On site
Built around the horse
Butheeb International Endurance Village was established by the late Sheikh Sultan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and is one of the UAE's most important venues for the sport, with a great environmental and touristic value in the eyes of endurance riders from around the world. Its unique location in the desert of Al Khatim opens onto tracks of 40 to 240 km, and its strategy to attract young riders and to bring the Village to the highest international standards culminated in the FEI's choice of Butheeb for the 2022 championship.
Butheeb is designed specifically for international endurance championships. Everything turns on the central vet gate, with 14 inspection lanes and an integrated flow for the horse from arrival, cooling and holding to inspection and departure. A modern equine clinic sits close to the gate, with digital radiography, ultrasonography and examination rooms, qualified veterinarians and technicians, horse ambulances positioned on the course, separate isolation and quarantine stables, and referral arrangements with specialist equine hospitals. When the FEI Board allocated the 2022 championship here, it said it had been impressed by the venue's world-class permanent infrastructure.
The course leaves the Village over desert sand, natural tracks and gently undulating ground, and is designed to reward responsible riding and excellent horse care. That is the principle behind the Butheeb Protocol, which the Village has applied to its rides for more than a decade, and it is supported on the day by live GPS tracking of every horse, electronic heart-rate monitoring at the gate and a control room covering the vet gate, cooling, rest and stable areas.
For the championship, the Village hosts the stables with wash-down and service areas, a dedicated quarantine area, the vet gate and cooling zones, the start and finish, the ceremonies, a permanent operations base with timing and results rooms, meeting rooms and a media and press centre with mixed zones, and Wi-Fi across the officials', media and public areas. The Butheeb International Endurance Village Hotel is the official accommodation base. The site plan and the spectator zones for each loop are published in the Visit section.
