Friday, September 30, 2011

Hundreds ready for 24-hour endurance ride

Updated September 30, 2011 13:40:49

Hundreds of the world's best endurance horse riders will compete this weekend for the title of Australia's top endurance competitor.

From midnight on Friday, they will race for 24 hours for 160 kilometres through the Barossa Ranges and Mount Crawford state forest near Adelaide.

The Tom Quilty Gold Cup began when bushman RM Williams and pastoralist Tom Quilty wanted to see if current-day riders were as tough as those of past eras.

Event director Jean Sims says all the competitors will find it tough this year because heavy rain in recent days has made the ground heavy.

"It is a challenging course. The riders start in the darkness but they wear headlamps on their helmets and they follow luminous arrows which mark a track through the forest," she said.

"It's quite wet and muddy so they'll have to slow down and just look after their horse to make sure that they get around."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-30/tom-quilty-horse-endurance-riders/3193796

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

France: National Finals for Young Endurance Horses at Uzes

Horsereporter Blog - Full Article

Posted on September 20, 2011 by worldreporter

Finales Nationales Des Jeunes Chevaux D’endurance Equestre a Uzes

September 19, Uzes, France ~More than 600 endurance horses aged 4-6 are expected to compete October 7,8,& 9 at Uzes in the Languedoc-Rousillon region, known as the cradle of endurance in France. The National Stud at Uzes has developed the discipline of endurance for the past 19 years and has confirmed hundreds of young French horses to the sport.

Each year, another nation is invited to discover these French finals. Last year the riders of Brazil were invited and rode horses that were prepared by the breeders of the region. This year an official delegation has been chosen from China to further their emerging interest onto the endurance scene. In past years, riders and trainers from Italy, Germany and Great Britain, Belgium and Sweden have been successful in this ride...

Read more here:
http://blog.horsereporter.com/2011/09/20/national-finals-for-young-endurance-horses-at-uzes/

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

New body created for Irish endurance riders

Horseandhound.co.uk - Full Article

Ben Scott H&H news desk

20 September, 2011

A new body to oversee endurance riding in Ireland has been created following a meeting (Friday 9 September) of Ireland’s top endurance riders.

Endurance Ireland will work to promote the sport and develop a calendar of events for both competitive riding and training in 2012.

The body has written to Horse Sport Ireland with a view to becoming a section of the organisation.

Ireland has not competed at a World or European championship in endurance riding since 2006.

An elected committee of Yvonne Croke, (chairperson) Anne Kinsella, (treasurer and health and safety officer) Patrick Miller (assistant treasurer) and Karen Kiely, (secretary and press officer) has been formed.

Spokesperson for Endurance Ireland Karen Kiely said: “The positive response to our formation from endurance riders in Ireland and abroad since the launch on Saturday 17 September, has confirmed to us the need for the new group...

Read more here:
http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/news/397/309709.html

Friday, September 16, 2011

Australia: 12 Days till the 2011 Barossa Ranges Tom Quilty

SATomQuilty.com.au

16 September 2011

The event, known as the Barossa Ranges Tom Quilty Gold Cup will provide a challenging event for participants on a new course. There will be an away check point and riders will experience changing terrain as the course traverses Mt Crawford State forest, vineyards and pastures. The second and potentially most challenging leg will be through pine forests, then onto private land owned by the Ross family (by kind permission).

The ride base will be at Mt Pleasant which hosts annually a large agricultural show in addition to many livestock and horse events. One of the best scenic routes in our State runs through Mount Pleasant linking Adelaide with the Barossa via the rich pastoral lands, forestry and the wine areas of Springton and Eden Valley close to Mt. Pleasant.

Land was first purchased for forestry at Mount Crawford in 1909. Plantings commenced in 1914; two species of eucalypts (Narrow-leaved Ironbark and South Australian Blue gum) and two species of pine (Radiata and Maritime pine) which creates a fantastic horse riding environment. The current reserve area is in the region of 12,000 hectares.

Please note that the event will start at midnight on Friday September 30th 2011 and continue through Saturday October 1st.

