Borneo: Local equestrian fraternity hails another milestone

TheBorneoPost.com - Full Article

December 19, 2017, Tuesday
Jude Toyat, reporters@theborneopost.com

MIRI: Sarawak Equestrian Sports Association (PSENS) reached another milestone in the history of local equestrian sport when they made their debut in the 2017 Piala Ketua Polis Negara Endurance Horse Race held in University Putra Malaysia (UPM) in Serdang, Selangor recently.

PSENS team was represented by Cassandra Ch’ng Duan Shu (rider), Mufasa (horse), Adi Sebli (coach) and Zulkifli Ahamat (team manager).

“Even though not winning the race, we should be proud of our achievements because to be able participate in the race is already considered a success,” Zulkifli, who is also PSENS vice president, told The Borneo Post yesterday.

Cassandra and Mufasa successfully completed the 25km race with a clean bill of health and registered a pass by the juries and also the vets.

“Many of the participants failed to finish the race because of disqualifications; rider fall and injured, the horse injured or lame. A few of them failed the vets test at various check points or at the finish line.

“Congratulations to our rider Cassandra. She is from Miri and she made us Sarawakian proud of her tenacity and bravery to complete the race with flying colours. True to our spirit of ‘agi idup agi ngelaban’,” Zulkifli exclaimed.

He revealed that more events have been scheduled for 2018 while appealing for “more support from our state government and its relevant agencies.”

“PSENS urgently needs a place or field for members of the community and our athletes to train and perform several horses riding and equestrian activities,” he explained...

Read more here:
https://www.theborneopost.com/2017/12/19/local-equestrian-fraternity-hails-another-milestone/

Day and Weekend Passes for FEI World Equestrian Games™ Tryon 2018 on Sale December 20

Tryon2018.com

Games to be held September 11-23, 2018 at Tryon International Equestrian Center in Tryon, N.C. USA
For Immediate Release
Tryon, N.C. – USA – December 18, 2017 – Day and weekend competition passes for the FEI World Equestrian Games™ Tryon 2018 (WEG) will go on sale on Wednesday, December 20, 2017 at 8am EST. Ticket prices and the event schedule for the Games, which are set for September 11 through September 23, 2018, are available online at www.tryon2018.com.

All Session Day Passes, which grant access to all WEG competitions on a single weekday, went on sale in October 2017 and sold out after one day. Due to the popular demand of All Session Day Passes, organizers are releasing an additional, limited supply of 500 passes per event day on a first come, first served basis for the dates of September 12, 19, 20, 21. All Session Day Passes for September 13 and 14 are sold out due to meeting capacity for Eventing Dressage on both days.

For the first time, All Session Weekend Passes will be available. The All Session Weekend Passes will also go on sale on Wednesday, December 20, 2017, and will allow the ticket holder access to all WEG competitions during the selected weekend. All Session Weekend Passes are available for September 15-16 and/or September 22-23.

Click here to buy tickets.
Click here to see the Official Session Timetable.

All event tickets and passes grant access to the general event grounds including the expo, vendor areas, and demonstrations. Individual competition tickets are expected to go on sale this winter. Organizers are releasing additional ticket package options as demand for those ticketing types has remained high since launching ticket sales in October 2017.

“The 2018 WEG is expected to be the largest sporting event in the United States and fourth largest in the world in 2018 and should be on everyone’s to-do list for next year. We are anticipating a sold-out event,” said Mark Bellissimo, Founder and CEO of Tryon International Equestrian Center.

With all competitions happening onsite at Tryon International Equestrian Center (TIEC) in Mill Spring, N.C., attendees can come for the day, a weekend, a week, or the entire Games. Tickets are available online at www.tryon2018.com. Select “Buy Tickets” from the menu.

Held every four years alternating with the Olympic Games, the FEI World Equestrian Games™ crowns the world’s best athletes and horses as the ultimate world champions in the equestrian disciplines of Jumping, Dressage and Para-Equestrian Dressage, Eventing, Driving, Reining, Vaulting and Endurance. Horse and rider combinations from more than 70 nations are expected to compete in the massive 12-day event.

