With LIV Golf in limbo, there is no word on Saudi Cup future

If Saudi Arabia’s money for the LIV Golf Tour dries up at the end of the year, could the world’s richest horse race be in danger, too?

The England-based company that is contracted to help horsemen handle details to participate in the Grade 1, $20 million Saudi Cup is aware of the reporting.

“We have seen the golf rumors in the press,” said Adrian Beaumont, the director of racecourse services for the International Racing Bureau. “But (we have) heard nothing with relation to the racing.”

Flashback: Forever Young repeats in Saudi Cup.

The Jockey Club of Saudi Arabia and the government’s Public Investment Fund have not said anything this week about the future of the Saudi Cup, which has been run annually since 2020. By Friday morning Horse Racing Nation had not received responses to written requests this week for comment from spokespersons for the JCSA and the PIF.

Questions about Saudi Arabia’s investment in international sports were raised Wednesday after the $925 billion PIF chaired by the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman announced it would reassess its most expensive priorities for the next four years.

“Local investment should be 80%, and we aim for international investment to (go from 30% to) 20%,” PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan told Al Arabiya in Saudi Arabia.

According to Reuters, Saudi leaders want to focus PIF on more profitable ventures, especially in the face of the Iran war and its squeeze on exported oil.

That led to media stories Wednesday that the four-year-old LIV Golf Tour, which reportedly has lost more than $1 billion, might go out of business this spring. The tour’s CEO Scott O’Neil denied that hours later, saying it would be business as usual for the current season that ends Aug. 30.

“I want to be crystal clear,” O’Neil said in his written statement. “Our season continues exactly as planned, uninterrupted and at full throttle.”

O’Neil made no mention of a commitment to next year.

The concept of the Saudi Cup was introduced in 2018. It has been run in February for six straight years at the King Abdulaziz racecourse, which opened in 2003 in Riyadh. The race quickly outgrew the track’s 5,000-seat grandstand. The PIF’s Qiddiya Investment Group announced in February that it would build a 21,000-seat racing venue in the suburbs of Riyadh and make it expandable to 70,000 spectators for future renewals of the Saudi Cup. Whether that project is put on the back burner with the PIF’s newly announced plan remains to be seen.

LIV Golf, the Saudi Cup and the kingdom’s hosting of the 2034 men’s soccer World Cup have been criticized as examples of a sports-washing campaign designed to overshadow Saudi Arabia’s poor human-rights history.