The first Arabian horse show ever held in Dubai was in 2004, and it was an immediate success and major step forward for the United Arab Emirates, The show shot to success like a rocket into air! Since then, everybody talks about the Dubai show, and about it's progress, and you feel that this show has existed for many, many years. With HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and U.A.E. Minister of Finance & Industry, as the Patron, the Dubai Show committee creates something really magnificent each year, making us experience something more every time, and creates different and new ideas show by show. Headed by Ziad Abdullah Al Galadari, a successful business man from Dubai, the DIAHC Committee has set up an excellent team, the show management is headed by Melanie Mannix. She is best known to many people as being a most effective key person during the show days, and she has also visited some of the major shows in Europe representing the DIAHC Committee. The Dubai show has become one of the most prestigeous ones!

HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai (left),
HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Patron of the DIAHC show (right)

Photo: Irina Filsinger

Melanie Mannix, Show Manager * Ziad Al Galadari, Head of Show Committee

Photo: Irina Filsinger

About Dubai and the area

Dubai is the second largest emirate of the United Arab Emirates. It is a major center of tourism, and the city grown immensely. Dubai is a very modern city where orient and occident meet. The ruler of Dubai is H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the UAE defence minister, who is best known in the equine field as a most successful endurance rider together with his sons in addition to his activities in thoroughbred flat racing.

Dubai is a rich country, and you can see the gold and glamour everywhere. However, the oil resources in the emirate of Dubai is limited, and the government have been aware of this for years. It's international harbour is a major gate to the Middle East, but it will not be enough for the future to bring the required standard for the emirate of Dubai for the next decades and centuries after the oil has gone. The Dubai people became aware early enough that they need to do something for the days after the oil, and they started to establish other means of income and all types of business varieties in the country. And when the Dubai people do something, they know how to do and do it in best way without any limits accepted. They make things possible that nobody would have believed possible - they are able to move mountains ..... All things are done in a most successful way, with a great understanding and mind of business and quality. Dubai is also a center of highest technologies, of a modern world, and one of the main focuses had been to open up and attract tourism. Dubai has become a major gateway to the Middle East and the Orient!

From the First DIAHC show until today ....

For horse people all over the world, for many years Dubai is already known for the most prestigious and famous "Dubai World Cup", the big flatracing meeting in April each year, with a prize money of one million U.S.Dollars. The Dubai World Cup attracts the best racing horses flown in to participate and compete in this most prestigious racing. No wonder, that sooner or later, the Dubai people would discover the Arabian horse shows and start another new field to follow up in halter shows what Dubai has already setup in flat racing. And they did!

Photo: Irina Filsinger

In 2004, the Dubai International Arabian Horse Championships (DIAHC) started up and had it's first experiences. Held indoor in the Dubai World Trade Center (DWTC) in the city of Dubai, the second year the DIAHC Committee added an international equine affairs and exhibition next door to the show. Another major and most impressive new step in 2005, the DIAHC Committee invited a group of most successful horses of the preceeding European shows to come over and to compete at the Dubai International Show. Whow - what a chance for some Europeans, and several of the invited horses and owners took the once in a lifetime chance, flying in March from the cold European winter to very convenient summer climate in the Middle East. Not only were all costs for this journey paid for by the DIAHC Commitee, but additionally there were also some magnificent prizes placed for the champions of this show: a car for each champion, and each reserve! One of the happy winners was the Despeghels of Dion Arabians, Belgium, winning a Porsche Cayenne, and the Jones family, from Wales, Great Britain, who ended up with a car at the DIAHC 2005 - ETERNITY IBN NAVARRONE won Champion Stallion, and the three-year-old chestnut HANIYYAH Reserve Champion Filly.

The 3rd Dubai International Arabian Horse Show in 2006 brought up a bigger group of European horses invited to the Dubai show, and the event in general increased. Not only were major champions of the big show on the list, but also some successful horses from smaller shows who now competed against the horses from the Middle East. Besides the halter classes, there were also classes for racing horses, endurance horses and a championships for foals, all presented and judged in halter. The day before the show was an Arabian horse auction held in front of a huge crowd and audience, with many horses been sold at a high price - the interest in Arabian horses in the Emirates increases more and more!

Photo: Irina Filsinger

Now we are heading for the 4th Dubai International Horse Championships, which will be held on 2nd to 4th of April 2007 at the Dubai World Trade Center. And again, some new steps have been made: the first, second, and third shows had been an ECAHO affiliated "B" show, in 2007 it will be an ECAHO affiliated "A" show!

