godolphin-owned and Japanese born-and-trained Pyromancer.
G1 Al Quoz Sprint
On we went to the first Group 1, where the locals got their name in lights courtesy of the aptly named Native Approach, trained by Ahmad bin Harmash and carrying the colours of Hamdan bin Harmash.
Connor Beasley approached the race with a forward ride, unleashing the winner of last month’s Group 3 Nad Al Sheba Turf Sprint as he faced challengers near the 400m mark.
The pair battled hard to see off plentiful persistent opposition and found just enough to clinch success by a neck.
G1 Dubai Golden Shaheen
Beasley and bin Harmash made it an evening double when Dark Saffron, a Sultan Ali-owned son of the Canadian-bred and Kentucky-standing Flameaway, ran to victory in a race run, unlike the Al Quoz, on dirt.
Always right up there, the pair were in front going into the stretch and stayed ahead to win with a length and three-quarters in hand.
Effusive in thanks to the team behind the scenes, Beasley relayed afterwards that he had merely “the easy job” in jumping aboard Native Approach and Dark Saffron and riding them to success.
G1 Dubai Turf
No complaints from connections of Ombudsman, already a capable and confident multiple Group 1 winner.
The five-year-old entire gathered another top-level victory as, with William Buick aboard, he swept passed the opposition, opting for the outside route, and laid down a two-length triumph.
The Crisfords were left settling for second with Quddwah, chased home by bin Harmash’s Andreas Vesalius.
G1 Dubai Sheema Classic
Some say he’s the world’s best racehorse. We say (at the moment at least) he’s the Global Rankings #4 horse.
Either way, Calandagan is exceptional.
For France’s fearsome Francis Graffard, he was willed towards another Group 1 by Nemone Routh on the rail, standing alongside a more restrained Princess Zahra Aga Khan and Sara Boyden, Princess Zahra’s daughter.
Calandagan claimed this Group 1 – his first of 2026, and his first since the Tokyo triumph in November – by three quarters of a length over West Wind Blows, via a ride, as Pat Cummerford correctly called it, “executed to perfection” by Mickaël Barzalona, who’d already won the day’s Dubai Gold Cup.
G1 Dubai World Cup
And then there was the big one, and for Forever Young last year’s fate repeated itself. That’s to say, a Saudi Cup but no follow up in Dubai.
Last year defeat was dealt to the Japanese warrior by Hit Show, who left him third with Mixto second. This year he held on for second, but Ron Winchell-owned magnificent Magnitude made virtually all and, ridden along as they wheeled the bend, didn’t let the hot shot past, despite Forever Young finding more late on.
“It unfolded just how we wanted it to,” said Asmussen post-race.
Connections of Forever Young didn’t say the same thing.
Laura King shared her memories of the great race as the Dubai World Cup marked 30 years of existence
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