• The UAE’s biggest horse-racing occasion expected to beat the UEFA Champions League final and T20 World Cup
• More than 1,000 people were polled in a survey commissioned by a marketing and public relations agency

Arab News

DUBAI: The Dubai World Cup is set to be the most-watched sporting event of the year in the UAE, according to a new poll.

The poll, commissioned by marketing and public relations agency duke+mir, surveyed more than 1,000 people through research specialist YouGov. A total of 31 percent of UAE residents indicated they would be tuning in to the biggest racing event on the Meydan Racecourse calendar.

The Dubai World Cup beat the upcoming UEFA Champions League final (29 percent), the T20 World Cup (26 percent) and the Abu Dhabi F1 Grand Prix (24 percent) as the UAE’s favorite sporting event for 2024.

“The Dubai World Cup is an incredible occasion and clearly loved by people across the UAE and internationally,” Jonathan Ivan-Duke, co-founder of duke+mir, said.

“Horse racing is known as the ‘sport of kings,’ but our survey suggests the Dubai World Cup will bring more people together from a broader cross-section of society than any other sporting event this year. In Australia, they call the Melbourne Cup the ‘Race that Stops the Nation.’ Perhaps in the UAE, the Dubai World Cup is the ‘Race that Unites a Nation.’”

The Dubai World Cup takes place on Saturday, March 30 and is the culmination of the Dubai Carnival of horse racing. Horse racing is hugely popular in the UAE, with the famous blue Godolphin silks of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, to be carried by many of the leading contenders.

Michael Mulvihill, co-founder of @MiddleEastRacing, a dedicated horse-racing social channel explained why the Dubai World Cup is such an important sports event.

“It’s remarkable that the UAE’s crown jewel of horse racing topped the poll, considering there are some huge football and cricket events taking place later this year,” he said. “It shows that bringing the world’s best horses and jockeys to race under the glittering lights of Meydan Racecourse for a breathtaking evening of action is something that sports fans truly enjoy.”