Home FeatureA long shot

A long shot

The government had a chance to turn the Hippodrome into a first class racetrack and blew it

by Hadi khatib

0nly on Sunday mornings can the thunder of horse hooves and the cheers and moans of men be heard rising up from the 84-year-old Beirut Hippodrome. In stark contrast to the glamorous Mediterranean racetrack it was before the war, the facility today is in a sorry state. Its concrete bleachers look like the seating one would find in a third-rate football stadium. The lighting for the track was blown out during the war and never repaired. Consequently, potentially lucrative night races cannot be held. There are only 10% of the number of stables today than there were during the early 1970s. And the Hippodrome has become a big money loser. Between 1995 and 1997, the Association for the Protection and Improvement of Arabian horses (SPARCA), a non-profit organization that has been managing the track since the late I 960s, reported a loss of about $700,000 from the facility, which has

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