[RC] Linda in Abu Dhabi - Day 6, part 1 - Jay Randle
We were back to our early morning start today along with the refreshing/character building cool shower. I cannot believe that anyone can enjoy starting the day with a cold shower and it’s taking me all my fortitude to get under that cool stream of water every morning. First thing on my list when I get back home is a hot shower, no matter whether it is 40o or not!
We were wanting to head up to the Dubai endurance village to see some of the qualifiers being run today. The rides being run were an 80km and a 40km qualifying ride allowing horses to attain their ‘endurance’ status and permitting them competing in the FEI rides under the new rule regime.
Jan Worthington, one of the American riders, was competing in the 40km ride and we were hoping that some of the horses sent over by Castlebar may have been competing. It was also pre-ride vetting for the 119km 1* ride being held tomorrow.
It was fairly fresh and a bit chilly this morning and I was glad of the need to work hard to clean out the box and get organised a bit earlier. I’m pretty lucky that Kalahari is relatively tidy doing her ‘business’ but Kristie & Naomi still manage to beat me getting the box done. Of course, having two experts do one box certainly makes it way quicker than one absolute amateur!
Penny had left the motel earlier than us this morning and was already out on the track by the time we arrived. It didn’t take long to get the ponies saddled up and Meg and Kristie were on their way. Friday is the day of rest over here so there didn’t seem to be any camels around to upset Kalahari today and she was so chill! The bottle practice is going well with Darth Vadar excelling and he’s now able to do the hand-over at a canter. I’m laughing to myself as Naomi is busy running while I’m standing still as Meg is still slowing Kalahari down to do the pass over. I guess I won’t be able to maintain this for much longer and I’ll soon have to get the legs pumping!
What both Naomi and I are having trouble with is getting in on the passenger side of the vehicle! Usually we have one person run further up the track as we have a double pass over of bottles. The closer one gets in and drives the vehicle up to pick the other one up. We are always on the wrong side and have a scurry when we finally realise we need to be on the other side of the vehicle! Hopefully, by the time of the ride, we’ll have it sorted!
While we were out today we saw some of the locals training their horses. There were four riders and the same number of vehicles and I can tell you these horses looked so fit! We were training on the normal track but these horses were up in the soft, deep sand cantering along like it was a normal track. They all had a lovely rythmn in their canter and they weren’t going slow. Really impressive to see.
