{"id":363558,"date":"2026-03-02T07:17:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T07:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/363558\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T07:17:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T07:17:14","slug":"irish-racing-stars-waiting-to-find-out-when-they-can-fly-home-from-dubai-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/363558\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish racing stars waiting to find out when they can fly home from Dubai \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Johnny Murtagh is among the Irish and other high-profile European racing figures awaiting news of when they will be able to travel home from Dubai <\/a>having attended Meydan\u2019s Super Saturday fixture at the weekend. <\/p>\n

On Sunday the Curragh trainer was one of a large group of racing professionals urged to stay inside the Meydan Hotel, which overlooks the racecourse, roughly 12km from downtown Dubai.<\/p>\n

Iranian attacks have caused some damage to Dubai International Airport in the continuing conflict between the US<\/a>, Israel <\/a>and Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All of it made for a bizarre context to Saturday\u2019s Meydan action, which continued despite the political and military uncertainty in the Middle East. Explosions were heard and seen in the sky over Dubai while racing took place. <\/p>\n

\u201cLast night was pretty surreal. You\u2019re standing in the paddock watching missiles get shot through the sky,\u201d English trainer Jamie Osborne said. <\/p>\n

The United Arab Emirates government said that its air defences intercepted 137 missiles and 209 drones. Dubai International Airport is reportedly closed until at least Monday.<\/p>\n

Sheikh Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai, appeared at the races where he watched his Godolphin stalwart Rebel\u2019s Romance win a Group Two contest.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Colin Keane takes on Rebel\u2019s Romance in Dubai aboard his father\u2019s Crystal BlackOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Crystal Black, ridden by the six-time Irish champion jockey Colin Keane for his father Gerry, finished last in that race while another Irish hope, Murtagh\u2019s Alakazi, under jockey Ben Coen, ran fourth to Quddwah in the Group Two Singspiel Stakes.<\/p>\n

\"ColinColin Keane on Crystal Black comes home to win at the Curragh in May 2024. Photograph: Morgan Treacy\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Some of Europe\u2019s biggest racing names had flown into Dubai for Saturday\u2019s valuable card including jockeys Ryan Moore and Oisin Murphy. It is unclear when they will be able to fly home again. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are people from the city moving out to the Meydan Hotel, thinking it\u2019s maybe a little bit safer out here as it\u2019s a bit out of the way. People are ringing me up to ask me if I\u2019m okay, but it seems like it\u2019s normal here,\u201d Murtagh said on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, in saying that, you can hear explosions every now and again. We were walking down to the track and there was a big bang. It seemed like it was close enough. But I don\u2019t know if they\u2019re landing or they\u2019re being intercepted in the sky.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody from the racing community is here in the Meydan, well, 90 per cent of those who came for Super Saturday. The place is packed with racing people, Irish, English, French, and we\u2019re just holding tight. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know how long we\u2019re going to be stuck here. Airspace is all closed. People are saying it will open on Wednesday, but there\u2019s loads of rumours, and we\u2019re doing this, and doing that. We don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been no announcement from Dubai because they don\u2019t probably know either. Stay inside, that\u2019s basically what we\u2019re told. I went down to the market there earlier to buy clothes and it\u2019s quiet around the shopping centres. It seems lot quieter than normal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were explosions [during Saturday\u2019s racing]. You could see drones in the sky and explosions. Sheikh Mohammed turned up and I thought if he\u2019s at the races it\u2019s probably as safe as anywhere in Dubai. It just seemed to carry on as normal. It all doesn\u2019t seem to be as big here as from what I\u2019m hearing from people watching on TV at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving said that, there was a lady I met at breakfast this morning who said she was evacuated from the Fairmont [Hotel] last night and as they were being evacuated the reception was where all the injured people were,\u201d the former champion jockey added. <\/p>\n

Murtagh said he hadn\u2019t had contact with any Irish officials. \u201cI\u2019m after just meeting Colin Keane here, there\u2019s Ben, Ryan Moore just beside me, we\u2019re all here and just staying inside,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all far removed from the continuing local countdown to Cheltenham where one of the big festival decisions revolves around whether the JP McManus-owned Fact To File will be supplemented into the Cheltenham Gold Cup or lines up instead in the Ryanair Chase.<\/p>\n

\"JPJP McManus: on the countdown to Cheltenham. Photograph: Stephen Collins\/Collins <\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be a last-minute decision, right up to the six-day stage. Everything is under consideration,\u201d McManus\u2019s spokesman Frank Berry said. <\/p>\n

It could leave Mark Walsh with a decision to make after last year\u2019s Blue Riband winner Inothewayurthinkin was well backed over the weekend to return to form at Cheltenham. The jockey ended February with a career-best monthly haul of 14 winners after a success at Navan on Saturday. He has a single spin at Leopardstown on Monday. That\u2019s on The Wallpark, once a potential Cheltenham starter but now lining up for his first handicap in Monday\u2019s \u20ac45,000 feature. Last season\u2019s Stayers Hurdle third drops in trip from his last start and the race\u2019s other handicap debutant, Fishery Lane, could be another to examine.<\/p>\n

El Fabiolo is a likely favourite for an earlier conditions hurdle although very testing conditions might help Maxxum upset the ratings calculations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Johnny Murtagh is among the Irish and other high-profile European racing figures awaiting news of when they will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[3819,18,21050,19,17,45036,17320,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-363558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-dubai","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-horse-racing","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-israel-iran-conflict","14":"tag-jp-mcmanus","15":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116158362291719804","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}