See more at:
https://tryon2018.com/article/day-and-weekend-passes-for-fei-world-equestrian-games-tryon-2018-on-sale-december-20

FEI Aims for More Transparency Over Endurance Horse Deaths

Horse-Canada.com - Full Article

December 18, 2017
by: Pippa Cuckson

The Emirates Equestrian Federation revised a number of historic endurance ride results on its website over the weekend, amid revelations that numerous fatal injuries on the field of play had to date been ‘airbrushed’ out of official ride results. In response, the FEI has announced a new procedure for its veterinary department to follow-up “unreported” endurance horse deaths.

The CI (Catastrophic Injury) results code was introduced in 2014 to improve transparency over the incidence of ride fatalities. But since then at least 26 horses who died during or hours after a ride have not been declared CI, according to volunteer researchers from the Clean Endurance community.

Clean Endurance compared dates of death later logged with the FEI registrations database with the date of the horses’ last CEI or CEN start. All were the exact same day. Yet on ride results sheets the 26 horses are noted either FTC (Failed to Complete) or eliminated without giving a reason. Between 2009 and 2013, over 50 further “hidden” deaths have been identified so far.

A Clean Endurance spokesman told Horse-Canada.com: “We think many more deaths are yet to be discovered. We have not made a clean-sweep of the whole FEI database. So far we have followed up FTCs that looked suspicious, or checked what happened to horses whose condition worried us when we saw them on the livestream...”

Read more here:
https://horse-canada.com/horse-news/fei-transparency-endurance-horse-deaths/

UAE: Boudheib Academy Students Advancing

Boudheib Initiative on FB

December 15 2017

Last year's novice riders participated this morning in their first 40km endurance qualifier at the Boudheib International Endurance Village (BIEV) as part of today's events, which also includes the CEI**120km International Prestige Ride. Having only started riding lessons last year, the young students have come a very long way and now frequently compete in showjumping, dressage & tent-pegging competitions.

Today for the first time, 16 of them advanced from the 10 & 20km beginners endurance rides to take part in the open 40km qualifier. It was a pleasure to watch them caring for their horses, regularly stopping at water points along the 2 loops and taking charge at the vet inspection area. These are the UAE endurance riders of the future, so good basic horsemanship skills and welfare understanding of the horse are essential lessons that are being taught. This afternoon the next group of younger novice Boudheib Academy riders will participate in a 10km ride over 2 loops.

The Boudheib Initiative is definitely Driving the Future of Endurance at all levels!

Congratulations to Kieran Treacy, the Boudheib Academy Manager, on a great job and to the students taking part.

Iran: Athletes, Actors and Robots Among Torchbearers

FinancialTribune.com - Full Article

December 17 2017

T hree Iranians are among the torchbearers of 2018 Winter Olympics at Pyeongchang, South Korea, February 9-25, 2018.

Having been lit in Olympia, Greece, on October 24, the torch traveled to Athens on October 31. It began its Korean journey on November 1, from Incheon and will end on February 9, in Pyeongchang’s Olympic Stadium, the main venue of the 2018 Olympics.

The torch will burn for 101 days in 88 Korean cities. Close to 8,005 athletes were planned to carry the torch through the 2018 km around South Korea which is hosting the winter games for the first time in the history of the country and third time in Asia. Japan has hosted the games two times in 1872 and 1998, Varzesh3 reported.

Iran’s female skier Forough Abbasi, 24, is one of the torchbearers. She is currently an alpine ski team member who has achieved several honors in several sporting fields including third place in the National Endurance horse riding, third in national rock climbing competitions and national seniors’ championship for mountain biking. Abbasi also attended the Sochi 2014 winter Olympics...

