Competition is back with gusto

After rain stopped play back in November, the Bahrain Royal Equestrian and Endurance Federation, better known by its acronym BREEF, held this season’s opening show jumping event on Saturday at the Bahrain Defence Force (BDF) Equestrian Centre in Sakhir.

This event consisted of five classes, two junior classes - both clear round with jump-off, Class 1: 80/90cms, Class 2: 90/100cms.

Three adult classes were also held with the first and last one round with jump-offs. The second adult competition was a two-phase class. In this case if competitors successfully completed the first part of the course they immediately went into a timed jump-off.  Fences for the adults started in class one at 80cms and rose to 125+ in the final class.

The juniors paved the way for the day as they produced four sets of double winners in the top six placings at this prestigious opening event.

Youngster Ali A. Rasool started his morning by claiming his first double victory in the junior 1 class, taking first and second positions. Ahmed Al Qattan took third and fifth position. Kate Addison, took her double home with forth and sixth place.

Ali’s quest for glory continued with first and third place in the Junior 2 class, runner-up with her double of the day was Aimee Keen who clinched both second and fifth placings.  Ahmed Al Qattan, received his second double of the day taking home both fourth and sixth prizes.

For this inaugural event, the adult classes also produced its own sets of double winners, though consistent in every class was Muslim Ali, who claimed no less than four victories on the day.

The first adult class Muslim had beaten some other 40 contestants to collected both first and second prizes for his first double of the day, Saber Salman Faraj, took his place on the line up to collect fifth prize, the first part of his double wins.

In the second of the adult classes another huge class of around 40 horses and riders, it was once again Muslim that produced the winner of the day, taking first place on the podium once again.  In this class he was followed by Sami Ghazwan who took runner-up position, claiming third position was Abbas Al Ghuraifi.

The final class of the day saw nearly 20 riders take to the fray, and with fences now standing at heights up to 125cms the tension was certainly as high as the jumps!  

After a two-year sabbatical from competing it was Sami Ghazwan who made his comeback with finesse riding to victory, a fantastic clear round in the jump-off clinched him top podium position.

Saber Salman Faraj took the runners-up position, and Abbas Al Ghuraifi claimed third, Muslim after an extremely unlucky four faults cost him the class, had to settle in this instance for fourth place, Sami Ghazwan also claimed fifth position in this class.

Both the junior and adult classes had yielded brave and dexterous riding. If this is the first event is indicative of anything, we will be witnessing a really strong competitive contingent making this 2013/2014 season a really exciting series of events.

The next BREEF Show Jumping Event is scheduled for Saturday December 21, with the prediction of another demonstration of first class riding, and serious competition.

Results
Junior 1: 1 Ali A Rasool/ Ghroob, 2 Ali A Rasool/ Chilli, 3 Ahmed Al Qattan/ Tutu, 4 Kate Addison/ The  Chief, 5 Ahmed Al Qattan/ Osina, 6 Kate Addison/ West Wind.

Junior 2: 1 Ali A Rasool/ Ghroob, 2 Aimee Keen/ Pestisha, 3 Ali Al Rasool/ Wabit, 4 Ahmed Al Qattan/ Tenor, 5 Aimee Keen/ Rio, 6 Ahmed Al Qattan/ Osina.

Adult 1: 1 Muslim Ali/ Tenor, 2 Muslim Ali/ Twice As Nice, 3 Eyad Ahmed/ Quinbum, 4 Basel Al Dossari/ BDF Tayar, 5 Saber Salman Faraj/ Thunderbolt, 6 Ebrahim Bubshait/ Hawayil.

Adult 2: 1 Muslim Ali/ Emiley, 2 Sami Ghazwan/ Fairooz, 3 Abbas Al Ghuraifi/ Athletico II, 4 Mohammed Hasan/ Ashgar, 5 Hussein Al Bosta/ Pestishia, 6 Ali Al Tahoo/ Lavino.

Adult 3: 1 Sami Ghazwan/ Fairooz, 2 Saber Salman Faraj/ BDF Bahrain, 3 Abbas Al Ghuraifi/ Athletico II, 4 Muslim Ali/ Pascal, 5 Sami Ghazwan/ Abdulla, 6 Ahmed Jahrami/ Puck.