Still horsing around

On Easter Monday, the Hippodrome hosts a new horse race, one a little different from all the others. Just six or seven horses will run that day, and to the untrained eye, the beasts stampeding around the track may look much the same as all the others billeted in the Hippodrome’s stables. But whereas the regular runners set their owners back in the region of $8,000 to $10,000, those running on Easter Monday can be worth around $50,000 – possibly much more.  The difference is that their bloodlines are DNA accredited by the World Arabian Horse Organization (WAHO), a British-based society that controls the stud books for purebred Arabian horses all over the world. The Easter race in Beirut for WAHO horses is the first of its kind in Lebanon, opening a new chapter for investors in high-class equines, and throwing the precarious situation of their heartland, the Hippodrome, into