JEDDAH, 9 January 2008 — The Arab Equestrian League enters the halfway mark as Dubai hosts the sixth round in the 12-round series. The three-day event starts tomorrow.
The Dubai round will mark the return to action of the lady riders including Nouf Al-Eissa of Kuwait and Sarah Baban who is representing Kingdom Holding Company equestrian team of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. They last competed during the fourth round in Kuwait.
Dubai being the hosts will enter their best 12 riders including equestrienne Sheikha Latifah Al Maktoum and standout male rider Sheikh Shakbout Al Nihayyan. Officials said the ladies participation is more of a sideshow than anything else as they still have to gain more experience. The men, on the other hand, are competing for places in the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, a prestigious quadrennial tournament to be held in 2010 in Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, USA.
Egyptian Usama Al-Burai leads the standings with 56 points. Three points adrift in second place is Fadi Al-Zabibi from Syria with 53 points. Prince Abdullah ibn Miteb from Saudi Arabia is third with 47 points, followed by Abdullah Al-Marri of UAE, fourth, 43 points; Shadi Ghareeb of Syria, fifth, 42 points; Ahmed Basyouni of Egypt, sixth, 41 points; Arif Ahmed of UAE, seventh, 36 points; Ali Al-Romaihi of Qatar, eighth, 35 points; Al-Sheikh Ali ibn Khalid al Thani of Qatar, ninth, 30 points; Kareem Hamdi of Egypt, 10th, 29 points; Mohammed Sadiq of Egypt, 11th, 22 points and Yassir Al-Shareif of Syria, 12th, 22 points. Al-Burai said the current standings are not to considered as final because the rankings may change and those who are behind could surpass us. “ Specially as we sense the heat of pressure from the Syrian duo of Al-Zabibi and Ghareeb and Saudi Prince Abdullah,” he said. Despite enjoying the home course advantage the UAE team are expecting the Saudi side to return the favor. In the fifth round in Riyadh UAE scored victory over the hosts.
UAE’s Abdullah Hameed said, “We get optimistic when playing in Riyadh and the Saudis feel the same when they play in UAE but that might change this time or all the titles would go to the Syrian and Qatari riders.”
