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The World Endurance Championship (WEC) race over 160km was held in Malaysia on Friday 8th/Saturday 9th November. The race commenced at 5:30pm local time on Friday, with the winner completing early Saturday morning.
ESPN Star covered the race, and I was able to watch the entire thing live! Although there was a huge storm, with lightning strikes which knocked out the transmission for a time, the coverage was excellent, and proved that endurance CAN be a spectator sport after all!
USA saddlemaker Dave Kaden's commentary was good, as was the Malaysian commentator Peter Abisheganaden. It was also good to hear from Steph Teeter, Zulu and various other interesting people. The effort made by ESPN Star to do the 'live cross' to interview participants was excellent, and I'm sure that better methods of reporting endurance riding will be found in the future. But for this effort, I'd like to congratulate ESPN Star!
The Australian team lost 4 out of our 6 riders during the race, with Derek Armitage vetting out after the first leg, Matthew Sample vetting out after the 4th leg, Brook Sample withdrawing after the 5th leg, and Meg Wade vetting out after the 5th leg. Penny Toft went on to complete in 18th placing, and Kristie McGaffin took out the 19th place.
The race winner was Maria Mercedes Alvarez Ponton of Spain, riding "Nobby" in a time of 8:48:06, a huge effort in the heat and humidity of Malaysia! The individual Silver Medal went to Augustin Vita of Argentina, riding barack Ibn Al Tamah in a time of 8:57:55, and the individual Bronze Medal went to Sultan Ahmed Sultan Bin Sulayem of the UAE riding Tazoul El Parry in 9:09:31.
In the Teams event, the Gold Medal went to the UAE team, the Silver to Qatar, and the Bronze to Bahrain.
Two of the four horses on the Gold Medal winning UAE team commenced their endurance careers at Splendacrest Endurance Training! Splendacrest Kamouflage finished in 4th position, ridden by HH Shk Majid Bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, in a time of 9:14:42, while Zakah Zahara finished in 6th position, ridden by Mubarak Kalifa Bin Shafya, in a time of 9:21:39.
The grey horse in the front of the field is Zakah Zahara, leading the pack out at the start of the race. Splendacrest Kamouflage is the chestnut horse behind and just to the left of Zak.
Zakah Zahara (number 120) and Splendacrest Kamouflage (number 6) on track at the World Endurance Championship race.
The Terrific Tenterfield ride base is actually not in Tenterfield! It is in a beautiful clearing in the Girard State Forest, about 40km east of Tenterfield, with basic facilities, lots of shaded camping areas, good water supply, long-drop toilets, and a great endurance club full of enthusiastic and happy people! There was plenty of water on track, not an ounce of bitumen to be seen, and even the weather was kind to us...... all the necessary items to make up a great ride. OH....... AND...... a discounted nomination fee for early nominations, AND a choice of well-thought-out and appropriate completion prizes! We travelled from Toowoomba on Saturday morning, arriving at the ridebase by about 1pm local time (and I had to think hard all weekend to convert to NSW's daylight savings time, 'cos I can't figure out how to easily change my watch!). We had a fabulous spot near the Vetting area, with shade for the horses and a tap nearby.... heaven! The Splendacrest Team did very well, with John Dugan taking out 1st Heavyweight placing on Performance Park Lady Kharisma in 6:16, Rod Strahan placing 4th in the Heavyweight division on his lovely boy Shardell Silverado, Renae Kuhn placed 7th Lightweight on Catherine McAlpine's Starab gelding Splitter's Creek Bundy, Amanda Powell placed 15th Lightweight on the gorgeous Aloha Rain Dance (owned by Lisa Stone), Angela Head placed 12th Middleweight on Bourhani Albaraq (owned by Hanna Bourdeaux), and Tarni Kittel placed 20th Middleweight on Aloha Ishmael (owned by John Dugan). Out of these completions, Shardell Silverado, Splitter's Creek Bundy and Bourhani Albaraq all completed their 3rd 80km rides, allowing them to move into the Open Horse ranks next year! Aloha Ishmael and Aloha Rain Dance both were successful in their first 80km rides, with the 16hh+ Aloha Rain Dance astounding all and sundry with her fabulous heartrates: 35/38/39! Gerard Bou riding Bourhani Olympus was our only casualty of the weekend, with a slight lameness issue at the end of the ride.... but Gerard was in high spirits (although exhausted) at the finish, having had a great ride on the magnificent "Olly". My thanks must go to Robert Kuhn, Lisa Stone and Shane Hopkins, who all worked very hard over the weekend to strap the horses and make our weekend more enjoyable. Well, that's out last ride for 2008, and what a year it's been! Some statistics for your perusal: During 2008 Splendacrest Endurance Training has started 9 new horses and 8 new riders in the sport, has competed in over 100 rides for a total of 7747 kilometres, with an 86% completion rate. Bring on 2009!!
| Strength + Stamina + Strategy = SUCCESS |
