Ahead of the Dubai World Cup, on Saturday, The National has talked to trainers and race officials about their fondest memories of the event. Today's subject is American trainer Doug Watson.
I arrived in Dubai in 1993 to work for trainer Satish Seemar. I was his head man and the racing community here was very small.
Lord John Fitzgerald ran racing at the time, and asked me to drive the ambulance for the first Dubai World Cup night in 1996. They just wanted somebody who knew where to go if something went wrong.
I took the job as it was a free place to watch the race. I got paid Dh400 for it but never had to do anything. I can’t even remember what Satish ran that night because, for me, it was all about one horse.
I had never seen Cigar in the flesh. I had watched his races and knew what to expect. It was just so fantastic that it was the first World Cup and the best horse from the United States was running half way across the world on a track we had been watching horses run on for three years. It was so exciting.
When you are a fan of the game, you want to see the best horses in the flesh. Ruler Of The World is coming here to race on Saturday and I want to see the Epsom Derby winner up close.
I left the vet’s room only once to watch Cigar in the paddock. Otherwise, I was sat on a little chair in the vet’s room where they did all of the post-race testing, watching it all on television.
To see Cigar come over and win so well was such a huge boost to the World Cup concept.
It has gone crazy since. The publicity it gave Dubai was phenomenal. When I first came over, I’d go home to America and say I’d been to Dubai and people would look at me blankly and say, “Is that in Saudi Arabia?”
It put Dubai on the map, and everybody in the world now knows where Dubai is.
For me, though, the most defining World Cup was obviously Dubai Millennium’s in 2000.
The whole name of the horse and what he had done on the track beforehand built up such a great expectation.
We are all here racing in Dubai because of the Maktoum family and Godolphin, and it was a dream that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid had to have this horse win. The boss was so excited about it – so it was easy to share in his moment.
I watched the race in the Irish Village area among the crowd at Nad Al Sheba, which is the equivalent to the Apron Views area at Meydan.
The crowd was going wild – it was just the whole atmosphere of the night that made it so amazing.
I was a furlong up from the wire and I was watching it from up against the rail, and when he flew by us you just could see he was never going to be beat – he was gone.
I liked Nad Al Sheba. I think we all did – it was more of a community there – but Meydan is great and every year it keeps getting better.
When you move out of your first home and into a new one, you miss your old one. Meydan is just a top-class facility and it is the next step.
Last year, Versac Py just getting beaten in the Kahayla Classic was real tough. Erwan Charpy has been a trainer here for 20 years and to see his horse run so well, and Reynaldothewizard win the Dubai Golden Shaheen for Satish, was just fantastic for all of us trainers here.
It is great to see local trainers do well on the night as it gives us all a big boost – it is a pretty small community here still and I like to think when we lose we hope another of us wins. It also gives us all hope that it is possible to win on World Cup night.
Most of the time we root for each other – I was screaming home Versac Py so much that I went hoarse.
Trainer Doug Watson was talking to Geoffrey Riddle of The National
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
