A nonstop flight from Cape Town to Dubai generally lasts 10 hours. But for a dozen of the best racehorses from South Africa, the trip to Dubai this racing season took five months.

The horses are from the stable of Mike de Kock, the globe-trotting South African trainer who has won nine races on the Dubai World Cup program since 2003, a total second only to that of the Dubai-based trainer Saeed bin Suroor.

To enter the 2013 races on Saturday at Meydan Race Course, the horses had to spend a total of five months in quarantine in a variety of climates in four countries and two hemispheres.

Since then, some of them have won at Meydan in the weeks leading up to World Cup night, when strong performances could add to de Kock’s sparkling résumé.

The quarantine is a response to the vector-born African Horse Sickness. Similar to malaria in humans, it is carried by a midge, and thus highly infectious but not contagious. It comes and goes seasonally, and is only found in the south of Africa in the wet summer months.

The South African racing industry has long maintained tight rules to prevent its outbreak. It keeps a so-called free zone in Cape Town, from which horses are shipped overseas, and next to it an observation area that safeguards the free zone. No case of African Horse Sickness has ever been exported.

In 2011, there was a breach of the observation area and, following European Union mandate, South African authorities shut down the free zone for two years. This has resulted in elaborate travel arrangements for departing horses.

Last year de Kock, who also trains for several of Dubai’s patrons, left his best South African horses behind. But given the colossal World Cup purses and opportunity to showcase his country’s best, he brought them along this season.

The horses’ journey began in June with a 20-day stint in Cape Town, followed by 90 days in Mauritius, where they were confined to bare-bones stalls for two-thirds of the day at the island nation’s half-mile racetrack. From there they traveled to England, where they stayed for a month at Newmarket before flying to Dubai for a final quarantine. The horses arrived lacking fitness, and a filly named Emotif nearly died in quarantine in Dubai because of heat stress.

The ordeal has left the trainer angry and frustrated. “I think the whole thing is over the top,” de Kock said. “I think it’s based on paranoia, not on sense and not on science.”

Last autumn, Alan Guthrie, the director of the Equine Research Centre at the University of Pretoria, designed a test that can detect African Horse Sickness, which incubates for at most 14 days.

But de Kock said that this test and research has not been acknowledged by trading partners. His conviction is that South Africans should be able to export horses freely during the winter months when the disease is non-existent. For decades, however, South African horses have faced strict barriers — at least a 40-day quarantine before departure — although never as severe as the current regulations.

De Kock, 46, first brought five horses to race in Dubai in 2003, and won two races on World Cup night, raising his profile and the quality of South African racing. For the first two years, he was able to ship horses directly from South Africa to Dubai.

Despite repeated attempts to discuss the quarantine with Dubai officials since 2004, de Kock said he has not received a reply. The import and export of horses falls under the Meydan track’s jurisdiction rather than that of the Agriculture Ministry, which de Kock considers problematic.

Still, his charges have run admirably this season. He raced them into form, and the results showed: His first-up runners — horses in their first races after the lengthy break — are 2-for-25 (including those from other countries), but 11-for-51 overall in their starts after that. The two winners right after the layoff — the undefeated Soft Falling Rain, who will start in the Group 2 Godolphin Mile on Saturday night, and The Apache, who will contest the Group 1 Duty Free — had both been through the five-month quarantine.

Igugu, South Africa’s 2011 horse of the year, is also entered in the Duty Free. De Kock expects more from her after two losses in Dubai, especially since she had not raced in more than 12 months. She fractured a splint in quarantine in England, and after arriving in Dubai, “her hormones just went for a loop,” de Kock said. “She started to behave like a Northern Hemisphere filly, cycling in January and February.”

De Kock’s efforts have been followed closely in his home country.

“It’s an absolute testament to the horsemanship from Mike’s side and the hardiness of South African horses to go through that process and still perform on a world stage,” said Derek Brugman, the racing manager for Ingrid and Markus Jooste, two of South Africa’s most successful owners.

In early January, the Joostes asked Dubai Racing Club to consider an abbreviated quarantine for Variety Club, their 2012 South African horse of the year and one of the world’s top-rated milers. Despite several e-mail requests, they did not receive a reply for more than three weeks: They were told that the United Arab Emirates policy for direct shipment from South Africa had not changed.

“We’re dealing with anything from a quarter to a third of a horse’s career that you’re spending traveling or in quarantine to get to a venue to participate,” Brugman said.

The export rules end in May, but E.U. inspectors must visit South Africa and then send recommendations to the European Parliament for ratification. It could take four months before the old protocols are reinstated.

De Kock, meanwhile, believes that the current conditions have held back the South African racing industry and dissuaded commercial breeding farms from moving into the country, since they cannot shuttle their stallions between hemispheres without difficulty.

“More than anything else,” de Kock added, “I think there is an animal welfare thing at stake here. It’s just not normal for horses to have to be put through all this for 150 days.”  – From a special report, Bloodstock SA.

Photo: Track work in Dubai. (Andrew Watkins).