Vasco Avo

He stopped competing for a few years while his children were young and resumed three years ago. In the Presidents Cup he rides Levada the mare on whom he won the CEI*** Barroca d'Alva in November. Levada also completed the 2002 World Championships in Jarez Spain.

Avo has four horse in training two at top level and two novices. He lives in the famous and beautiful heritage city of Evora, a city still surrounded by an old Roman wall. In Evora he manages an historical hotel owned by his family who also run an excellent horse farm that specialises in breeding endurance horses.

They stand two stallions one of who was the 1995 Eldric Champion. All the mares have good endurance records, one of them Balalaika won the 1992 Spanish Championship in Barcelona. They have sold two mares to the Emirates Ozemar and Marijosa .

The city Evora also hosts an endurance festival each year that features a 160km ride that is very popular with the European riders. This is the first time Avo has visited or competed in the UAE ad if his mare adapts well to the desert course he expects to average around 18kph. His horse has had good preparation as her last ride in Portugal, which she won, was over a flat sandy course but naturally the weather was cooler than here.

Jose Maria Branco

His has been successfully competing on this homebred 13 year old grey gelding since 1999 and on whom he won the 160km ride in Evora in 2002. He also rode this horse over the Dubai course in The FEI UAE World Cup of 2003. Branco was a member of the 2001 Portuguese Bronze Medal team and 2003 Silver Medal team in the Open European Championship.

He is hard to miss at an endurance ride as he is very tall and stands out in a crowd. He works along side his father in the film industry as a photographer producing the static images for marketing the films.