Photo: Irina Filsinger

The Dubai Gold Cup (DGC)

Furthermore, there is the so-called "Dubai Gold Cup" (DGC), a specific competition amongst the most successful horses from a series of shows upon a specific point system, and foreign horses invited to Dubai for the show and to participate in the Dubai Gold Cup, which is created as a system by it's own and outside the ECAHO, who refuses to accept any awarded price money in a show. This made the Committee creating this specific "Dubai Gold Cup" competiton to meet their interest but also to respect that ECAHO doesn't want to have prize money in an ECAHO show. Orient meets Occident!

Photo: Irina Filsinger

The DGC is an inception and part of the Dubai show. Horses participating in the DGC are been successful in a series of advanced selected shows throughout Europe and Dubai, which had been

• The 2006 International Championship in Menton, France (ECAHO A-show)
• The 2006 ELRAN Cup - International Show in Borgloon, Belgium (ECAHO A-rated)
• The 2006 U.K.I.A.H.S. International Show in Towerlands, Great Britain (ECAHO A-rated)
• The 2007 Dubai International Arabian Horse Championship in Dubai (ECAHO A-rated)

Horses competing in any of these shows will accrue points. The points will be awarded on the basis of the specific result in those shows, for example, a champion of the three European shows is credited with 10 points, a reserve 8 points, a class winner 5 points, a 2nd placed 3 points, a 3rd placed 2 points, and in the Dubai International show double points.

Horses will gain points through competing at these selected shows and if they in turn compete and finalize the series in the ECAHO A-rated 'Dubai International Arabian Horse Show' in March 2007, they will be included in the Dubai Gold Cup, and will be eligible to win a generous prize awarded to the horse with highest points accumulated in each category - fillies, colts, mares & stallions. And to win the Dubai Gold Cup is not all, each winner will also win prize money of 100,000 U.S.Dollars! Worth a go, isn't it!

Dubai - the international city, where orient meets occident

Photo: Irina Filsinger

Photo: Irina Filsinger

The Dubai show is open to everybody who loves to come and attend. To travel to and stay in Dubai is so easy and comfortable - no harmt! With nearly daily flights departing from major international airports all over Europe, and an airfare return ticket - in example, from Frankfurt to Dubai - you can purchase for only +/- 800 EUR. The show is held at the "Dubai World Trade Center", about half-an-hour drive from Dubai airport toward the city area. For most of the countries in the European Union there is no need for an advanced applied visa, you may fly to Dubai, and when pass the customs, you get your free visa by a stamp in your passport and valid normally for one month. When you leave the Emirates again, you get your exit visa stamp, and everything is fine. However, if you have any doubt, if you need a special visa in advance, just call the embassy of the United Arab Emirates in your country and check with them.

Photo: Irina Filsinger

In Dubai, you will meet a modern western world with the classical touch of the orient. Daily life and procedures are very open. Restaurants, Coffee Shops, Shopping malls, Discos etc. are everywhere, and if sometimes, you will not be aware that you are in an Arab country as you feel like you are in your home area and a most modern western city. The architecture and skyline of Dubai is reminiscent to one of those skylines in major cities of America. It is only when you see the classical dressed Arabs in their so-named white Dishdash with the red-white or white veil over their heads, or some veiled ladies in their black dress, that you remember where you are. Or when see one or the lovely old mosques, or hear the muezzin calling for prayers, or visit the gold market and so-named "souk", the classical Arab market. Daily life in Dubai is really easy and gentle, and everybody speaks English. You are free to move everywhere, taxis are available everywhere, and you can also find a lot of evening events or the night life. During the Arabic weekend, which is Thursday and Friday in Dubai, the city is really totally overcrowded - everybody, also from the neighboured emirates, comes to Dubai to enjoy the weekend.

About the show, the location and the schedule

To the showground in the Dubai World Trade Center, everybody who wants to attend and watch the show has a free access in the public area. A specific area at one side of the show ring is reserved for the high V.I.P.s and royals, of which several ones from all over the Middle East attend regularly to enjoy the show in person and "live" (while the Dubai TV broadcasts the whole show live in TV at the Dubai sports channel) . The show starts every day at the typical Arab time and schedule, around 3 to 4 p.m. (=15:00 to 16:00 o'clock), and proceeds until the evening hours. The championships and finals, as well as the DGC awarding will be held the last show day which is April 6th. Participants from all over the Middle East - Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, and others, as well as horses invited from Europe will come and compete at the DIAHC 2007. Take your chance, and visit Dubai to attend this impressive show and during the (horse) days when the orient and the occident come together.