Emirates Longines Show Jumping League ends on high note at SERC

The 2018- 2019 Show Jumping season came to a successful end with the finals being held across 10 classes over a span of three days.

All competitions were held in the indoor sand arena of the Sharjah Equestrian and Racing Club (SERC) under the sponsorship of Longines - the official time keeper and presenting partner of the Emirates Longines Show Jumping League competitions — and the supervision of the UAE Equestrian and Racing Federation (UAEERF), in cooperation with SERC which hosted the tournament for the past three weeks.

Male and female riders from various equestrian clubs took part in the competitions which consisted of two classes for each category. Division 1’s Competition Over Two Rounds was won by Norwegian rider, Anita Annika Sande, from Elite Stables riding ‘For Cash 2’ while Emirati rider Moh’d Yousuf Baker from SERC won Division 2’s Competition Over Two Rounds with ‘Foss’.

The winner of the Juniors’ category was Syria’s Mhd Osama Al Zabibi and ‘Toulana’, from Mandara Equestrian Club while SERC’s Kayla Hassan Daher won the Novice Division competition atop ‘Pentagon’.  SERC also dominated in the Children’s Division when Layth Ghurayeb and ‘Quapitola Sr Z’ won the coveted first place.

Sheikh Abdullah Bin Majid Al Qassimi, Chairman of the Sharjah Equestrian and Racing Club, was also present at the event. Dr Ghanem Al Hajri, Secretary General of the UAEERF; Sultan Al Yahyaee, General Director of the Sharjah Equestrian and Racing Club; and Patrick Aoun, Regional Manager of Longines presented the prizes to the winners.

Hajri said: “We are happy to conclude the eighth edition of the league and award the riders who persevered and were able to reach these advanced stages.”

He continued, “We would like to thank our partners and sponsors who played a pivotal role in preparing the riders to reach this level thus achieving the best possible results. We wish success to our riders for the future tournaments.”

Yahyaee said: “The riders have had a very successful season in all competitions of the League as well as international competitions. This would not have been possible without the efforts of the clubs and sponsors who helped the riders in reaching the Longines Cup, Barcelona and other categories of international competitions.”

He added, “Today, we’re witnessing the end of the season, which could have continued throughout the year had there been more indoor fields, thus saving riders the difficulty of searching for summer participations in Europe.”

Yahyaee revealed that the Sharjah Equestrian & Racing Club will meet the requirements for hosting the 2022 Show Jumping World Cup.

Aoun expressed his delight at the conclusion of the eighth edition of the event and mentioned that there has been a great development in sport of show jumping as well as the riders during the course of the League - evidence to the success of sponsorship.  He was optimistic that the efforts have yielded positive results, which will encourage further sponsorship. “We will certainly see more developments in the ninth edition of the League, and achieve more towards the development of the sport in UAE,” he concluded.

This past edition took place over 17 weeks and began in the first week of October, concluding last weekend, with the competitions being held in the equestrian clubs of Sharjah, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and the Al Habtoor Polo Resort and Club.

Earlier, Sande won the Division 1 category competition during the Longines Final in the Competition Over Two Rounds class with jumps placed at 135 cm in the first round and at 140 cm in the second. Out of 23 male and female participants, Sande and her horse ‘For Cash 2’ from Elite Stables came in first with one fault for exceeding the time allowed in Round 1 and finishing Round 2 without any faults in (42.23) seconds.

Sharjah Equestrian and Racing Club’s riders took placed second to fifth. Syria’s Chadi Gharib and his horse ‘Taiwan Du Landey’ came in second, after finishing the second round in a time of (42.02) seconds with four faults in the second round.