Man-O-Man-Oman!! Christilot Boylen's Second and Third Posts

A Barnmice Community News Feature:

 

Olympian Christilot Boylen is sharing with us her blog about riding on a quadrille team at an important horse exhibition in Oman.  

 

Second Post:

 

We had the first full dress rehearsal today ....  the grandeur of this whole show is slowly sinking in!
The complete performance runs two and a quarter hours.  The first entrance number involves 500 camels and 1500 horses made up of 5 different regiments:  Two Omani, one English, one Indian, and one Arab.  They take exactly 15 minutes to all file into the arena and position themselves.   Then they stand dead quiet for as long as it takes for the Sultan of Oman to arrive and be seated with his entourage.


There are 28 equestrian acts in the program, and we are the third last with the International Grand Prix Quadrille.


This whole event marks the 40th anniversary of  His Majesty Quaboos bin Said the Sultan of Oman, who has been the sole reigning power in Oman for 40 years.  
The show will cost him about twenty million dollars, take or give a few dollars.   

 

I will continue this email tomorrow; I have to go now to catch the bus.  Our complete rhythm is topsy turvy.  We ride at night and get up to have breakfast at 11.  The show doesnt finish til 11PM and with bus travel time, it is midnight before we get back in the hotel!
cheers!

 

Third Post:

 

It was tough getting up to go out to the barn this morning.  Our free workout today in an empty and blissfully quiet stadium took place at 8AM so we were on the bus at 7:15 having returned the night before at midnight.  The weather is perfect: warm and sunny, at 9AM about 25c.

It was really great to have a gallop around the stadium, to stretch out after all the formation riding of the last few days!  
The PSI Team  [Performance Sales International] has arranged for all of us to have tickets and tables for the New Year festivities at one of the three hotels in the Shangri-La Beach Hotels complex.  All three are right on the Indian ocean and all the rooms have an ocean view!

The barn crew, grooms, and all support personnel coming from PSI have been great.  The horses have big solid stone boxes with half doors,and fans in each box.  There is an incredible variety of feed available including Cavalor and many English brands.  The hay comes from ... guess where? ... Canada! And it is gorgeous!  There are two varieties to choose from:  timothy or alfalfa.

We are in so called quarantine which means that at the entrance to our barn there is a trough  about 4 metres wide and 2 metres across with some very strong milky white disinfectant in it.  The idea is to have the horses walk through it when they return to the barns to disinfect their feet after having had contact on the ground at least with camels, ostriches, bison, bulls, and all the various creatures that are a part to the show.  A lot of the horses are not thrilled at being asked to enter this wading pool.  Those who refuse are turned around and then backed through.  Problem solved and the quards are happy! 
The security is very impressive and we have gotten used to them with their sabres and daggers!  They are extremely polite but are also very insistent!  Even in the first days, they stopped two of the riders from taking pictures with their phones!

We have been warned not to try to bring cameras or phones with us tomorrow for the big event.  They will be confiscated at the first checkpoint!

Luckily all participants will be given a copy of the complete video which is being put together by Oman TV which is doing the whole show for the home population.

There are no public tickets available for this event.  The Sultan and the government have distributed the tickets privately as they wish.  We understand many foreign dignitaries from surrounding countries also will attend.

Tomorrow evening at 8PM the show is scheduled to start, but here is the first small problem:  Apparently no one is quite sure when the Sultan will actually arrive!  So the first show sequence which I have already described - the 500 camels and the 1500 horses - will be ready to file into the stadium at 8PM. They might have to stand there for up to an hour before the Sultan actually arrives with his entourage and and is seated!  Apparently, at one of the previous events, a whole slew of camels got tired of waiting and all sat down!  Let's hope for the best!


 

 

Check out Part 1 here and look for the next exciting update which will be posted soon!

Views: 104

Comment

You need to be a member of Barnmice Equestrian Social Community to add comments!

Join Barnmice Equestrian Social Community

The Rider Marketplace

International Horse News

Click Here for Barnmice Horse News

© 2024   Created by Barnmice Admin.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service