Arrivals

It felt soooo good to sleep, I was totally dead to the world from the time I hit the pillow until daylight the next morning. Gorgeous morning, sunshine, bright sky and a few puffy clouds - we met up with Leo and Paul and had breakfast in the outdoor dining room of the resort - nothing fancy, cafeteria style, most things were recognizable, some were a little strange...

I'm in a bit of a quandry because my suitcase got lost - the airline has located it (so they say) and are sending it here from CA (where it was lost) via Korea... somehow that doesn't inspire great confidence, but not much I can do about it. I have the clothes I travelled in and a bunch of Endurance Net tshirts that I brought to give to the OC, and I wore my riding tights on the plane for an exra layer of warmth, and the other suitcase with saddle and boots did make it - so I do have a couple things to wear - it could be worse! First time I've lost luggage though, sort of a bummer.

After breakfast we got a ride out to the Endurance Village - wow!!! These guys are building a venue to rival the venues in Dubai and Abu Dhabi... very elaborate and complex. And very well done - and the buildings have that artistic Malaysian flavor - these people seem to have a natural flair for art, for beauty - a softer graceful line. The complex is actually an 'Endurance Park' with the 'Village' as the central facility. They're still working on it, it won't be finished for this ride, but they're ultimately aiming for the WEC.

We met up with another rider - Jeanne Linneweaver from Nederlands, here with her husband Charles. Jeanne finished 16th in Aachen, has been competing for the past 10 years, and starting to get more involved in International. There are going to be around 15 horses entered in the 160km - more in the 80km and 40km but I don't have numbers yet. Other than Malaysia, riders from Australia (Brook Sample - here to ride one of the RTES horses in the 160km), New Zealand (Paul), Belgium (Leo), Netherlands (Jeanne), me (USA), plus riders from Qatar, Bruneii, Indonesia and Bahrain. There aren't any horses being shipped in though, so all the foreign riders will be riding Malaysian horses.

This is an official test event for the 160km - 2008 WEC - event. FEI will have several representatives here, observing and submitting a report after the event is over. They are looking for a reasonable completion rate (40% or over, and ideally ride times no longer than 16 hours). The pressure to make a committment to Malaysia has been building, with talk of other possible venues (Newmarket, UK is one of the options heard) and at the August meeting in Dubai, the FEI decided to use the Sultan's Cup ride as a defining event. There are several here who are certain that yes, they can host a safe and successful WEC in 2008, but they would have liked more time to prepare for a 'test'. Malaysia is still building a pool of 160km horses, and it's hard to produce definitive results from such small numbers. Apparently Malaysia has withdrawn from the Asian Games in Doha, mid December, so there is no longer a conflict there - they can enter their best horses in this test event.

We were lucky with weather today - sunny (hot) all day, hopefully the heavy rains will hold off for a few more days. Tomorrow is registration, plus some Endurance seminars at the Sutra Beach Resort (the fancy one down the beach from where we're staying). We're getting up early to go try out our horses in the morning. Leo and Jeannie are riding the 160km event, and Paul and I are both riding the 80km, on the two horses owned by Paul Brown (the head trainer for the stables). His horses have only done 40km and 60km rides to date, we'll be taking them on their first 80km ride, so will ride quite conservatively. I'm not sure yet what horse Leo will be riding, we'll find out tomorrow.

that's about it for now - a light dinner and then off to bed!

Steph