[RC] Linda in Abu Dhabi - day 7, part 2 - Jay Randle
Once again scrutiny of the vetting was fairly intense and horses were pulsing down relatively quickly and getting through the vetting well. A couple of mis-presents showed high heart rates on the monitors so they got shoved out again.
We were also watching two Castlebar horses – Sholar and Oslo – who were both doing their first ride over here. Both did exceptionally well with Oslo competing in about 13th or 14th place I think. He looked really well and bright at the end and averaged about 21.5km for the 120km. Sholar also did so well, finishing further down the list but still looking well. He was a little tired but he is not as seasoned as Oslo.
At this stage the top ten had quite a number of Australian horses in it so we had plenty to barrack for. Another compulsory re-present was required before the horses could go out on the last leg. We watched the first six horses go out and I have to say that Kalkadoon Vagabond, who went out third 2 and ½ minutes after the first placed horse, looked really strong. We were cheering for him and for the second place horse (Garaman Mikado who we were told was also an Aussie horse). One horse went out that wasn’t on our list in about 7th or 8th place and we were thinking he’d gone the wrong way when he went off and chased the leading horses. He flew out of the timing gates looking as fresh as a daisy.
We raced out and got in the car and then flew through the desert, at one stage getting airborne after crashing through an unseen bump. We soon came across the pack with the three front running horses all who were just cruising along. We tried to stay out of harm’s way with the traffic and then scooted ahead to park on top of a small set of sand dunes to watch the horses come past us. Of course, the whole cavalcade had to come past as well and we had the biggest laugh when a flash white 4WD came flying along in front of us, hit the top of the dune and then sunk into the bottom and got bogged!
The driver proceeded to rev the guts out of the car and just dug himself in further. Then a few more cars came hurtling over the dunes and almost landed on top of the bogged car but managed to avoid a collision by inches and probably the same margin from getting bogged. We drove off the top of the dune and then followed the pack in just behind the front runners. The third placed horse dropped off the pace and then, about 300m from home the guy riding Vagabond put his foot down and dropped the second place horse off and head back into home and lots of cheering from his team.
We turned around and went back out to see how some of the other horses were going and nearly got run over by a big black Hummer ute who was absolutely hammering along. We think it may have been Sheikh Mohammed’s body guards because we saw the two cars head off across the desert. After following a few more horses back into the finish line we headed to the car park and then into the vet ring to watch the final vetting. The winner vetted through fine and there were heaps of noise and lots of carrying away of the rider to throw him into the water trough!
I don’t have the final results as we headed off and went back to the stables after the first few horses had vetted through but it was good to see the Aussie horses do so well.
So far today has been fairly quiet, working the horses this morning and then we headed to the camel souk to see if we could get some jet (their version of lucerne) but they didn’t have any. Prices were very cheap there and we were able to get a couple of things that we’d been missing out on (sponges and some buckets). We’ll head back to the stables this arvo and then, if we get finished up early enough, we are going into Dubai to see the Arabian flat racing.
