6 July 2011
A SPEECH FROM MR. RICHARD ALLEN, AN ENDURANCE EVENT PROFESSIONAL FROM UK
Mr. Richard Allen came from a farm nearby London of U.K., where he has trained up Arabian horses for endurance competitions. He had visited China twice for endurance competitions on China horses, last year, the Yinchuan endurance competion, and now the Yili Chaosu endurance competition.
On the competitors welcoming meeting, he was invited to have a speech before all the competitors. I considered him a respectable trainer and mentor for the endurance event, therefore, I am glad to have his speech written below for those who are interested in endurance events and for those who love horses:-
QUOTE:
Good morning. Thank you for inviting me to talk to you today. It is a great honour.
This is my second visit to China. The first was last year when, thanks to the organization of Mr. Wu(乌扎拉先生), I was able to go to Yinchuan and be the first European to ride endurance in this country. In Yinchuan, I was given a tough little stallion to ride. Although he had no shoes, no special feed, and no special training, he was in good health and went fast and safe for 90 kms. For the first time I understood how good such a horse can be, and ever since I have had great respect for the Chinese horses.
Now, thanks to the generosity of my friend Mr. David Ha (夏海鸥先生), I am back in China to ride endurance in the Yili valley - one of the most beautiful places on earth. To ride beneath the amazing Tian Shan(天山), and experience the "four seasons in one day", is a very special privilege, and I must say again how grateful I am to be given this opportunity.
The Yili valley (伊犁超苏）is not just beautiful, I also think it is a perfect place to produce endurance horses. This is because you have two great assets.
The first, of course, is your horses. You have a lot of them! I have never seen so many horses in one place as were at the opening ceremony. And these horses are obviously blessed with two qualities an endurance horse needs: stamina and toughness. Just like my Yinchuan horse, my horse here was small and did not look very strong, but he surprised me with his ability to carry me for two days - I am not a small man, and I have eaten a lot of noodles...
Read more here:
http://bbs.horse.org.cn/viewthread.php?tid=79757&page=1&extra=#pid385397pid385397
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