Endurance GB members quit over sponsor controversy

Telegraph.co.uk - Full Article

Endurance GB votes to accept Sheikh Mohammed’s Meydan backing

By Pippa Cuckson
9:29PM GMT 06 Jan 2015

Endurance GB is to accept a “blanket” sponsorship from Sheikh Mohammed’s Meydan corporation, following an unprecedented members’ vote.

Debate has raged for months about the wisdom of allying the British national governing body with Dubai, where the Sheikh’s stables have been at the centre of doping and horse-injury scandals for more than a decade.

Voting in favour were 570 EGB members, with 405 against and 35 abstentions. This represents a 55.2 per cent turnout by a small membership organisation that is under-funded compared with show jumping, dressage and eventing. Already some “no” voters have taken to their members forum to announce they will not rejoin.

The three-year deal, for an undisclosed sum, covers EGB’s entire international calendar, the cost of new technology – required under new FEI rules directly aimed at combating types of rule-breaking such as horse-swaps and short cuts alleged to be common among Middle East riders – and training bursaries.

It also means the reinstatement of Euston Park, Suffolk, a ride venue long-leased by Sheikh Mohammed but closed in 2013 after media revelations about doping. It was at the Euston 2012 World Championships that Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum jnr rode a horse under the false identification of Marmoog...

Read more here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/equestrianism/11329077/Endurance-GB-members-quit-over-sponsor-controversy.html

Endurance Great Britain Accepts Meydan Sponsorship Package

Endurancegb.co.uk


Correction issued. Date of original blog posting:

January 6 2015


An Update from The Board of Endurance GB - (Published:06 January 2015)
A majority of Endurance GB’s Members have voted ‘Yes’ in the recent ballot regarding proceeding with a proposed sponsorship agreement with Meydan.


The overall turnout was 55.2% (1010 Members), with 56.4% (570) votes in favour of accepting the sponsorship, with 40.1% (405) against and 3.5% (35) abstentions.

The Board of EGB will therefore proceed to contract discussions with Meydan.

The proposed agreement, which offers benefits for all levels of the EGB Membership, will enhance EGB’s ability to realise its long term strategy and vision: to enable more people and horses at all levels to enjoy the sport of endurance to the highest standard of excellence.


John Hudson
Chairman EGB
Endurance GB Board
Category:General

Three USA Riders to Participate in 160-km Al Maktoum Cup

January 4 2015

Three USA riders have been invited to ride in the 160-km HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Endurance Cup in Dubai on January 10, 2015.

Melody Blittersdorf from Jeffersonville, Vermont, will ride her 10-year-old gelding Frankie Thunderheart. Willemena DeBoer from Hico, Texas, will ride her 9-year-old gelding Frisia Shaheen. Heather Reynolds of Dunellon, Florida, will be reunited with her old friend Riverwatch.

If you recall, the now-10-year-old gelding Riverwatch won the 2011 Tevis and Haggin Cups with Jeremy Reynolds aboard, then finished 36th in the 2012 World Endurance Championship in Great Britain with Heather aboard. Now owned by a stable in Dubai, he completed his second World Championship in France last year, finishing 22nd with Argentinean Josefina Chas.

Canadians Jessica Manness, riding her 13-year-old gelding Greater Glide, and Kat Irvine, riding her 16-year-old mare Nightwind’s Savannah, will also participate.

For more information, and a journal by Kat, and photos by several riders, and updates on the race see:
http://www.endurance.net/international/UAE/2015MaktoumCup/

Abu Dhabi: Packed schedule for Shaikh Mansour Racing Festival this year

Khaleejtimes.com - Full Article

Hisham Al Gizouli (Chief Reporter) / 4 January 2015

On July 6 the competition returns to USA at Pleasanton and the penultimate race will be at the Ostend racecourse in Belgium on August 17.

Abu Dhabi: The seventh edition of the Shaikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan Global Arabian Horse Flat Racing Festival hosts 102 flat races and nine endurance championships across the five continents through the current year, it was unveiled on Saturday.

“Under the directives of Shaikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs, and Shaikha Fatima bint Mubarak, Chairwoman of the General Women’s Union (GWU), Supreme President of the Family Development Foundation (FDF) and Head of the Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood, the 2015 calendar will include 14 races in the Shaikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Cup, 14 races in the HH Shaikha Fatima bint Mubarak Ladies World Championship, nine races in the HH Shaikha Fatima bint Mubarak Apprentice World Championship (IFAHR) and 65 races in the Wathba Stud Farm Cup,” Lara Sawaya, executive director of the Shaikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan Global Arabian Horse Flat Racing Festival, chairman of the Int’l Federation of Horse Racing Academies (IFHRA), chairman of Ladies & Apprentice Racing Committee in the Int’l Federation of Arabian Horse Racing Authorities (IFAHR), told newsmen at the Eastern Mangroves Hotel here on Saturday...

