Wahiba Sands started his racing career as a two year old when running on the flat for John Dunlop. He moved to Pond House as a five year old after topping the Doncaster August sale for 105,000 guineas and he went on to prove very versatile by winning under all codes - on the flat, over hurdles and over fences. He ran a total of 62 times; winning 11 and a total of £270,593 in win and place prize money. During his second season over fences he beat the great Best Mate by half a length at Ascot.
When Wahiba looked to have lost interest in National Hunt racing he moved to Lucy Bridges' yard near Shaftesbury where Lucy spent a year hunting, point to pointing and hunter chasing the giant Wahiba - he stands at about 17hh!
Wahiba Sands now spends his days with Vikki Sweeney who worked at Pond House for eight years and continues to ride out when time allows. During Vikki's time at Pond House she looked after many good horses including Far Cry who took her to Australia, the quirky but talented Challenger du Luc and the gorgeous Cyfor Malta but Vikki always said that Wahiba was one of her favourites and when the time came for him to retire she had a stable waiting. At the age of 12 he was delivered to his new stable at Netherclay Livery yard near Taunton Racecourse - a course he has never visited. He was given three months holiday with his new friend, Frisco before starting the long road of being retrained. After many hours hard work he was making good progress doing grid work so Vikki decided to step his program up a gear and started to introduce some small show jumps. This was going well until one day when he was jumping over the obstacles loose he decided to hop over the six bar gate out of the arena to make his way back to his stable where he could find food!
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Picture Courtesy of Martin Hill - www.martinhillphotography.co.uk |
Vikki and Wahiba have taken part in some local show jumping clinics and have been competing in some ex-racehorse classes at local shows and events. He stills gets excited when the horses canter around the show ring together, he hasn't quite realised that he doesn't need to get his nose in front! Aug '06
