Sheikh Mohammed

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum (pictured below with his wife, HRH Princess Haya of Jordan) is the Ruler of Dubai - the second-largest of seven states that make up the United Arab Emirates.

Sheikh Mohammed studied in Cambridge as a young man and it was then that he attended his first horse race - watching Royal Palace win the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket with his older brother Sheikh Hamdan.

 

Ten years later, Hatta became the first winning racehorse owned by Sheikh Mohammed. Since then, Sheikh Mohammed's horses have since won almost every major race in the world, running in both his maroon and white colours and the famous blue colours of Godolphin (pictured below), the globetrotting racing stable he set up in 1994.

 

In 1996, he founded the Dubai World Cup - the world's richest ever horse race - designed to encourage other owners to bring their horses to Dubai to compete for millions of dollars in prizemoney. Two of Darley's current stallions have won this race, including Singspiel who lives here at Dalham Hall Stud.

 

The Dubai World Cup was also created to attract visitors to Dubai and thousands of people now travel there every year for a holiday or to use one of the many business centres that have been built there in the past few years.

 

 

As well as being a racehorse owner, Sheikh Mohammed is also an expert horseman and has won many endurance races. This is where horses race for several hours over long distances (sometimes 120km) - obviously they don't run as quickly as racehorses do!