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Review Endurance

AL SHAQAB’s favourite Faleh Nasser Bughenaim, wearing No 17, won the 120 kilometer race of CHI AL SHAQAB 2015. Riding Halte A Tout, he finished first in 4hrs 56min 19sec on an average speed of 24.30 km per hour.
Second was Bilal Bassam Shawqi Al Kharraz with Ithilien Arwen, competing for the USA. His total time was more then 7 minutes more than the winner’s, and he was riding with an average speed of 23.69 km per hour.
Finishing in third place with a total time of 5hrs 8min 1sec and an average speed was Abdulla Tahous Saif Al Naimi, riding Qualine El Widde.

World’s No.1 rider Bughenaim was ecstatic. „My horse was fantastic,” he said on Halte A Tout. The pure Arabian gelding is born and bred in France. The CHI was the third race for the combination after their first race together in France and the second in Qatar. Now they have won all three starts. Bughenaim knows the pure Arabian chestnut well. “He is a strong horse that likes the desert races.” He could implement his tactics down to the last meters. “It was my strategy to run my own race from beginning to the end. That was my plan and I could make it happen. I never got faster but always kept my speed and could keep the pace.”
Hassan Tahous Saif Al Nuaimi with the horse Farag Frutti from AL SHAQAB went out to the second loop leading the competition. His average speed in the 1st loop was 26.56 km/h and he presented his horse for the vet inspection in 1min46s. He was later eliminated at stage 3. Essa Sulaiti from Al Sadd Endurance Team was second.

For Bughenaim the race unfolded as a competition against Qatar’s Essa Mohammed Al Sulaiti, second after loop one and leading stage 2 and 3. At the end of the fourth loop Bughneaim overtook Al Sulaiti and was alongside him for several minutes. By loop five he was finally all by himself, racing alone. “My horse loves that best. He doesn’t like the mass start where he tends to get nervous. On his own he is more happy.”

Al-Sulaiti finished sixth.

Visiting French champion Philippe Tomas could not complete the 120 kilometer race. After the third loop he withdrew his AL SHAQAB stables’ horse Perlando HLM. The chestnut gelding was moving slightly irregular. “I could have continued but for the welfare of the horse I decided against it”, Tomas said afterwards. He had ridden Parlando for about an hour the day before the race. “I felt very well connected with him and I would have loved to have finished here.” Tomas has competed in Qatar before but was again surprised by the difference with regards to endurance racing in Europe. “The course is very much different. No twists and turns or ups and downs. It is not technical at all like at home but the higher speed makes all the difference.”