Saudi Arabia’s 2012 Olympic equestrian bronze medalist, Abdullah Al-Sharbatly, placed third in the 1.45 meter Class 2 event at the Longines Global Champions Tour, which was held in Portugal from July 7 to July 9 .
Meanwhile, Qatar’s 2016 Olympic show jumping riders, Sheikh Ali Bin Khalid Al-Thani, Bassem Hassan Mohammed and Faleh Al-Ajami did not make it to the podium. However, they did not return home empty-handed, receiving a shares of the prize money granted to the top twelve riders in the standard events and the top eighteen in the Grand Prix.
Sharbatly ’s third place finish in Class 2 earned him 3,690 British pounds ($4,755), while ranking fifth in the 1.6 meter Grand Prix added 17,000 British pounds to his credit. He was unable to defend the LGCT Grand Prix title he had claimed in April with a different horse, whose faultless performance took home the 141,218 British pound grand prize.
This has been Sharbatly’s best Grand World Tour season, ranking 15th in the GCT 2016 standings, after being 30th in 2015 and 53rd in 2014. He won his first Grand Prix and earned a total of 226,908 British pounds in prize money this year. Apart from the GCT, he has won the World Championships silver in 2010, Asian Games gold and team silver in 2014, plus team golds in 2010 and 2006.
As for the Qatari riders, their best result at Portugal’s LGCT was Bassem Mohammed’s sixth place finish in Class 2, where his horse committed two faults and earned 1,107 British pounds. However, in the 1.5/1.55 meter Class 3 event, Faleh Al-Ajami placed eighth and gained 3,843 British pounds, while Sheikh Ali Al-Thani earned 3,074 British pounds after finishing ninth. Additionally, Thani, Mohammed and Ajami respectively ranked 11th, 12th and 13th place in the 1.45 meter Class 1 event, where the former two were each awarded 246 British pounds. In the Grand Prix, only Ajami secured a spot in the top 18, ranking 11th and receiving 3,000 British pounds.
Qatar’s riders have taken a few steps back since their remarkable 2015 season. Thani went from 6th place in the GCT ranking to 18th this year, with his GCT earnings at 44,077 British pounds so far versus last year’s 207,298 British pounds. Similarly, Mohammed moved six places back, landing in 25th place, while Ajami, now 62nd, was twenty ranks ahead in 2015.
Mohammed won a silver in Miami and a bronze in Valkenswaard at the LGCT Grand Prix last year. Nonetheless, his peek was in 2014, when he placed 4th in GCT, earned 363,756 British pounds from Longines and won his country's first LGCT Grand Prix in Monaco. He also won the 2014 Asian Games team gold, with Thani on his team.
The trio is heading to Qatar’s first-ever Olympic equestrian event next month, alongside Ali Al-Rumaihi, Khalid Al-Imadi and Hamad Ali Al-Attiyah. The team is being coached by Jan Tops, an Olympic and European equestrian gold medalist who happens to be the founder of LGCT, the world's premier five-star show jumping event .
, The 2016 Longines Global Champions Tour, which comprises fourteen rounds of competition hosted around the world, will be , concluded , in Doha this November.