Endurance - dedicated to Charlotte, Alexis and Helen in Chapel Hill

One of my colleagues is an equestrian and has leased a horse for the year at a Sheikh's barn where tehre is an expansive property to ride that includes date orchards and wild peacocks. I intend to have a lesson one day so I can go on a hack and enjoy that surprising stretch of nature in the middle of the desert, made possible by a natural aquifer running underneath the property. While she's been acquiring all her horse-riding acoutrements, I've been tackling sailing lessons and am happy to report that I passed Beginning Sailing (on a Pico Laser) without destroying the boat, another person or myself....sailing stories for another posting once the Intermediate class starts.

So my colleague is a team player and she crews for one of her barn friends at endurance horse races. These races are 100km in distance in the Arabian desert, starting late in the afternoon and lasting until about 2 in the morning. The horse and rider leave a starting point that is lined by individual open air stables and traverse a 30km loop twice and then a 20km loop twice with a pace car following them throughout (like the Tour de France). Each loop finishes at the starting point where they arrive and are doused with buckets of water or ice water to lower their heart rates. The rider indicates to their team of grooms and crew how the horse is doing and if ice is necessary. Arabian horses have been bred to endure the heat and usually do not require the ice water to lower their heart rates. Once the heart rate is within the regulation range, the horse goes for a vet check and is put on a heart monitor. If the heart rate is out of range, the horse is disqualified and cannot continue the competition. If the horse passes, it must also trot up and down a grassy lane for the vet to check for lameness. If all is clear, the horse goes to the stable assigned for the competition and has ice packs attached to the legs while it eats and continues to recover. Blankets are replaced and all kinds of chaotic instructions are uttered by the competitor and crew to grooms of Tibetan, Afghan and other origins.

Here are some photos from yesterday's race...STROLLING THE STABLES BEFORE THE START (don't miss the green ruffle-trimmed fly mask; FIRST 30KM LOOP IN ACTION: pace cars, halfway marker, industrial natural gas complex flaring in the background, sunset; BACK AT THE STARTING POINT: horses doused with water, dry ice at the ready - no flash photography allowed (spooks the horses) and not enough light to shoot the chaos of the grooms and crew attending to the competitors.