World-famous jockey Willie Carson and the legendary Lester Piggott rode to major honours in the first official Nad Al Sheba horse race meeting in Dubai. The big Eid holiday crowd were treated to some excellent fare by these riders at the dirt racetrack which was officially opened. Speaking to newsmen after the races, Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Minister of Defence, congratulated the organisers on the excellent show. He added: “This is a good start for the sport here and God willing, we will be able to hold the Emirates Cup meeting in Dubai where the world’s best horses and riders will compete for honours.” Carson, riding Laila owned by Shaikh Mohammad, stormed to a photo finish and the top prize of a car and a handsome trophy in the day’s biggest stakes. Piggott, riding Taniec, set the early pace with a slender lead on the inside but Parafin took charge at the first bend. Taniec dropped further to third place as Laila set up the pace on the final straight to chase Parafin.
Other important events:
1841 US President William Henry Harrison dies of pneumonia.
1844 Germany occupies South-west Africa, Togoland and Cameroons.
1902 The Rhodes scholarship is established by Cecil Rhodes, empire builder and founder of Africa’s Rhodesia.
1939 Faisal II becomes the last King of Iraq.
1945 US forces liberate the Nazi death camp at Ohrdruf in Germany.
1960 Senegal declares independence from France.
1968 Civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
1975 The Microsoft company is founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
1979 Former Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is hanged.
1984 US President Ronald Reagan signs a policy directive designed to combat international terrorism.
1992 More than 1,200 French troops, the first major contingent of a UN peacekeeping force, arrive in war-torn Croatia.
1994 North Atlantic Treaty is signed in Washington.
1994 Serbs launch major attack on besieged Muslim enclave of Gorazde in Bosnia.
1996 US Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and an entourage of top American business executives are killed in a plane crash in Croatia.
2000 The E-government initiative is launched in Dubai.
2001 Sudan’s Defence Minister and 14 other military officers are killed when their plane crashes on take-off.
2002 The Angolan Civil War ends after 26 years.
2006 Kuwaiti women cast votes for the first time in a by-election for a municipal council seat less than a year after winning full political rights.
2007 Iran announces the release of 15 captive British sailors and marines charged for trespassing after 13 days.
2009 Denmark Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen is named new Nato Secretary-General.
2010 Nine miners are pulled to safety after spending more than a week trapped in a flooded coal mine in northern China.
2011 The International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) officially confirms the UAE as the permanent headquarters of the global agency.
2013 At least 72 people die after a half finished building collapsed in Mumbai, India.
2016 Mehbooba Mufti sworn in as the first woman chief minister of India’s Jammu and Kashmir state.
