# Ineligible novice rider competed at International endurance ride



## Bloodaxe Bombardier (24 August 2018)

Has anyone seen this article by Pippa Cuckson in this weeks magazine?

I know endurance has a terrible reputation for cheating and welfare abuses abroad, particularly in the UAE, but it seems it's now happening right here on British soil.

Apparently a rider who was not FEI registered, had never competed at FEI level before, who knows if he'd ever even sat on a horse before, was allowed at the last minute to start an FEI 3* rated 100 mile endurance race at Euston Park in Suffolk on 5 August. Can you imagine a novice, unregistered rider being allowed to hop on a strange horse the morning of the cross country at Blenheim and being allowed to start?

If all that wasn't bad enough, not only was the rider not registered or eligible for the race, the horse he rode, HS Jamal, who is owned by experienced British FEI rider Lauren Mills, wasn't entered into the event originally. All entries should be in two weeks before the ride but even a day or so before HS Jamal was not on the official start list. All horses competing at Euston Park wear an electronic timing tag but there was no reference to him on the electronic timing system so presumably he was allowed to start without a timing tag, another huge rule breach.  Why would an experienced owner like Lauren Mills allow a complete stranger, and a novice rider to boot, to ride their horse at the highest level of competition?

Nick Brooks-Ward of Hpower who organise the Euston Park rides for Meydan (one of the business arms of Sh Mohammed Al Maktoum) said it was an administrative oversight and that shortly after the start of the race the error was realised and the rider was stopped on course. No harm done. But how on earth could it have happened in the first place? Last minute entries of rider and horse - no one thinking to check? A novice rider amongst fit and fast arab racehorses at the start of a race? If he'd got out of control he could have caused chaos and injury to other horses and riders.

How could an experienced organiser like the Brooks-Ward family and HPower let something like this happen?  Is there any connection between the fact that this rider was riding round the course with one of Sh Mohammed's sons, that the Euston Park events are paid for by the Maktoums, and that the electronic timing system is built and run by a Dubai company?


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## {97702} (24 August 2018)

Sorry but this rather smacks of an axe to grind to me......


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## Snowfilly (24 August 2018)

Lévrier;13830111 said:
			
		


			Sorry but this rather smacks of an axe to grind to me......
		
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Sadly it sounds fairly possible to me. High level endurance has become a horribly shady across the board and there seems to be an unbelievable catalogue of errors to have allowed this horse and rider anywhere near the start line. I compete at local shows and you can't get a horse into the ring without your number being checked by the steward so how can this happen at this level?

Money talks and it often looks looks like money from some countries talks loudest in endurance elite circles.


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## {97702} (24 August 2018)

Sorry should have clarified - absolutely I think it is possible/true, I just wonder at why it has been posted on here?   There appears to be an agenda


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## Archangel (24 August 2018)

It really is quite bizarre.  At an FEI event. 
So will the rider and owner get a ban?
Fined?
It seems the horse was ridden at another event so obviously not.


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## palo1 (24 August 2018)

There may or may not be an axe to grind but it isn't, sadly, surprising to hear this news: higher level endurance is in such a poor state, very little would be surprising!  Essentially though, money talks and the owner of the horse would have been well aware of the problem of an ineligible jockey.  There must have been another motivation for them to allow the ride...the jockey was apparantly closely associated with a particularly significant sheikh but of course that may have had nothing to do with it...


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## MotherOfChickens (25 August 2018)

I used to spend a lot of time at endurance events i.e. almost every weekend through the summer for a few years. The only time I saw something that made me uncomfortable was at a FEI ride.

One of the riders from a certain ME team just couldn't ride. he was literally held on by team mates for some of it, he was desperately unbalanced and could barely rise to the trot and his poor wee horse was having its back slammed and its mouth pulled constantly and tbh the rider didn't seem to be enjoying it. He was on one of the longer rides and the team won I think-I remember wondering how he had qualified and at the endurance of his horse to vet through it. I did mention it to an official (that I had seen his team mates holding him on) and was just given a blank stare and told that I must be mistaken, this was top level international endurance. 
I've no idea if there was any wrong doing during this ride but I didn't opt to work any FEI rides again. I had a friend who was really against naming the sport 'endurance' as she didn't see why horses should 'endure' anything. This was the only endurance event that I thought she was correct-all the SERC events I've been too I always enjoyed.


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## chaps89 (29 August 2018)

I crewed at Euston for the May ride last year. I was surprised by the lack of security- you had to have a pass to get into the stable block but that was about it. The riders I was crewing for only sat on their 2 horses for the first time the night before the ride, and 1 of them fell off.  Neither rider completed- 1 withdrew after the first loop and the other was vetted out at the 3rd vet gate from memory. Both looked distinctly wobbly, and the rider who was out the longest looked knackered by the end. I can say he did truly seem to care for the horse and want the best for him though, as well as really wanting to continue but accepting with good grace the horse wasn't allowed.
So what the OP describes doesn't surprise me in all honesty!
I will also say though I saw some very classy riding from all nationalities and some very fit horses and riders.


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## DD (29 August 2018)

yet more endurance scandle. very bad for the sport.


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## MotherOfChickens (29 August 2018)

chaps89 said:



			I will also say though I saw some very classy riding from all nationalities and some very fit horses and riders.
		
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yes, on the whole it is/was my most favourite of disciplines for rider consideration of horse welfare, general horsemanship and adoption of research at the level I used to observe.


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