I woke up at dawn to follow a top falconer training the fastest creatures on earth to compete for a $7 million prize, and found the Middle East's oldest pastime both grisly and thrilling

• Though falconry has existed in cultures throughout history, it has a central role in the United Arab Emirates and Middle Eastern culture, where nomads have long used falcons to hunt for food.
• In the UAE, falconers train their falcons, which can cost up to $60,000 a bird, to race at hundreds of miles an hour in the President's Cup, a national competition where the fastest falcons can win up to $7 million in prizes. For some, the pricey birds have become a status symbol akin to fancy European sports cars.
• I spent a day with the top trainers at the Abu Dhabi Falconers Club, one of the UAE's premier falconry organizations, to see what the pastime is like now. It is enthralling, fascinating, and grisly to watch.

Every winter morning, Hamad Al-Falasi and his team rise before dawn and drive dusty 4x4s into the harsh Arabian desert. Before the sun ever crests the tawny dunes, the men have sipped their coffee and carried a small army of muscular birds to perches in the sand.

There are dozens of different falcons — nut-brown and speckled white Peregrines, silver Gyrfalcons dappled with black, bluish-gray Sakers, and any number of hybrid species bred for temperament or speed.

The trainers, dressed in long white kanduras, carry the birds one at a time to Al-Falasi. He removes a leather hood from each and, one by one, the raptors accelerate faster than a Formula One race car and follow a diving flight path to a trainer standing a few hundred yards off, holding a bundle of feathers fixed to rope.

Al Falasi is the head trainer of the Abu Dhabi Falconers Club, a government-owned club started in 2013 to promote falconry in the United Arab Emirates. Though falconry has existed in numerous cultures throughout history, it has always been central to Middle Eastern culture.

The Bedouin Arabs, the nomads who historically lived in the region, have captured migrating falcons for thousands of years and trained them to hunt desert game for food, typically large birds called houbara bustards, rabbits, doves, and even gazelles. Falconry was a crucial tool for Bedouins to survive in the desolate desert.

Emiratis abandoned nomadic life over the last century in favor of modernity in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and falconry fell out of practice for all but the wealthiest. But as the country and its people have grown wealthier in recent decades, falconry has returned as a popular hobby, though with one major change. Racing has taken the place of hunting in the UAE, after the Crown Prince of Dubai introduced the sport in the early 2000s and hunting was banned to protect endangered species.

Al-Falasi and his team train the club’s falcons for a shot at The President’s Cup, a competition overseen by the UAE’s rulers and featuring $7.35 million and 73 cars in prizes for the top falconers.

I spent a day with the trainers to see what goes into the fast-growing sport. Warning: It’s not for those with weak stomachs.

Hamad Al-Falasi has been training falcons for as long as he can remember. Falconry is a pastime that is typically passed down from father to son, Al-Falasi told me as we drove to a training site deep in the desert outside Abu Dhabi. Emiratis often teach their children how to care for the birds as a means of instilling discipline and knowledge of the desert.

"I started training falcons when I was 12 years old. I started because my father did it," Saeed Al-Hamli, the administrative manager of the ADFC, told me as he stroked a recently purchased white gyr-peregrine hybrid in his office.

Falconers will typically go out once at dawn and once in the evening during hunting and racing season to train their birds.