Qiddiya Investment Company has awarded the build contract for its new racecourse to Taj Dhabi, the Saudi unit of UAE-based Trojan Construction, in a deal valued at about SAR4.3 billion, or $1.1 billion. The project is set to turn Qiddiya City into a major new racing stop, with the Saudi Cup expected to move there as the venue’s permanent home.
The scale is aimed well beyond a standard track build. Qiddiya’s plan calls for a 1.3 million-square-metre site about 45km southwest of downtown Riyadh, anchored by a 21,000-seat grandstand that can expand to 70,000 with temporary event overlays on major race days. The racing footprint includes a 2,200m turf course, a 2,400m inner dirt track and the first straight mile turf course in the Gulf Cooperation Council, a layout that gives the venue flexibility for both elite international meetings and larger festival-style race days.
The design also puts equine infrastructure at the center of the project. A 110m central parade ring will sit alongside specialised care facilities that include isolation stables, emergency treatment centres, operating rooms, diagnostics, surgery, rehabilitation and emergency care. That combination positions the complex as more than a showpiece grandstand: it is being built as a full-service racing campus capable of supporting the sort of international fields and large carnival programming that now drive the sport’s biggest weeks.
Qiddiya says the venue will operate year-round, with hospitality and entertainment uses that include fine dining and festivals. That matters for the racing calendar because it suggests a destination built to keep visitors on site outside major race days, helping Saudi Arabia stitch racing into a broader sports tourism and leisure business rather than treating the track as a single-event facility.
The new course would also give the Saudi Cup a permanent base after the race was launched at King Abdulaziz Racecourse in Riyadh in 2020. With the world’s richest horse race moving into a purpose-built venue inside Qiddiya City, the project now looks like a bid to make Saudi Arabia a fixed point on the international racing map, not just a host for one high-value weekend.
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