For more information, see

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Florac Championnat d'Europe 2011

Endurance-belgium.com

by Leonard Liesens

Of course Nobby and Maria Alvarez were the biggest favorites of this European Championship. Beside them, the two couples that Benedicte Emond (the new French Chef d'equipe) had chosen as individuals were also considered as very serious contenders. They were Pierre Fleury and Gregoire Tilquin. At the first vetgate, the battle for the first place had already begun. Nobby and Maria, Tilquin and Fleury were in the front. There was also another favorite who is always riding excellent horses. Last year she did well in Lexington with the German team; with the same horse she unfortunately crashed a bit during the last loop in Assisi two years ago, but now the horse has gotten more experience and was very strong. She is Sabrina Arnold; she lives in the south of France so the horse Beau was perfectly acclimatized to the grueling conditions. Another female rider did also come to play a role in forefront, Diana Origi, who lead the preride last year before that her horse pulled at the last vetgate. Unfortunately for the italian lady, her horse could hardly keep up in terms of recovery time and took everytime a few minutes more to enter the vetgate. In the front, alone, and opening the trail all the time, the extraordinary Kalifa from Abu Dhabi, ridden by his trainer Ali Khalfan. Amazing horse.

Even if we had a hard time following the race by car - actually it was harder for the people following the middle of the pack riders than for the one going along with the leaders- there were very few grumpy guys to critisise the principles of the in-line race. Florac is an in-line race and has always be and must remain as it is! Otherwise how could the riders -and the crew and spectators- enjoy the scenery and the various going and trails. There were a lot of discussions about the way that the course has been adapted to get a faster average speed, about the manicuring of some very rocky trails (rock crushing), but everybody has to salute the work of Jean-Paul Boudon and his team. Let's all hope that his team will continue the good work and offer us next year similar conditions. For sure there will be a lot of riders coming for the next edition.

The winning horse Kalifa is something like an extraterrestrial! Everybody - e.v.e.r.y.b.o.d.y - was betting at every stage on his future crash. We heard many times: "If he completes and win, I should better stop doing endurance riding and convert to golf or something else". By seeing Ali and Kalifa eating up all hills at the canter when others were taking them at the trot, of course, observers could only bet on the crash. Knowing also that this horse was bought in Uruguay where there are no hills. The horse was bought by Al Wahtba and went to Abu Dhabi. He finished second last year at the President's Cup and at the Maktoum Cup. In Uruguay he did decently, including a top ten at the PanAm in Costa Azul. It is obvious that this horse never saw the hills and  mountains he had to cope with in Florac. So we had to stop pretending that we can still beat the Arabian riders in our technical races... Another lost illusion... And not to mentioon that Kalifa lost a shoe during the last loop. The rider had to put his easyboot, but this one was not fitting well so he had to stop several time to re-put it on. Alio Kalfan should come to the States learning the new easyglove technique!!!

The French team was composed of Atger, Demedy, Santisteva et Goachet. Until the final trotting, that was Spain who hold the team gold; but the Spanish horse Arizona de Lafont was eliminated at the final trotting. Big dissapointement and big anger from the Spanish team, but it seems that the decision was correct. Anyway, they have got the silver.

Belgium play his role in this game on the perfect way. There was no reason to fight in the front, but the 3rd place was perfectly within reach. Pietro Di Geronimo was chosen as individual when everybody was betting on him for the team, but only the trainer sees the horse during the pre-race clinics and at the trotting, so it's difficult to have an opinion. Anyway Di Geronimo demonstrated that his horse Mengali was perfectly prepared, taking the 9th place at the european level, his best placing up-to-now. Belgium was shocked when Taborah, a difficult mare, was eliminated for lameness at the first vetgate. With only 3 horses in the team, no mistake was allowed. The three did very well, always together, cruising at a good speed, entering into the vetgate very fast. They finally completed the race in a tied finish, something that we -still- like to see. Team bronze for Belgium.

