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At the end of the day of the 42 riders who started the race, thirteen
finished, about a 31% finish.  The rules stipulated that three of the
six riders had to finish for the team medal and the UAE took the gold
medal, while Qatar took the silver. Egypt ended up with two riders
finishing, as did Syria and it was decided to give them a joint bronze
medal. The awards ceremony for the bronze took place separately from
the other awards this afternoon at Sakkara Country Club, all the other
awards having been given yesterday afternoon at the time of my last
post.

This was a very tough race. The weather wasn't an issue with cool
breezes and high clouds so that plenty of these extremely fit horses
barely broke a sweat during the final short loops. The important
aspect of the race for these horses was the desert itself. Over the
past few years there has been quite an increase in four wheel drive
traffic in the area and this has disturbed a lot of the sand leaving
large pockets of very soft sand mixed in with a lot of rocky sand.
Most  of the horses were wearing pads to protect their feet but
judging by the large number of pulls due to lameness, especially on
the first two loops, feet and legs really took a beating. There were
also quite a number of riders opting to pull their horses as well. I
talked to one Jordanian boy who told me that his horse just didn't
feel quite right and he didn't want to risk another loop which might
seriously injure him. I told him that he was showing good horsemanship
and he should be proud of himself.

The UAE went out fast to win and stayed in front for the entire time.
Qatar moved up a bit, having started out at the back of the front
runners, so to speak, while the Egyptians hung back and moved up quite
a bit at the end as many of the competitors between them and the front
dropped out.  The pace set in the first few loops by the UAE was hot.
The winner did the first loop at 23.01 kph and the second at 22.28,
with each loop progressively slower for an average speed of 17.82 kph.
The fastest Egyptian rider, in contrast, made 18.26 kph on the first
loop and an overall average of 16.36 kph, a much steadier pace.
Recovery times for the horses started at 1.5 minutes to 2 minutes at
the beginning to 6.75 minutes to 8 minutes at the finish.  The
printouts from the timers at these races are a wealth of information.

The venue for the race is a small place and basically everyone was at
each other's elbow all day. This was great for those of us who were
photographing, watching and otherwise trying not to get in the way.
Despite the relatively cramped quarters, much of the atmosphere was
that of a large very messy picnic for much of the day, with emphasis
on the mess as the grass down in the area for the cooling of the
horses grew boggier and boggier as the day wore on. The club isn't
going to have to water that lawn for a month. The areas for the horses
and riders to rest and eat were on a higher elevation so they stayed
quite dry and comfortable for everyone.  The organisers had a large
tent set up with catered food for riders, crews, and press, which was
much appreciated, especially the breakfast at 6:30 am. The crowd at
the race wasn't terribly large, mainly because there had been
virtually no publicity for the event.  Plenty of the riders in the
area were completely unaware of the race, but some showed up to watch
for a while. Endurance is not a very high profile sport in Egypt. I
had to laugh at the comment of one woman who'd never seen an endurance
race before that she'd never spent so much time watching people bathe
horses.

If I have one main complaint about the race it would be the timing of
the awards ceremony for the individual and team gold and silver. Maybe
I'm just really old-fashioned but it seems to me to be a bit rude to
give out some of the awards before the others, even if this is the
pattern that we've grown accustomed to with the UAE organised races in
Egypt.  I have a very hard time being comfortable about giving out
awards before the race is over, but maybe that's just me.

The horses that most of the countries brought in were beautiful. We
had the Egyptian National and International Halter Shows out at the
EAO over the four days preceding the race, and for my money the
graceful, athletic healthy creatures inhabiting the club and visiting
our desert at the time have the halter show ponies beat hands down. I
have had visitors from the US this week who simply went nuts with
cameras at the event and once we sort out some of these millions of
photos we will get them up on the net for you. There are some
beauties.

There were surprisingly few glitches at the race as well. One
Jordanian horse cut his coronary band during the first loop and had to
wait quite a while to be trailered back to the club. Depending on
where he was waiting, this is pretty understandable since trailers are
in pretty short supply in Egypt in the first place and moving one
around in the desert is a major problem in the second. Most horses
here travel in big trucks that can't navigate sand, or on foot.  But
the horse made it back just fine.  The winning horse Omani Iman looked
a little rocky at the finish and was rechecked by the vets. There was
the usual huge cheer when the UAE came in from the last loop, followed
by about half an hour of dead silence, followed once more by a cheer
when the horse was pronounced ok.  He later came in second for BC
behind Dalton Du Capimont.  The Libyans, who had come to Cairo almost
totally in the dark about the sport, had a major eye opening, but I
hope that they don't find the learning curve too daunting. They were
pretty nice guys who gave it a try...a lot like the Egyptians in 2000.

I personally was very proud of our Egyptian team who have come a
rather long way from the early days. From a position of knowing
absolutely nothing at all about endurance in the spring of 2000 and
being smacked in the face by teams from the UAE with horses whose
names I'd read in articles, they've matured a lot. It's one thing to
be told that it takes time to bring along a good endurance horse and
another to actually do it. Their pacing of their ride this time showed
me that progress is definitely being made and I'm happy that they are
seeing a reward for it.

My stirrup and saddle never made it past the first loop. Oh well,
there's always another race.

-- 
Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
msgabbani@xxxxxxxxx

Egypt Face to Face
www.alsorat.com
Weblogs:
Living In Egypt
miloflamingo.blogspot.com
Cairo/Giza Daily Photo
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Turn Right At The Sarcophagus
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Photos of Egypt:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/livinginegypt/

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