BREEF (Bahrain Royal Equestrian and Endurance Federation) held its penultimate show jumping event in the shape of the Shaikh Khalid Bin Hamad Al Khalifa Jumping Challenge on Friday at Saar Stables.
The final event of this season will be held in Saar on April 12. For the final event in the challenge class, the points will be doubled giving riders everything to go for.
Currently in the Northern area adult section Muslim Ali holds first place with 26 points and the runners-up position has been taken by Abbas Al Ghuraifi after his placing on Friday pushed his points up to 17. Fahad Taqi is now third with 13 points.
Gabby Chakkos has galloped into the lead in the Juniors challenge after her weekend win took her to 20 points.
Aimee Keen has ousted Abdulla Al Hashili from his previous place of joint first. She is now in the runners-up spot with 13 points, and hot on her hooves is Ma’uuf Al Rumaihi with 11. Abdulla remains on 10 points in fourth position.
The show itself held five classes, two junior classes, the final featuring a jumping challenge, and three adult classes, again with a jumping challenge final.
There were 20 riders in the first junior class, of which eight made it through to the jump off.
Ali A Rasool riding Chilli achieved a fabulous clear round in a time of 34.58, beating the rest of the field.
In the second of the junior classes the jumping challenge was one round against the clock, the course a technically challenging one, saw none of the 18 riders successfully go clear, Gabby Chakkos won this class with the fastest time and just 4 faults, runner-up Aimee Keen also claimed 4 faults.
The first adult class had more than 37 entries, though again the technicality of the course saw only six pairs complete it with no faults, victorious in this class was Ahmed Al Alawi riding Wanted.
The second adult class of the day was an accumulator class culminating with a ‘joker’ to finish. Al Jazeera Pascal expertly steered by Muslim Ali triumphed in this class. Claiming the runner-up spot was Abbas AlGhuraifi riding Champagne.
The final class of the day was the Jumping Challenge class. There was one round followed by a jump-off for those successfully clear and this class was won by Ali Essa riding Ashqar, with Abbas runner up-on Champagne.
BREEF will hold the penultimate show jumping event for the southern area on Friday (29th March) at the BDF Equestrian Complex at Al Riffa, Sakhir.
That’s it for this week, all that remains is to wish you all a wonderful Easter break, take time to enjoy your horses in this wonderful weather.