Too hot to trot

SUNSHINE and smiles were the order of the day at Sahara Riding Centre, after it had to cancel its planned show earlier this year due to the inclement weather. As such, Friday proved to be a lovely day and bore witness to a fabulous show jumping event.

This was yet another local event that was extremely well attended and involved four competitive classes, with a junior clear round with jump-off to start the day. The top trophy was a saddle for the winner and taking home this prestigious prize was Ahmed Essa who won the class on Tutu.

The next three classes were mixed for junior and adults, class two saw some 40 horses and riders enter the arena to contend for the coveted premium podium positions.

This was a two phase class, if contestants were clear over the first eight fences they continued into the timed jump-off phase, the jump-off finishing with a tricky triple to really test the riders’ precision and skill.

Taking home both first and second place in this class was Muslim Ali astride the multi-coloured and talented Twice as Nice, and the beautiful Emiley respectively. Junior rider Kate Addison steered West Wind into third position.

The third class of the morning saw fences raised up to 100cms. It followed in the same vein, a two phase class, which once again had many vying for top place. However, riding the very definitely hot Coolant Ali Essa won the class in a seemingly effortless round. He was followed onto the podium by veteran Sami Ghazwan who had performed a fabulous round on Fairooz, and taking third position aboard the effervescent Champagne was Abbas Al Ghuraifi.

A technically-challenging course tested the skills and riding prowess of all the horses and riders in the final class of the day with fences raised to up to 130cms.

For this finale it was two rounds, if clear then into jump-off. After the first round it was a head-to-head situation with Abbas Ghuraifi and Sami Ghazwan, both clear they went into action.
 
However, this time the corks popped for Champagne as Abbas steered her to a fabulous clear round and claimed victory producing a fantastic climatic end to a superb event.
 
The event was sponsored by A. Karim Al Jahromi Cont. Co, Arabian Horse, Chaise Café, Saberi Construction Co, Enaya Properties and Asia Cargo and Packing, the judges on the day were Mohammed Al Jahromi, Taleb Al Alawi and Mohammed Khalid.

Coming up on Saturday will be the fifth BREEF show jumping of the season, to be held at the BDF Equestrian Ground in Sakir.