Read more here:
https://financialtribune.com/articles/sports/78028/athletes-actors-and-robots-among-torchbearers

Spain: Juma’s Team imposes its law in the 64th Raid of Barcelona – Santa Susanna

Endurance-world.com - Full Article

16 December 2017
Race Report made with the assistance of Raid de Barcelona – Santa Susanna

Sant Pol de Mar, Barcelona. Thursday 7, Friday 8 and Saturday 9 December 2017. Last weekend the 64th edition of the Barcelona Raid – Santa Susanna, the oldest equestrian raid in Europe, was held in Santa Susanna, Barcelona.

Constitution Day and the historical festive atmosphere of the Raid, which closes every year the competitive season, drew a big crowd to the town centre to watch the best riders in full action.
Participants of 15 nationalities attended the events in Santa Susanna, which premiered a new organization and timing system, as well as a new GPS tracking technology so that the public could follow the horses through the different routes over the Serra del Montnegre.

On this occasion, the Raid consisted of 4 events: on Thursday the CEI1* 83km was held, and on Friday and Saturday three double-day events: the CEI2* of 2 x 76km, the CEI2*YJ of 2 x 76km and the jewel of the weekend, the CEI3* of 2 x 96km which appeared to be very hard competition from its first minutes.

María Alvarez – ESP, former world champion and member of Juma’s Team, won the CEI3* with Saphir El Fayad and was crowned in Santa Susana as the best rider of the weekend. The podium was followed by her stable mate Alejandra Dachs – ESP with Simbel Al Ain, who finished a split second behind Alvarez, and Omar Blanco – ESP with Upedro (also from Juma’s Team) completed the podium...

Read more here:
http://endurance-world.com/jumas-team-imposes-law-raid-barcelona-santa-susanna/

FEI Issues Decision in Endurance Prohibited Substance Cases

FEI.org

FEI Tribunal issues Final Decision on Prohibited Substance Cases

12 Dec 2017

The FEI Tribunal has issued its Final Decisions on Prohibited Substances cases involving seven Endurance athletes, three trainers and nine horses from three different stables competing in Endurance events in Abu Dhabi and Dubai between 26 November 2016 and 14 January 2017.

Provisional Suspensions were imposed in January following positive findings in eight of the horses of the Controlled Medications Caffeine, Theobromine, Theophylline and *Paraxanthine - which at the time of the finding was a Banned Substance - and with the ninth sample also containing Flumetasone.

Since the proceedings were opened, the FEI Equine Prohibited List has been amended in order to downgrade Paraxanthine (the main metabolite of Caffeine) to a Controlled Medication and it has also been reclassified as a *Specified Substance, effective 1 January 2018.

The Tribunal has therefore agreed to the lift the Provisional Suspensions further to a request from the FEI given the reclassification of Paraxanthine.

“The FEI accepts that the circumstances of the cases to be exceptional on the basis that the Banned Substance Paraxanthine will be considered to be only a Controlled Medication rule violation in 2018,” explained Mikael Rentsch, FEI Legal Director.

The FEI Tribunal imposed two month suspensions on the athletes and trainers from 30 January with an exceptional six month suspension for the case involving Flumetasone, with fines of 1,500 CHF and contributions of 1,000 CHF towards legal costs per individual.

Details on these cases can be found here.



Prohibited substance case under FEI anti-doping rules

The FEI has also announced an adverse analytical finding involving Prohibited Substances.

The case involves the use of Nandrolone, its metabolite 5A-Estrane-3B 17A-Diol, and Stanozolol, which are *Banned Substances under the FEI’s Equine Anti-Doping and Controlled Medication Regulations (EADCMRs):

Horse: 8 Minute (FEI ID 104BW22/UAE)
Person Responsible: Khalifa Ali Khalfan Al Jahouri (FEI ID 10093885/UAE)
Event: CH-M-YJ-E 120 - Valeggio sul Mincio (ITA) 23.09.2017

The athlete has been provisionally suspended from the date of notification (28 November 2017) until the FEI Tribunal renders a decision. The horse has been provisionally suspended for two months.

Details on this case can be found here.