Above: Florida-bred RB Kingmaker (green silks) captures the $1.5 million Al Mneefah Cup at the Saudi Cup, a weekend of racing in Riyadh that features seven-figure races for Arabians and Thoroughbreds. Photo by Mathea Kelley for Jockey Club of Saudi Arabia.
By Steve Andersen, Daily Racing Form Correspondent
Al Ghadeer wins the 2024 Qatar International Stakes at Goodwood Racecourse in England as part of his second sweep of the lucrative Doha Triple Crown series that takes place for Arabians in three countries. Photo by Debbie Burt – Equine Creative Media.
The brilliant racehorse Al Ghadeer is not only a champion in Europe and the Middle East but has also been in world-class form in recent years.
In 12 appearances since his first start in France in July 2020, Al Ghadeer has won 11 races and earned more than $4.88 million, a staggering sum.
The windfall would not have been possible 20 years ago. Al Ghadeer would have had a different career. At the time, Al Ghadeer’s contemporaries ran for less prize money and had fewer big-race options.
In the last decade, prize money levels for top-class Arabian races worldwide have soared due to investments in several stakes in France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The prize money in the most prestigious races often equals $1 million American dollars—or more.
For a select and fortunate group of owners, there has never been a better time to own a leading Arabian runner, particularly one effective at a mile or more. American-bred horses have contributed to the success, particularly in races in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Saudi Arabia, where tracks host several lucrative and prestigious races annually.
Al Ghadeer, a six-year-old French-bred horse owned by Al Shaqab of Qatar, has recently been the red-hot leader on the international scene.
On February 16, Al Ghadeer completed his second sweep of a three-country Triple Crown with a win in the $2.5 million HH The Amir Sword at 1 ½ miles in Qatar. The series’ first two races were the $514,000 Qatar International Stakes at a mile at Goodwood Racecourse in Britain last July and the $1.09 million Qatar Arabian World Cup at 1 ¼ miles at Longchamp Racecourse in Paris in October.
Al Ghadeer swept the same three races in the second half of 2023 and early 2024.
The Qatar Arabian World Cup helped launch the lucrative era of seven-figure Arabian races by offering a purse of one million euros, or approximately $1.2 million, in 2014. The race continues to be worth one million euros, though the dollar value has fluctuated with currency exchange levels. The 2024 running was worth approximately $1.09 million, for example.
The race is an early autumn fixture toward the end of the European turf calendar for runners from leading stables on that continent finishing their seasons or others using it as part of a campaign that continues in the Middle East.
Almost immediately after the first seven-figure Qatar Arabian World Cup, venues in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates boosted prize money at their home tracks, according to statistics compiled by United States Arabian Jockey Club executive director Jonathan Horowitz.
With this win in the 2022 Sheikh Zayed Jewel Crown in Abu Dhabi, Virginia-bred First Classs (light blue silks) became the first Arabian racehorse in history to win three million-dollar-plus races in the same year. Photo by Adiyat Racing Plus.
Former American champion First Classs, representing Cre Run Farm of Doswell, Virginia, wins the Dubai Kahayla Classic, becoming the third horse to capture the $1 million stakes race multiple times three years after his first victory in the Kahayla. Photo by Dubai Racing Club.
The Kahayla Classic, run at 1 ¼ miles on dirt at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai, had its first $1 million purse in 2015 on the undercard of the famous Dubai World Cup for Thoroughbreds. The Kahayla has been part of every Dubai World Cup program since Dubai’s marquee day of racing first took place in 1996, although it was run under other names before being named after the American-bred champion Kahayla starting in 2000.
The same year, down the road in Abu Dhabi, the Sheikh Zayed Jewel Crown at a mile on turf was contested for 1.2 million euros, or $1.3 million. At the time, it was the world’s richest Arabian race. The American-bred Kalino won the first running of the Sheikh Zayed Jewel Crown.
In 2016, Qatar, which sponsors the Arabian World Cup at Longchamp, offered a $1 million purse for the first time in the HH The Amir Sword at 1 ½ miles, run each February in Qatar. Gazwan, a stalwart in international races in the middle 2010s, won the rich race that year and the Qatar Arabian World Cup at Longchamp in 2017 as part of a massively successful career from 2014 to 2019.
By 2020, the list of nations offering staggering purses grew to include Saudi Arabia when that country introduced the $20 million Saudi Cup for Thoroughbreds, the world’s richest race. Emulating programs in France and Dubai, the Saudi Cup weekend included the $1.9 million Obaiyah Cup in 2020, which took its turn as the world’s richest race for Arabians.
Tallaab Al Khalediah won the 2020 running, two years after a victory in the Kahayla Classic. This year’s Obaiyah Cup, run in February and worth $2 million, was won by Tilal Al Khalediah, a star in Saudi Arabia. Tilal Al Khalediah won the 2024 Kahayla Classic.
Saudi Arabia has also launched seven-figure races for locally-based horses in recent years.
In 2022, the Virginia-bred gelding First Classs, who began his career at Delaware Park for owner Deb Mihaloff, won the Kahayla Classic. Earlier in 2022, First Classs won the first seven-figure running of the $1 million Al Mneefah Cup at a mile in Saudi Arabia, as well as the $1.36 million Sheikh Zayed Jewel Crown in Abu Dhabi.
To prove his ability has not diminished this year as an 8-year-old, First Classs won the $1 million Kahayla Classic at Meydan on April 5. First Classs raced wide, swept to the front in early stretch, and won by three-quarters of a length for his second win in four starts in 2025.
Florida-based owner and breeder Dianne Waldron has been a fixture at the top of American Arabian racing for decades. Some of her runners have been sold to race in other countries and won seven-figure races throughout the Middle East.
The group includes RB Burn, who won the 2016 Sheikh Zayed Jewel Crown a year after Kalino’s success. On February 21 of this year, RB Kingmaker, bred by Waldron, won the $1.5 million Al Mneefah Cup at 1 5/16 miles on turf in Saudi Arabia.
RB Kingmaker has a small connection of seven-figure wins. In an up-and-down 2024 season, RB Kingmaker won the $1.22 million Presidents Cup in Abu Dhabi but was ninth in a $2.17 million running of the same race in December. In between, RB Kingmaker was second to Al Ghadeer in the Qatar Arabian World Cup in Paris.
For RB Kingmaker, getting close to that rival is an achievement of its own. Al Ghadeer has been unbeatable in major stakes—and has the bankroll to prove it.
