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Good morning all and what an exciting weekend I have to report on. The Bahrain Royal Equestrian and Endurance Federation held a two-day event on Friday and Saturday, providing riders and mounts with an opportunity to compete on grass at the Mounted Police Centre in Budaiya.
Often a strange experience for horses, grass provides more spring than the usual sand arenas and horses have to adjust fairly quickly to their new surroundings. The grass also ensures that riders have their legs tightly wrapped around at all times, providing their mounts with the confidence and drive to tackle the fences. As you can imagine, the event is certainly a nerve-twitching one.
Friday was a day for the adults, with three classes, novice, intermediate and open. The opening class had some 20-plus competitors, getting the morning off to a good start with Muslim Ali, pictured above in action, taking first place. As the afternoon crept in, the intermediate class began and was somewhat of a tricky one, testing rider's precision and nerves.
The aim of this event was to clear the first eight fences. If successful, the judge rang a bell, indicating that horse and rider were clear to proceed to the jump off.
The final six fences then became a race against the clock, horse and rider turning on a sixpence to manoeuvre themselves as tightly as possible around corners and over the final jumps. Muslim Ali did a brilliant job, securing lead position and showing his fellow competitors how to tackle turns with speed and balance. This was certainly a class that had spectators sitting on the edge of their seats.
This season's junior riders had a chance to show off their jumping prowess on Saturday. There was some fantastic riding and very exciting rounds. Once again, there were three classes , each providing the spectators with some nerve-racking moments.
Like the adults, there was a double win for Jassim Isa, who pushed his fellow riders to the limit and then swooped in to take first place in both the junior novice and intermediate.
There you have it, a great weekend of jumping with more to follow this coming weekend.
The 2008/2009 Dressage League will hold its second event of the season at Twin Palms on Friday (classes start at 10am). No doubt it will be a brilliant day for all who attend.
As for me, I am off on holidays this weekend, which means that I shall be writing to you from sunny New Zealand. Armed with a camera, I plan to visit lots of horsey spots during my travels and will post pictures for you all to see.
I shall continue to keep you up to date with Bahrain's weekend riding events (with a little help from fellow riders and newly-appointed researchers). So make sure you pick up your copy of GulfWeekly every week.
