HUSH
One of the greatest
The final of the Royal Pahang Classic was inundated as rain lashed the royal town of Pekan on Saturday afternoon. In fifteen minutes, the rain completely covered the field as it came sheeting down. The wind (of heaven?) blew a goalpost over - no mean feat - then the currents carried it first to the 30 yard line, then about 20 yards behind the back-line. It took hours for the flooding to subside.
When Natasha and I started Equestrian.Com.My eight years ago today, we had no idea it would turn out this way. It started as a “monthly” because we didn’t think we had enough news to update daily. How wrong we were!I installed an automated graph on my PC and marveled when we had 100 visitors in a day. Where were they coming from! Last month ECM had 78,297 unique visitors viewing 485,398 pages, creating 862,250 hits.
Alvin Tan of Inscribe Webmedia continues to provide the technical web support as he has done from day 1. Thanks Al for your friendship and for every day that you and your team has worked to make ECM better.
Thanks also to all our sponsors and supporters, especially Barry Lim of Malaysian Horseshoes.
Most of all, thank you to all of you who read Equestrian.Com.My. You are truly the ones who keep us going.
Yesterday saw the launch of the Sultan’s Cup Terengganu Endurance Challenge 2007 and the CSI 5* KL Grand Prix with press conferences at the Palace of the Golden Horses and Taman Equestrian Putrajaya respectively. We were treated to a pageant, the delightful sight of our beloved Minister of Sport getting mounted, and of course lots of good food. What’s a press conference without some good makan?
While the KL Grand Prix was more of a sponsorship launch - the Minister said it should be sponsored by more than just the government - the Sultan’s Cup ostensibly was just launching, elaborately, their event. Which is all fine and good except that entries hadn’t yet closed, so we didn’t exactly know who would be coming here. The ride is three months away.
So why the need for two PC’s on the same day? Is equestrian inundation actually good for the media?
The editor of the Royal Pahang Classic’s souvenir programme asked if I would write something for the it. “You could write anything you wanted,” she said. I came up with “The Wind of Heaven“, a short story, entirely fictional.
Natasha and I were blessed when our daughter Asha Zulaiqa Abisheganaden made her entry into the world at 9:23 am on Thursday 2nd August 2007.
Eldest brother Zack Ali has been waiting a long time for a sister. Zaine Iskandar, who is 3 years old, seems less impressed.
Both boys were introduced to horses when they were about 6 months old. I would ride with Zack sitting in front of me before he graduated to riding in a childâs saddle on his own. I got them a little Wintec with a built-in monkey grip, and fitted my own racing stirrup leathers on with a pair of clog stirrups. Zaine didnât ride much in front of me, possibly only twice or thrice before riding in the childâs saddle on his own. If you look at their natural seats, Zack sits quite upright, while Zaine seems to have perfected the lazy polo playerâs slouch.
Zaine spends quite a lot of time running around with his yellow riding helmet on and a mini mallet in his hand. If you interrupt him he is apt to say âSssh, Iâve just got two more chukkas to play.â
It is tempting to say Zack will be the showjumper, while Zaine will be the polo player. What will Zulaiqa be? The dressage rider?