Read more here:
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/sport/inside_sport.asp?xfile=/data/nationsports/2015/January/nationsports_January17.xml§ion=nationsports

Canadian Endurance Riders Receive a Honourary Invitation

Equinecanada.ca

Ottawa, Ont. November 27, 2014 -- Canadian endurance riders, Kathy Irvine of Blackfoot, Alta. and Jessica Manness of Dugald, Man., have been honoured with an invitation to compete in His Highness Sheik Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum's 8th annual Endurance Cup being held January 10, 2015. This invitation-only event will be a FEI 3* 160km race across the Dubaï desert.

As part of 2014 Alltech World Equestrian Games, both pairs also travelled to Normandy, FRA to challenge the gruelling 160km course. Manness and Greater Glide (Flaming Tigre X Flaming Streak), her 13-year-old Arabian gelding, along with Irvine and Nightwind's Savannah, her 16-year-old Canadian bred Arabian mare sired by Dakotas Keyanti, will travel to Dubaï on December 21st.

It has been several years since Canadians have been invited to participate in a competition in the United Arab Emirates, and both riders are looking forward to this new opportunity to let their horses shine with some very fine international competition.

Accompanying the horse and rider teams as crew will be grooms, Denise Blanchet and Dessia Miller; Canadian Endurance Team Veterinarian, Dr. Glenn Sinclair; and Canadian Endurance Team Coach/Technical Advisor, Kim Woolley.

Spot-the-Marmoog – the new Christmas party game for all the family!

Horse-canada.com - Full Article

Blogs Cuckson Report | December 31, 2014
by Pippa Cuckson

A couple of posts ago http://www.horse-canada.com/cuckson-report/hiding-in-plain-sight/, I remarked that anyone who searched randomly through the FEI database was likely, within 20 minutes, to chance upon a horse whose provenance did not stack up. This followed revelations about the failed FEI investigation into whether dressage horse Wily Earl and the three-years-younger Golden Coin were one and the same, a case drawn to my attention after the collapse of the Marmoog horse-swap enquiry on a legal technicality.

Quite a few of you took my 20-minute challenge seriously, and have referred me to horses who seem to have started their careers rather late in life. Others who have caught Marmoog fever tell me they’ve scoured endurance pictures on the internet in search of mid-ride horse swaps. There’s certainly a buzz when you think you’ve spotted a ringer. (This new-found party game has quickly gained popularity thanks, no doubt, to Christmas TV schedules rarely living up to expectations, or running out of things to say to your elderly aunt. It’s fun for all the family, with no prior horse knowledge required – all you need is normal eyesight).

Following the Marmoog affair, the FEI acknowledged “loopholes” in its horse ID systems. During the London International Horse Show (Olympia) I found myself in the same hospitality box as John McEwen, the FEI’s ex-vice president. He talked me through many new measures to thwart passport fraud and horse-swappers that are in the rules for 2015. We were not alerted to these revisions in missives from the FEI General Assembly the previous weekend. Having now read them online, I am not surprised the FEI was reluctant to spotlight them. The relationship between microchip and passport was not so much of a loophole as a sink-hole!...

Read more here:
http://www.horse-canada.com/blogs/spot-the-marmoog/

World Horse Welfare to take part in Endurance GB panel

Worldhorsewelfare.org

23/12/2014

World Horse Welfare, the international horse charity and independent welfare advisor to sport regulators, has agreed to take part in a Review Panel for the proposed sponsorship contract for Endurance GB with the Dubai-based group Meydan.

The sponsorship is a sensitive issue given the controversy that the international sport of endurance has experienced in recent years, following the excessive rate of injuries and fatalities of horses in some parts of the sport.

Roly Owers, the charity’s chief executive, said: “We fully support the responsible use of horses in sport which means placing the welfare of the horse above all other considerations. We want to see the sport of Endurance continue to thrive in the UK with the welfare of the horse at its heart. We are entering this process with an open mind on the agreement, which we understand will include clauses on both equine welfare and fair play. I have been assured that World Horse Welfare will have the ability to act as it sees fit to fulfil a monitoring function, which I look forward to carrying out with my fellow panel members.”

- See more at: http://www.worldhorsewelfare.org/Article/World-Horse-Welfare-takes-part-in-Endurance-GB-panel#sthash.WU5zB9xk.dpuf