Dog Sports - Saluki

The 2015/2016 UAE season of  traditional Arab sports  competitions, concluded with the dog racing event for the Saluki breed, which took place over part of the Al Ain camel racecourse. This was a trial event – in the presence of Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (known as Fazza), who arrived in his personal helicopter – that served as a beta-test for the upcoming events which Microgate will manage next year, both in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

On the basis of the experience gathered from the Falconry, Target Shooting and Static Apnea competitions, this final event was also initially managed by the same input of individual competitor details on a central database, using the DogManager software. As with the birds of prey, next year the dogs too will have their individual RFID collars, to speed up recognition, entrance in competition and avoidance of involuntary or fraudulent identity changes.

The actual stopwatch timing was entrusted to the noted Photofinish FinishLynx system: one camera on the starting line checking for false starts, two cameras in opposite directions on the finishing line to establish the order of arrival of four races in different categories (Sheikh/Public) and dog gender (M/F).