Flashback: The phone call that built the Dubai World Cup

It began, as great stories often do, quietly. One morning in 1993, Colonel Ali Khamis Al Jafleh answered a telephone call that would alter not only the course of his life, but the future of horse racing in the UAE. On the other end of the line was His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. Al Jafleh was being summoned to discuss something ‘big’. What followed would help lay the groundwork for an ambitious vision: to elevate Dubai onto the global stage of horse racing and create an event that would capture the attention of the sporting world. Three decades later, with the Dubai World Cup now a towering presence on the...