NYTimes article on Dubai..........not good

[BH]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/business/global/26dubai.html

[miff]

Sheik Mo,

Biggest sucker in the history of the game.


Mike

[chrifron]

This does not bode well for the horse racing industry all over the world--Sheikh  Mohammed owns Darley and is the leading partner in Godolphin..He owns Ballysheehan Stud in Ireland. He also owns Gainsborough Farms In Versailles, KY. He recently bought the Woodlands Stud empire, the largest in Australia, for $US 420 million. He makesStronach and Magna look like a drop in the bucket.

I would be concerned about the Dubai World Cup happening in March.

Not to mention that the stock market will take a big hit on this tomorrow and the price of oil has already been impacted.

[miff]

\"The troubles of Dubai are absolutely no surprise to the horse-racing and breeding industry, and most especially the good burghers of Newmarket. “Over the last 30 years, the Maktoums have sprayed money at racing and breeding with no regard for financial return, woeful management and a total lack of strategy, to the extent of being ripped off by market inflation that they themselves cause,” says the boss of a rival bloodstock stable. “Their lack of commercialism has been evident for all to see.”

Meanwhile, the Maktoums\' foray into horse racing is losing $200 million per year\"



...poor Sheik Mo will have to start purchasing NY Bred slow rats! Story out of Wall Street has the English banks, which finance Dubai,insisting on a huge cut back or, heavens forbid,liquidation of Sheik Mo\'s horse holdings.

From England to Ireland to Kentucky to Florida, breeders, pinhookers et al are shaking in their boots as the games biggest sucker may be gone.


Mike

[miff]

Bloodhorse;

\"Sheikh Mohammed, and his family are also major players in the worldwide Thoroughbred auctions and breeding markets. Sheikh Mohammed’s Darley breeding operation stands stallions in six countries with 15 stallions located at his farm near Lexington. At auction in 2009, Sheikh Mohammed’s bloodstock agent John Ferguson purchased 111 yearlings in the North America and Europe worth more than $46,782,000. The financial crisis had not been expected to substantially affect any of Sheikh Mohammed’s Thoroughbred holdings because these business don’t have any ties to Dubai World.

“The restructuring of Dubai World has nothing to do with Sheikh Mohammed’s Thoroughbred racing interests, as they are private,” Ferguson told the Financial Times earlier\"




Mike