With the stage set for another enthralling horse racing season, veteran trainer Doug Watson admits “everything is pretty much the same” having perfected the routine over the years.
And you can understand why. Watson has been in the UAE for more than 27 years. He has been a trainer for over 16 of them, winning six trainer’s championships. With so much experience under his belt, Watson knows what needs to be done ahead of a new season.
The Red Stables trainer in Dubai doesn’t have any runners in the season's opening meeting at Al Ain on Thursday, but has nine entered in four of the seven races at Jebel Ali the following day. Completing the opening weekend’s racing is Sharjah on Saturday.
“We are picking up again and I think we should have a nice season because the horses are really training well at the moment,” the American said.
“We usually take our summers off. We normally start from July end, and like we did last year, everything is pretty much the same except that we didn’t get a chance to get out of here and get a bit of a holiday.”
Watson is grateful that the season is starting and is hopeful “everything will go well” despite the ongoing pandemic.
“We have a nice group of horses and some of the races that are coming up suit us pretty well,” he said.
“We’re just gonna proceed as normal and hope for the best. I think that’s what everybody can do at the moment.”
The sense of caution emanates from what happened earlier in the year. The 2020 Dubai World Cup meeting in March was cancelled just over a week before and like most trainers, owners and racegoers, Watson said he was disappointed.
“I’m not saying we were going to win a race or anything but we had some lovely horses for the World Cup meeting, like Waady, Ekhtiyaar, Midnight Sands and Kimbear in some good form going into it,” he added.
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“We had RB Texas Hold’em in the Kahayla Classic [for Purebred Arabians] so we had some really good horses and we were really looking forward to the night.
“I was sitting at this desk the Sunday before the World Cup and word was coming in that it was cancelled.
“So you went from a very decent high to a big low. But the entire world is suffering right now and probably in the long term it’s not that important anyway. It was a bit of a gut punch, though.”
With over 100 horses at the stables, Watson is expecting a few more, including some top class Purebred Arabians for Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid.
“We’ve got a few new horses in, a few from the sale here and a few from the UK sale,” he said.
“We’ve got about 11 two-year-olds, a couple of nice fillies and a few nice colts and with these young horses you never really know what you have unless you take them over to the races.
“The horses are enjoying their time now that it has started to cool a bit and the track is riding well. We have a lot of maidens and there’s a few good maiden races and then some good older horses that have been around for a while.
“There are some new horses we hope will step up and kind of move forward a bit. We are excited about getting started.”
Pat Dobbs and Sam Hitchcock are back as the stable jockeys, and joining Watson are a few new owners.
“We have more owners with us this season,” Watson said. “We want to just go out there and do as well as we can for the owners that have horses with us and trust us to train them.”
Racing will be conducted under guidelines from the UAE government, with strict Covid-19 health and safety measures, and behind closed doors.
