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[RC] Chile and Malaysians - Steph Teeter

Wow - almost a week w/o internet... much to catch up on . Ruben just dropped me off at a shopping center in the city (beautiful city!) - there's a Starbucks here with WiFi so I'll work for a few hours. He's taking Burn (Bakar Aman) to the hospital to check on Zul (Zulkifli Saari) who is still in ICU - a fall with his stallion on loop 2 left him with a fractured wrist and fractured skull. He's out of danger for now - some swelling but no brain hemorrhage, he's very lucky in this respect. But he'll have to stay in the hospital for at least 2 weeks. Burn volunteered to stay in Chile with Zul until he can return, and he'll stay at Ruben's house outside of the city. He speaks NO Spanish. He woke up early this morning (the rest of us - Santiago and Hernan from Argentina, Ruben - slept till late in the morning - the first good night's sleep since the race). Burn wanted to wash some clothes, there was no laundry soap so he went on a walkabout while the rest of us slept, to look for a shop where he could buy soap. He found a little store, but it took quite a while to communicate to the senorita that he wanted laundry soap. Oh the trials and tribulations of being a foreigner!

Quick report on the race - the 160km was pretty tough, everybody said it was one of the easier courses in Chile, more good footing and sort of flat trail - but still a very tough ride when the goal is to finish in 13:20 or less. I have never been a fan of the FEI CoC (Certificate of Capability) which requires riders to finish in 13:20 or less, and because of this stupid requirement the riders have to ride by the clock, not by the terrain, or the weather, or all of the things that make our sport interesting. So the constant pressure to ride fast took it's toll on the Malaysian riders. Only 2 of them (out of 8 starters) finished - Data Kamarrudin (Awang) finished 2nd, chasing the winner to the finish line, and Burn finished 7th - last - but missed the CoC by about 10 minutes. So his ride didn't count towards the Malaysia WEC qualification. so ridiculous!! The others fell out at different points in the ride. Norlaily made it to the 148km point on her feisty little white mare, but at that point the mare was lame. Raja Adub ('little Mahmood') pulled at the 2nd vetcheck, the first elimination ever for his horse - he was disappointed... but also very tired, so maybe it wasn't totally so bad to stop. It was a tough course - and the first 40km's were done in the dark. A 3AM start - there was a lead car and a car behind - the riders stayed in between the two vehicles. Very dark, cold and very foggy, hilly terrain, tough riding. Ramly and Izri and Shamsudin also fell out during the day, disappointed.

so that's it in a nutshell for the Malaysians - I'll have lots more story to tell, and millions of photos to post, but for now I'm going to catch up on my email and listen to Joni Mitchell singing 'wish I had a river...' and have an espresso doble!

more later -

Steph



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