After The Dubai World Cup

The Dubai World Cup is the World’s richest race and is much more about fashion than horse racing.

The Event of the Year, The Dubai World Cup took place last weekend at the new race track Meydan. I heard a lot about the race and moreover the Bubbly Lounge.

My preparations started days in advance. All had to be perfect. The dress was found and then the hat search began. Yes, you can not go to the World Cup without a proper hat! I found one, matching my dress at Burjuman Mall. There was a special corner for all kinds of hats specially for the World Cup.

When we got to the new Meydan track, we got ourselves straight at the Bubbly Lounge which had Apron views where we could see the race. Everything was perfect until…The weather was extremely hot that day, 42c degrees in the afternoon with warm wind from desert. Heat and champagne! First indications of a bad event management, there was no water at the bubbly bar! Not even a soda water, mineral water, WATER or any soft drinks! Non of them. To get some water you had to walk to the main building.

The main activities of the event for ladies were to be on the ‘run way’ to qualify for the Best Dressed Woman. The price for this year was a year lease for a Land Rover. I heard that there were more than 500 candidates this year which the highest of all times.

The races started around 5 pm, until that time there were no other activities than the above competitions and with the heat I was so dehydrated that I could not stay for Elton John and Santana concerts. I event missed the beautiful fireworks.

At the end for me unfortunately it was so much effort to have few glasses of champagne.



Apron views

What did I miss last week

In Dubai, time flies. It’s almost mid March and there are tons of things that I would need to do. Meanwhile, there are some events that I missed. Just no time!

Last week, when I was in Abu Dhabi, Sting was performing at Meydan.

Meydan is United Arab Emirates’ new iconic horse racetrack. It’s a giant place as I understand with 60 000 capacity of grandstands and so on and actually it’s called Meydan City, there are residential buildings as well if you feel like living in the Meydan.

When I heard that the Sting concert was there, I could not help but wonder: Why a concert at the race tracks? And why a concert after a race?

At the end of the day, we didn’t go! I voted for a relaxing weekend at Abu Dhabi and it was the right choice as the concert was delayed due to preparation of the area after the race. Sting was good, as always and as he promised but it was confirmed that the Meydan Racetrack was not the best possible concert arena.

Meydan is preparing now heavily for the coming Dubai World Cup, the most popular sports event in UAE among the locals and expats. And there are rumors that Elton John will perform on March 27th.

The other event I could not make was Fazil Say concert as part of Al Ain Classic Music Festival. This is sad because I really wanted to see Fazil Say performing but again same same, this was also on March 4th and I was in Abu Dhabi.

So it’s really crucial not to leave Dubai alone. You never know what’s next round the corner.