The other nations did sometimes well, sometimes bad. Italy was just 10 minutes behind Belgium on the total of the three riders' times. Netherlands completed the team ranking at the 5th place whichis probably their best result. 
Germany was dissapointing taking into account the team bronze they clinched in Lexington last year. Of course Sabrina Arnold take the individual silver, but it is clear that jl Leclerc has still a lot of work. Slovakia didn't suffer any elimination and completed its full team, at the average speed of 13 km/h. Not too bad.
Finally, the time has gone when the European riders could dominate the Arabian ones on their technical courses. Aue, Qatar and Bahrain has proven that they are the biggest challengers on any type of course. Qatar took 3rd and 5th place; UAE won; Bahrain did 12, 15 and 22.
 
 Photos by Caroll Gatelier here:
http://www.endurance-belgium.com/photos/florac2011c/index.html

Photos by Leonard Liesens here:
http://www.endurance-belgium.com/photos/florac2011/index.html

Endurance Europeans – France take team Gold

Frenchhorseandcountry.com

13/09/2011 By fhc

Virginie Atger, Sunny Demédy, Julien Goachet and Bénédicte Santisteva took to the podium to receive the team Gold medal for the French at Florac this weekend.

In the Individual In the individual race multi-medalist for Spain, Maria Alvarez Ponton,riding his exceptional horse Nobby. The silver medal went to Germany’s Sabrina Arnold on Beautiful Ox and the bronze medal for French Pierre Fleury who ran as an individual with Kergof owned by Stéphane Fleury.

The winning team consisted of:-

Virginie Atger on Antall de Jalima ,

Sunny Demedy on Nerval de Beders , owned by Delphine Johnson and Marc Labrunie

Julien Goachet riding Lubiana de Coat Frity , owned by Jean-Pierre Le Hegarat

Bénédicte Santisteva on Djour de Bozouls , owned by Marcel Mezy

Virginie Atger also was awarded the prize for the best condition...

Read more here:
http://www.frenchhorseandcountry.com/WP/2011/09/13/endurance-europeans-france-take-team-gold/

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

France: Two Al Shaqab Endurance Riders Finish in Top 5 of European Championships

AlShaqab.com

* Publication Date: 11/09/11 8:00 AM


Al Shaqab Endurance Team, member of Qatar Foundation, came away from the Open FEI European Endurance Championships with a Bronze medal and a 5th place finish this past Saturday in Florac, France.

(September 11, 2011) Al Shaqab Endurance Team, member of Qatar Foundation, came away from the Open FEI European Endurance Championships with a Bronze medal and a 5th place finish this past Saturday in Florac, France.
Jasim Mohammed Al Maadhadi captured the Bronze medal, riding Mazayha, coming in only 47 seconds behind the reining World Champion. With a total time of 8:45:52 for the 160 km race, Al Maadhadi clocked an average speed of 18.21 km/hr.

Scoring a 5th place finish, Faleh Nasser Bughenaim crossed the finish at 8:50:26 aboard Leonardo with an average pace of 18.05 km/hr.

This was the biggest race of the year in the Endurance world, for which all teams and riders have been competing all year long to qualify. In total, 65 individuals entered the race, but only 36 finished all six loops of the race.

Al Shaqab Endurance Team manager Hadi Nasser Al Naimi coaches the Al Shaqab team under the guidance of Fahad Saad Al Qahtani, Director of Al Shaqab. The team will next compete Sept. 30-Oct. 1, in Pinamar, Emerald Coast, Argentina.

His Highness, The Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani founded Al Shaqab in 1992 to preserve and further develop the Arabian horse in Qatar. Al Shaqab is led by H E Sheikh Mohammed Bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and encompasses an Endurance Team, Breeding & Show division, Riding Academy. In 2004, Al Shaqab proudly became a member of Qatar Foundation. Al Shaqab’s mission is to be global leaders in preserving, improving and promoting the Arabian horse breed through setting the highest standard in breeding, show, equestrian arts and equine welfare, and encouraging community participation.

Costanza Laliscia: the young Italian equestrian endurance champion

Sport.quotidiano.net - Full Article Costanza Laliscia, endurance champion, talks about her passion for horses and the sacrifices she makes...