Saudi Arabia’s veteran showjumper Kamal Bahamdan is thrilled that his horses are “peaking at the right time” ahead of the Olympics but admits that his team-mates have gone through a rough period in the past few months.
Bahamdan is part of a four-strong Saudi jumping team heading to the Games as he will be joined by 2010 World Equestrian Games silver medallist, Abdullah Al Sharbatly, and former Olympians HRH Prince Abdullah Al Saud and Ramzy Al Duhami.
That lucrative list is missing a notable name in the form of former Olympic Bronze medallist Khaled Al Eid, who together with Sharbatly, was hit with a ban for a failed doping test by their horses.
After the ban was reduced and the pair were cleared for the Games, Al Eid’s horse Presley Boy suffered health problems that ruled him out and the team will have to travel without their star rider.
Bahamdan says: “It’s very disappointing of course about Presley Boy. It’s been a long battle, first with the suspension and then you got out of that, then with Presley Boy. It’s very unfortunate.
“When you’re preparing for something like the Games, every single day counts, every competition counts. You have a whole plan and you work towards it. When you have something like this it throws you off. It took away four months of the guys’ planning. No shows, nothing. Which affected the fitness of their horses and also the riders who needed to be in the ring competing.”
Final decision
The 42-year-old, who will be competing in his fifth consecutive Games, is yet to make a final decision on which horse to ride in London, since he has more than one horse who has been achieving great results in the last few months – a problem he admits is a good one to have.
Bahamdan, who was a member of the Saudi team that won the Gold at the Arab Games last December and came eighth in the WEG in Kentucky, has been competing against the sport’s elite in the Global Champions Tour to get the perfect preparation for the Olympics.
And his recent achievements include an impressive fifth-place finish in the Grand Prix du Prince de Monaco and a third-place finish in a smaller class in Wiesbaden, both on his 11-year-old mare, Noblesse des Tess.
He says his other candidate, Delphi, is also in-form having jumped a double clear for a seventh-place finish in the Grand Prix in La Clusaz last week.
Higher goals
Although Bahamdan has competed in four previous editions of the Olympics, this year is like no other for him since he took a whole 12 months off from work and dedicated himself to riding, hoping to leave London with a medal in a month’s time.
Bahamdan says: “Whether it’s in my business or my riding, I always try to set realistic achievable goals, and then I make a plan towards these goals. The past four Games, they didn’t happen by chance. I had setup goals for each one to qualify and to be part of the team and I achieved that in the past.
“This time it’s different. I realise that we have a strong team and I felt that I’m at a point in my riding career where I need to push a bit further and see how far I can take it. I setup even higher goals and told myself ‘OK to achieve those goals, realistically I needed to dedicate more time, improve the quality of horses that I have, and have a stronger program.' And the goal this time is to go and be very competitive for the team and as an individual in the Games.”
His plan was to have three Grand Prix horses which he does – Cezanne, Delphi and Noblesse des Tess – and to compete in the highest standards of the sport for a whole year, which he has managed to achieve in the Global Champions Tour, that features the world’s top-30 riders.
“I can go to the Games with anyone of three qualified horses, Delphi, Tess or Cezanne, which I think is a great problem to have, to choose between those horses.
“Tess has a final Grand Prix this weekend which will give me more info about her, because she’s the least experienced.
"But every 5* that she did, she got great results. So for me this Games will be very special because I put myself a higher goal and dedicated much more time by taking a whole year off from work and competing non-stop.”
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