European Conference of Arab Horse Organizations (ECAHO) has just released it’s 2008 show season calendar of events affiliated to be held in Europe and Middle East. While Americans are also coming with their 2008 events – some of them will take place soon and also Polish-bred Arabians sold or on lease should be competing there this year as well.
Arabian Horse Breeders Alliance (AHBA) has already released the terms and invitations for the prestigious Arabian Breeders World Cup at South Point Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas. The second edition will take place on 17-20 April. The show will start with geldings and amateur classes on Thursday, on Friday halter mares junior and senior will compete, Saturday will belong to the halter stallions and the championships will be held on Sunday. There will also be some performance classes run on Friday and Saturday but, comparing to the other American shows this will be a smaller part of the event. It’s not a coincidence indeed, as the classes of the event dedicated to „unite breeders worldwide” will be conducted in the European style using the World Cup Scoring System, similar to the All Nation’s Cup in Aachen and the World Championships at the Salon du Cheval in Paris. Through the use of the European style of showing the spectator can be more involved and can better understand and appreciate the attributes that the judges are appreciating and those that they are not.
Introducing the new showing and scoring system in US last year provoked a big discussion regarding the advantages and disadvantages of both American and European styles.
The show features 5 international judges, a true mix of the 5 continents:
Majdi Al-Saleh – Jordan
Dr. Gianmarco Aragno – Italy
Eduardo Moreira Caio – Brasil
Karen Homer-Brown – USA
Cathy Murphy-Wright – USA
Allan Preston – Australia
Brian Scoggins – USA (performance).
Just to remind, the 2007 event three Polish-bred horses took part in: Janów-bred Olita (Ecaho – Orawa), on lease to Valley Oak Arabians, Michałów-bred Wkra (Gazal Al Shaqab – Wyborna), on lease to Palmetto Arabians and Michałów-bred stallion Kordelas (Monogramm – Kabała), owned by Toskhara Arabians (US). There was also Egzalt JCA (by Gazal Al Shaqab) exported in utero with his dam – Michałów-bred Egzonera to Jade Creek Arabians (US), currently owned by Pride of Poland Partners competing. All of the horses won their classes (besides Wkra) but none of them qualified to the championships. Olita won Top Five title as well as Enzo (called Reserve Senior Champion Stallion) – used in Janów Podlaski Stud/Poland and his son Eden C, called Junior Champion Stallion of the show.
(see more at the 2007 Las Vegas report)
The first big American show being one of the most important and biggest Arabian horse shows in the world will start within a month at Scottsdale. This year a group of Polish breeders will also attend the show to cross the fingers for some Polish horses to appear there. As Marsha Parkinson informed us some time ago – Janów-bred Equifor (Gazal Al Shaqab – Eqviria) on lease to Marsha’s Canterbury Farm is going to start his halter career in US competing at Scottsdale with Greg Gallun on the lead.
