If you read yesterday’s post, you may recall that one of the UAE Endurance Sinners has an extra long suspension, partly due to the fact that while he was provisionally suspended he continued to attend FEI sanctioned endurance races. He didn’t compete of course, but he was there hanging out. Because I had familiarized myself with the gory details of his 30-plus page case, I was therefore on high alert when I came across a story today about an endurance race in Dubai on the weekend. The reason it was newsworthy was that it was attended by HRH’s hubby, and he is kind of the Ultimate VIP around those parts.
A number of names were published in the more detailed account of the race on Sheikh Mohammed’s own website, so I decided to do a little cross-referencing with the FEI’s suspended list. Believe me, it’s not easy with all the Ali this, Sheikh that, and eight barrelled names. But I found a match, in the form of HH Sheikh Hazza bin Sultan bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Turns out the good Sheikh is currently suspended (with no end date), because his horse Glenmorgan tested positive for propoxyphene in February of last year. As the Deputy Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, his name was deemed worthy of dropping into Sheikh Mohammed’s press release, which stated that he was on hand to watch the race. I think I’ll be keeping an eye out for the Tribunal decision, which presumably is forthcoming at some point in the near or distant future…I’ll be curious to see if this fellow is treated to an extra stint in the FEI hoosegow for visiting an FEI sanctioned event while suspended.
I actually had to look up the race in the FEI database to see if it even was sanctioned (it was a two star), because neither of the news reports bothered mentioning the FEI’s name in connection with the race. I guess the FEI isn’t really that important to the real ‘movers and sheikhers’.
