The American and European racing seasons are barely underway and the Breeders' Cup is seven months away, but the two best horses in the world will meet on Saturday in Dubai, where the $6-million World Cup is the main event on a racing card that offers more than $20 million in purses to horses sent to the shores of the Persian Gulf from the United States, Europe and Asia.

The Dubai World Cup, conceived by the ruling family of Dubai as an international showcase for racing in the oil-rich emirate, has come a long way since Cigar, in the midst of a 16-race winning streak, took the inaugural running in 1996 at the Nad Al Sheba Race Course. At the time, it was an oddity outside the region, an amusement for fabulously wealthy Arab royalty in a place where betting is forbidden. But as the influence and reach of the Maktoum family has spread from dominance of European racing to global domination, this single evening of racing in the desert has become a major objective of top-class horses, many of which race beneath the various colors of the proprietors of the Dubai Racing Club.

Not surprisingly, the brothers Maktoum happen to own both Invasor and Discreet Cat, the principals in the World Cup.

Invasor was the winner of the Triple Crown in Uruguay at age and, after being purchased by Sheikh Hamden al Maktoum for $1.4 million, is the reigning Horse of the Year in the United States, a title secured with a convincing victory over the champion 3-year-old of last season, Bernardini, in the Breeders' Cup Classic. The undefeated Discreet Cat won the UAE Derby on World Cup day a year ago for Sheikh Mohammed al Maktoum, who purchased the colt at age after a flashy maiden win at Saratoga. Though he missed the American Triple Crown, Discreet Cat ended an abbreviated season with a convincing victory in the Grade I Cigar Mile at Aqueduct that established his place among the best male thoroughbreds in a year that produced Barbaro, Bernardini and Invasor.

An incredible winning move at the end of the Donn Handicap at Gulfstream Park last month suggests that the 5-year-old Invasor has lost nothing and on the heels of a season during which the indefatigable Argentina-bred won the Pimlico Special, Suburban and Whitney Handicaps in advance of the Breeders' Cup Classic. Despite those heady victories and another, with Jazil, in the Belmont Stakes, trainer Kiaran McLaughlin regards the World Cup as uniquely important.

"Winning this race for Sheikh Hamden," he said, "would be the biggest win of my career."

Discreet Cat goes into the World Cup without the benefit of a conditioning race but worked a fast mile over the track on which he defeated a traffic-compromised Invasor in the UAE Derby last year. He has established repeatedly that he is not a colt dulled by inactivity.

"He's now in the biggest race of his life," said Simon Crisford, racing manager for Sheikh Mohammed's Godolphin Stable. "He has all the hallmarks of a great champion and we're very hopeful he can maintain his unbeaten record. We haven't been around too many like him. Class is the key word and he has it in abundance."

Unfortunately, what is potentially the best race that will be run this year and its supporting card may be seen live in New York only at Aqueduct. Churchill Downs, which owns the U.S. simulcast rights, has withheld the live signal from various OTB channels, which will be permitted to show only the World Cup replay. ABC will broadcast both the taped World Cup and UAE Derby Saturday afternoon.

This is lamentable. There is no guarantee that Invasor and Discreet Cat will ever meet again and this World Cup has the potential to be a race for the ages. All too often the politics of racing works against the interest of the fans.