Chief executive Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges could not hide his pleasure at the way the customers embraced the occasion of the Dubai World Cup. Despite the fact that Dubai's card ended at almost 2am (HK time), punters maintained their interest to the end, wagering HK$65,261,059 on the five races - pound-for-pound the best of the external simulcasts this season at a tick more than HK$13 million a race. He kept track of the figures on his trusty Blackberry, all the while well aware the meeting might not have gone ahead at all in slightly different circumstances. Newspapers were afire with news that Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Ahmed bin Zayed al-Nahyan was missing after a glider in which he was travelling had come down in a lake in Morocco. Had his body been found, it seems assured, Meydan or no Meydan, and the Santana and Elton John concert notwithstanding, World Cup night would have been cancelled out of respect for Sheikh Ahmed.