SETIU: The Terengganu International Endurance Park (TIEP), the venue for endurance horse riding events in the 2017 Kuala Lumpur SEA Games (KL2017), is among the best five such venues in the world.
“It can accommodate 320 horses at any one time,” KL2017 (Endurance Horse Riding) Local Organising Committee’s (LOC) Technical Committee and Volunteers Committee chairman Che Mohd Apandi Muhamad told Bernama during an interview here.
He said the size of the park located in Lembah Bidong, here was 33ha.
“TIEP has eight stables and each can accommodate about 40 horses. It became an international championship location when we organised the World Endurance Championship in 2008 involving 146 riders from 42 nations.
“Among the countries with equally good venues (for endurance horse riding) are the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Abu Dhabi,” he said.
According to Che Mohd Apandi, currently, many tracks were only suitable for certain championships but TIEP, which was built in 2007, had a permanent track, which could not only be used for various events, but also at all times because it was well-maintained by the state government.
Mohd Apandi, said in conjunction with KL2017, technical training had started in February and several series of training had been conducted including on the preparedness of volunteers, mostly comprising university students in Terengganu.
“Since February until now, we have conducted three technical and volunteerism courses for the participants involved.
“We have also done a trial run on May 23 covering 80km and we have detected much glitches from the session for improvements,” he said.
He said preparations for the SEA Games had reached 95 per cent, and would be fully completed on Thursday, and was confident TIEP could handle the competition on Aug 20 as planned. - Bernama