Great Britain: Royal Winner at Royal Windsor Endurance

Everythinghorseuk.co.uk

May 11 2018

Royal Windsor Endurance, kindly supported by The Kingdom of Bahrain provided another memorable day of sport. Bahrain itself celebrated a win in the CEI2* with HH Sheikh Nasser Bin Hamad Al Khalifa, riding Vipper De Luriecq coming in first in a time of 05:04:48.

Portugal took top honours in the CEI1*; Rui Pereira rode a sublime three laps on Bloodie Mary finishing in 03:33:13. Twenty British horses completed the 40Km GER.

HH Sheikh Nasser Bin Hamad Al Khalifa said: “It was an absolute pleasure to be able to ride in Windsor Great Park today and to be able to shake hands with her Majesty the Queen. What a pleasure! Aside from winning, to come here and raise my flag and perform. I’ve now won three out of six races here so I’m at 50%!”

This was the sixth Royal Windsor Endurance event, and for the second year running a CEI1* 80Km and a national 40Km graded endurance ride ran alongside the regular CEI2* 120Km. A record 125 horses from 18 nations set off in near perfect conditions to take on the challenging tracks of Windsor Great Park, and the FEI classes started with a dash along the iconic home straight of Ascot Racecourse.

Great British riders were out in force today, and 68 were entered across the three classes. One notable success was Carri Ann Dark from Wiltshire, who finished a brilliant third in the CEI1* on former Team GB Gelding, HS Drift.

“I came because I love riding here at Windsor and I had absolutely no expectation of doing so well. He led for a while on the second loop but always presents slowly and we set out for the final loop on our own and I hardly saw anyone out there. I was glancing at the statues around the Park (and I’d even filmed us riding through Ascot Racecourse first thing!) I am absolutely delighted with our result and can’t believe I’m going to be in the Castle Arena at Royal Windsor Horse Show tomorrow for the presentation!” said Dark...

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