Jockey Club Of Saudi Arabia Confirms Riyadh Season Dates
Fixtures Run October To February
The Jockey Club of Saudi Arabia has confirmed the shape of the 2026-27 Riyadh Racing Season, with fixtures at King Abdulaziz Racecourse running every Thursday, Friday and Saturday from October 2026 through to a season finale on Saudi Cup Weekend, held on Friday 5 and Saturday 6 February 2027.
Saudi Cup Weekend remains the centrepiece of the Saudi Arabian racing calendar, built around the Saudi Cup itself, the world's richest horse race worth US$20 million. Meeting 69, the opening night of Saudi Cup Weekend, takes place on the Friday, with Meeting 70, Saudi Cup Race Night, following on the Saturday at King Abdulaziz Racecourse. The club's published race calendar lists the Riyadh course as active from 16 October 2026 through to 14 March 2027, covering the full run of domestic fixtures either side of the international showpiece.
The Riyadh programme sits at the heart of a season that has grown steadily in scale in recent years, with the club continuing to position the venue as the focal point for Saudi Arabian thoroughbred and Purebred Arabian racing between the autumn and the following spring. Full meeting by meeting details for the new campaign are due to be published closer to the October start, in keeping with the club's usual practice of releasing the fixture list shortly before racing resumes.
Taif Card Sets The Stage For Riyadh
Riyadh's new season follows on from the Taif Summer Racing Season, which ran from 24 July to 26 September 2026 at King Khalid Racecourse in the western highlands city of Taif. The summer programme staged meetings every Friday and Saturday, with around eleven races on each raceday and a mix of thoroughbred and Purebred Arabian contests supporting the club's development pathway for both breeds.
The Taif season built towards a King Faisal Cup Weekend on 25 and 26 September, headlined by two of the most prestigious Purebred Arabian events on the domestic calendar, the Group Three King Faisal bin Abdulaziz Cup and the Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Cup, each worth SAR1 million (US$266,000). The Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Cup received its Group Three classification from the International Federation of Arabian Horse Racing ahead of this year's running, having progressed from Listed status only two years after its inception in 2021 and been won for the last two years by Tilal Al-Khalediah.
The summer season concluded on 26 September with National Day Cup Night, featuring the SAR450,000 (US$120,000) National Day Cup for Thoroughbreds. Several of the season's leading performers, including horses that appeared on Saudi Cup night in February, returned to action across the ten week Taif programme, with the club also introducing a new points calculation mechanism for the Owners, Trainers, Jockeys and Horses Championship, weighting victories according to the classification of the race and the quality of the performance behind them.
With Taif now concluded and its own Jockeys' Championship decided, attention across Saudi Arabian racing turns to the Riyadh season opener in October, the first step on a road that runs through the winter carnival period to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Cup and King Abdulaziz Cup on Saudi Cup Trials Weekend, and on to the season defining Saudi Cup itself on the first Saturday of February.
Raiders Eye The New Fixture List
King Abdulaziz Racecourse has developed over recent seasons into one of the busiest venues on the international calendar during its winter window, staging a run of meetings that build in significance towards the Saudi Cup Trials Weekend and, ultimately, Saudi Cup Weekend itself. The venue's picturesque viewing lawns, hospitality suites and private boxes have become a familiar backdrop for the sport's biggest names, with the Jockey Club of Saudi Arabia continuing to invest in the surrounding entertainment and hospitality offering to complement the racing programme.
The confirmation of the 2026-27 dates also allows international trainers and owners, many of whom have become regular visitors to Riyadh in recent seasons, to begin planning campaigns around the new fixture list well in advance. With Saudi Cup Weekend now fixed for the first weekend of February, targets among the Kingdom's growing roster of raiders from Europe, the Americas and East Asia can be mapped out alongside the domestic prep races that lead into the meeting, much as they were during the build up to the seventh running of the Saudi Cup earlier this year.