Dubai After the UAE's triumph in the November 7-8 World Endurance Championship in Malaysia, little did the endurance horse trainer and member of the gold medal-winning UAE team know what was in store for him.
Astute horseman that he is, His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, seemed to have seen a rare streak in the man who trains his endurance horses and when Mubarak Bin Shafya returned to the UAE a new role was chalked out for the endurance rider-cum-trainer.
"Shaikh Mohammad told me that he will give me some thoroughbred horses to train and I began to work in overdrive. We needed the people, the grooms, work riders, jockeys and with the UAE flat-racing season having already started, it was a race against time," said Bin Shafya in his first exclusive interview to Gulf News after winning a big double on Dubai World Cup night.
Bin Shafya had been through a similar test earlier when he was given charge of Shaikh Mohammad's endurance horses a few weeks before the European Open Championship and the success was instant.
"The team was formed and with about 35 horses we began training at the Al Aasfa Stables," said Bin Shafya, who went on to saddle a winner in his very first race meeting.
In Gulf News sponsored Xpress Stakes, it was the UAE's then apprentice jockey Ahmad Ajtebi who rode Bin Shafya's first winner, Dubai Twilight.
What started then on November 27 in the fourth race meeting of the season at Nad Al Sheba culminated in a historic double on Dubai World Cup night for Bin Shafya and Ajtebi, who had since turned professional.
Training Purebred Arabians to contest endurance rides over 160 km is one thing and training some of the world's top thoroughbreds to race at lightning speed is another.
But Bin Shafya said, "If you ask me, both jobs mean hard work and that is what I try to do all the time. Shaikh Mohammad is constantly keeping track of the progress of the horses."
It did not come as a surprise when the man who hardly displays any emotion did not do much to celebrate after making history on the world stage.
"Yes, many do wonder why I do not jump and jubilate, but that is how I am. I just checked my horses after the races finished and then went to sleep," said Bin Shafya, who in just four months since his winning start in flat-racing, went on to register wins in two richest turf races in the world.
What next? "Now it is back to endurance. I can't forget that I am an endurance trainer too. Now we will take our horses and move to the UK for the summer as we prepare for the European Open Championship to be held in Italy this year," said the latest sensation in the world of horse race training.
