Reaching halfway around the globe and into the lucrative American market, Emirates Racing Association plans to simulcast all 25 racing programs at Dubai's Nad al Sheba racecourse during the 2002-'03 season to the United States.

The move represents perhaps the first deal involving complete seasonal simulcasting from an international racing venue directly into the U.S. However, it will not be reciprocal; Dubai does not accept simulcasts of other nations' races for wagering since betting is not allowed in the Islamic state.

Emirates officials were in the final stages of negotiations with a major American simulcasting and account wagering organization and expected to announce plans within two weeks, Chief Executive Les Benton said on October 3. That organization would send the Dubai signal across the American market, beginning when Nad al Sheba opens on October 31 for the season that stretches into April.

"We're not sitting still," Benton said. "We've got a great product, great racing. We want to become more than a global leader—we want people to sit up and take notice of our racing."

Featured in the simulcasts to the U.S. would be the $15,250,000 Dubai World Cup (UAE-G1) program on March 29, the world's richest racing card; Super Saturday, a program of stakes preps for World Cup events on March 8; the seven-week Dubai Racing Carnival preceding the World Cup; and the new Dubai Triple Crown series for three-year-olds with total purses of $2,450,000.

Although Dubai is located in a time zone nine hours ahead of the Eastern zone in the U.S., racing is conducted in the evening hours there, usually on Thursdays and Sundays. Simulcasts would begin in mid-morning on the East Coast on those days when racing is scheduled at Nad al Sheba.

The Emirates Racing Association also conducts racing at four other tracks in the United Arab Emirates, but simulcasts will not be sent to the U.S. from Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ghantoot, or Jebel Ali in the 2002-'03 season.

With little competition in the morning hours plus a bevy of American-bred and/or raced Thoroughbreds competing in Dubai with internationally known jockeys and trainers, Nad al Sheba racing will offer American bettors a product they can easily understand and enjoy, Benton said. There also will be a variety of races for purebred Arabian horses, typically one race out of a six-race program.

"The first year of anything is always going to be the toughest, but once we get it underway, the interest is going to be enormous," Benton said. "Our racing is very American; we race on dirt predominantly with many American-bred horses."

Betting projections could be released when the simulcasting deal is announced. Emirates' share of the handle will be used to bolster purses in Dubai, while handle derived by American outlets would be split as it would with any other signal.

While Dubai has simulcast the World Cup program to the U.S. and many other nations in the past, Emirates officials have not experimented extensively with full-card, full-season international simulcasting. As its first step into the waters, Emirates broadcast its races to South Africa for the past two years, and the response from bettors there has been enthusiastic, according to Benton, who said he did not have handle figures immediately available.

Additionally, Dubai races were sent to Britain to supplement betting opportunities during the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak that curtailed British racing in 2001.

Emirates officials hope to simulcast Dubai races in the coming season to England and other countries in Europe, as well as South Africa, but the European deals also were not complete by October 3.

"We are in negotiations with all interested parties at this stage," Benton said.

While major races from around the world, such as the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (Fr-G1) October 6 at Longchamp on, are frequently simulcast to the U.S., there are limited examples of a foreign track's races being sent continuously for betting in North America during an entire season, said Chris Scherf, executive vice president of Thoroughbred Racing Associations, which cosponsors the annual International Simulcast Conference.

Hastings Park Racecourse in Vancouver, British Columbia, has taken signals from Australia and Hong Kong racetracks since the mid-1990s, said General Manager Phil Heard. Hastings acts as a hub for those jurisdictions and sends the signals to Ohio and New England racetracks and off-track betting sites. When daylight savings time is switched to standard time on October 27, the signals also will be sent to the Chicago OTB system and Atlantic City betting sites, he said.

Hastings is limited to only the races that Australian and Hong Kong authorities decide to send for simulcasting, Heard said.

Meanwhile, horse racing, a pastime in Arab nations for centuries, has been cultivated to the international level in Dubai by the ruling Maktoum family since the running of the first World Cup in 1996. Dubai Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, who oversees his family's global Godolphin Racing stable, has directed that the quality of Dubai racing be upgraded annually.—Michele MacDonald