The organising committee of the Qatar Equestrian Tour Longines Hathab have announced the calendar for the annual series on Tuesday with an increase in prize money. The 7th edition of the popular event, which begins from tomorrow at the Qatar Equestrian Federation’s indoor arena, will comprise 14 legs and continue till March 30, 2024. Hathab is organised and is staged jointly by the Qatar Equestrian & Modern Pentathlon Federation and Al Shaqab.
This season’s Longines Hathab championship also includes a new category for amateur riders in showjumping. The dressage for Medium and Prelim levels will have a total of five rounds.
The organising committee announced an increase in the financial prizes for the winners, allocating a prize of QR100,000 for the Big Tour, QR70,000 for Team events, QR30,000, QR25,000 for Open Class, QR20,000 for Small Tour and QR10,000 for the Amateur category. For dressage events, the total prize would be QR20,000 for the Medium Level and QR15,000 for the Prelim Level.
The opening leg from October 12-14 at QEF will Dressage, Future Riders, Small Tour, Medium Tour (Individual & Teams), Amateur, Open Class and the Big Tour events.
According to the schedule announced, the second leg will be held on the 19th, 20th and 21st of October, and the rounds will continue until the final 14th round, which will be held on the 28th, 29th and 30th of March 2024.
Qatar’s showjumping stars Khalifa al-Thani, Faleh al-Ajami, Rashid al-Marri and Mohamed Basem, who won silver at the recently-conclude Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, will be in action.
It is noteworthy that the Supreme Organising Committee of the championship was keen to raise the level of competition and encourage the efforts of riders by expanding the scope of competitions in showjumping and dressage. This year, it decided to expand the scope of competition for young riders by adopting the two categories of future riders as permanent competitions in all rounds and adding the amateur category in showjumping and bringing the total number of categories to seven in all rounds.
The Supreme Organising Committee of Longines Hathab is headed by Sheikh Ahmad bin Nooh al-Thani as Chairman, Ali bin Youssef al-Rumaihi as Vice-President, Omar al-Mannai as Director of the championship, and committee members – Ahmed Jaber al-Mulla, Sheikha al-Qahtani and Ahmed al-Hammadi.
Launched in 2017, the Longines Hathab is Qatar’s highest domestic equestrian competition and aims at supporting and developing the level of equestrianism in the country by providing a first-class competitive platform that gives participants the opportunity to develop their skills and their capabilities besides enhancing co-operation and partnerships between local entities concerned with equestrian sports.
The first leg of Hathab will be held from tomorrow at the Qatar Equestrian Federation.
