By MIKE DILLON
Les Benton should have been at Royal Ascot this week, but he popped up at Tauranga on Saturday instead.
And it brought home to you where the focus of racing is heading.
Internationally, and don't let anyone tell you anything different.
The former Victorian Racing Club racing manager and now Dubai-based chairman of the Dubai World Cup committee missed Royal Ascot to oversee the purchase of 60 New Zealand rising 3-year-old gallopers for Dubai.
In conjunction with Graeme Rogerson, Benton selected the 60 unraced youngsters to be sold at an inaugural Dubai auction on October 7.
"They will be eligible for a race worth approximately $1 million New Zealand dollars on March 15 next year in addition to them being able to run in the $NZ8 million UAE Derby and eight other races worth on average $NZ300,000," said Benton.
"The sale is to boost the Southern Hemisphere presence in Dubai, but also to create a Southern Hemisphere versus Northern Hemisphere competition."
It helps when you own your own country, particularly an oil-rich one, and what Dubai's oil sheiks have put in place is the envy of the racing world.
Benton announced that stakemoney for the Dubai World Cup meeting in March will be a staggering $NZ28 million.
"The seven race programme of two group ones, two group twos and three group threes is about to be ratified by the international classification committee."
It didn't take Benton long to find Trevor and Stephen McKee to solicit Sunline's presence.
The news was good for the McKees. If Sunline had gone to Dubai in March she would have had the almost impossible task of battling the brilliance of Dubai Millennium in the Dubai World Cup.
The world champion Godolphin galloper will almost certainly be back for the same race next year, but Benton announced a new race of 1800m on grass, worth $NZ5 million, which brought a smile from Trevor McKee.
While few horses are equally as good on dirt and grass, the Sunline camp has always been confident Sunline would manage a dirt track. The new race eliminates any risk in that area and no Dubai Millennium is a huge bonus.
The racing world envies carnivals like Dubai, but there is no mystery. These days international events are all that matter.
A classic example is the America's Cup. It held our nation spellbound and took so much money out of the Auckland economy outside the viaduct basin, two thirds of small businesses nearly hit the wall.
But next weekend put similar sized boats on the Hauraki Gulf owned by the Huntly RSA, Hukurangi Fisheries and Papa- toetoe's Eat At Joe's and no one would turn up.
We still get big crowds to major days like the Auckland Cup, Derby Day and the Great Northerns. Harness racing is the same and so are the big days in Australia.
But we are so spoilt by choice at the top end, few care about domestic rugby, racing, league, athletics or anything else.
Which is why when a High Court judge in Wellington this week sits on whether racing should be allowed gaming machines on racecourses, he should be thinking globally, literally and figuratively.
The sustainable funding of an industry as important to New Zealand as racing, is on a much higher philosophical plane than simply whether Bert and Jim should or should not be permitted to walk to their local racecourse and fling $20 at a pokie.
Being able to be in a position to have a Sunline to complete at the pinnacle in Dubai is crucial not only to New Zealand racing, but to New Zealand.
"The reason these horses are being bought from New Zealand is because I managed to convince Sheik Mohammed that New Zealand horses are the toughest in the world and can maintain racing form in foreign environments when horses from other countries might be feeling the pinch," said Graeme Rogerson.
Rogerson is opening a satellite stable in Dubai and Benton says any trainer is invited to look at setting up a 10-box satellite.
"We have just built three new stabling complexes with 200 boxes and we are looking for up to 10 trainers to establish themselves.
"Our grass track is the best in the world. Everyone who rides on it says so - Frankie Dettori, Greg Hall, Richard Hills. Frankie says it's like galloping on a sponge and we maintain it properly."
John Sadler, who gave up training in Melbourne late last year, has just been contracted to be a Emirates Racing club trainer with a 50-box complex.
"And we are building a five-tier grandstand and renovating the existing grandstand," said Benton.
Frank and Craig Ritchie won the first race at Tauranga on Saturday with Likely Story.
Within 10 minutes Benton had asked Frank Ritchie about taking class mare Showella to Dubai in March for the $NZ5 million 2400m race on grass.
He invited Ritchie and Show- ella's owner Terry Archer to fly all expenses paid to Dubai in February to inspect the track and racing complex.
It certainly helps when you own your own country.
Racing: Dubai race big bonus for Sunline
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