DUBAI: Beneath the thin veneer of razzamatazz here at Meydan on Saturday night will be a handful of men and women trying desperately to contain their nerves.
The Dubai World Cup is racing’s most international fixture and with $30 million on the line there is no bigger payday on the world stage.
The bumper prize-money has attracted horse people from all over the world, but with that heightened competition comes increased pressure.
Quite simply, there is nothing else like it in racing and scratch the surface only a little bit and it is easy to see the searching souls of the participants. Bob Baffert has won the Dubai World Cup three times and seeks a fourth win with favorite West Coast on Saturday.
The silver-haired 65-year-old is in the autumn of his career and should by now have worked out a way to manage the burden of competing at the highest level. Not a bit of it. This is a man who six years ago suffered a heart attack at the onset of World Cup week and was visited personally by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, ruler of Dubai, in hospital.
“There is always pressure in these big races when you have a good horse,” Baffert said on Tuesday. “If I had an outsider then I’d be just glad to be here but when you have a horse who can win, that is something else.
“There is always tension because things can go wrong, just like that. You are never safe until they get in to the gate. Once the jockey is on board, that is the only time I feel completely relieved and then I just see what report card I’m going to get. From there it is out of my control.”
Baffert must have felt close to further heart surgery 12 months ago when Arrogate, then the world’s best horse, gave subsequent Breeders’ Cup winner Gun Runner a huge start before scything him down in the closing stages to claim the $10 million purse.
“It was horrible. I was so mad I couldn’t even enjoy the race. I couldn’t even believe what was going on. That was a race for the ages. It was thrilling. It was one of those races that left a mark. That was Arrogate’s coming out party. It was the ‘wow, look at this guy,’ and then the story went bang.
“I am as nervous as ever, but it is different. Last year there was a lot of pressure because Arrogate was owned by Prince Khalid Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and I didn’t want him beaten in his own backyard — there are a lot of bragging rights going on here.
“That was definitely the greatest performance I will ever see. What he did that night was incredible.”
If Baffert is an old hand at trying to control a racing pulse, Chad Summers is a relative newcomer. Summers turned his back on a burgeoning media career to become a trainer and last year had saddled just a handful of horses before Mind Your Biscuits came from way off the pace to scoop the $2 million Dubai Golden Shaheen. The sprinter is among the favorites to win the dirt contest once again.
A year on, Summers has endured the vicissitudes of life and it would not be beyond the realms of possibility were he to return to the Fourth Estate in the near future.
“There are a lot more downs than ups and although the ups are great, the lows are so low,” he said of a game whereby all participants lose much more than they win.
“People want to give you a horse when you’re a hot commodity and then it is like: ‘Who are you again?’
“There are such short memories in racing — there is not a lot of loyalty and there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes.
“By the time we got to Saratoga (in summer) we had 50 horses in four or five different barns in different locations and were hiring staff with names you don’t remember.
“So that got out of control this summer and I took a step back and have 25 horses right now.
“I remember I had just won the Shaheen, a race worth $2 million and it was 2 a.m. and I’m trying to watch one of my horses in a $30,000 maiden claimer in America and somebody claims it, and then all of a sudden people say you’re not that good a trainer because you can’t win a claimer.
“You have the magnifying glass on you at all times and that is fine, if owners allow you to do things the way you want to do it.”
Neither Baffert nor Summers have quite mined the depths that Peter Miller did in December, however. Miller, who won the Breeders’ Cup Sprint and Turf Sprint in November respectively with Saturday contenders Roy H and Stormy Liberal, lost five horses when 46 horses died in a fire that ripped through San Luis Rey in California.
“It was a nightmare,” an emotional Miller said, recounting the horror. “A barn fire — I wouldn’t set that on my worst enemy. It is something you never want to go through and hopefully I never will again.
“It was traumatic. Some horses were in the clinic for a month with burns and smoke inhalation. Other horses were unscathed. Fortunately most of the horses that survived came back to run well and win. The horse community around the world was extremely generous with their time and money and it was heartwarming. Horses are resilient. Trainers are resilient.”
They clearly need to be.