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UNE Haugen, the leading Scandinavian trainer added another string to his bow when training his first winner at the Dubai Carnival on February 20th, courtesy of Avon Pearl who won the Meydan Sohba Handicap. Haugen has held the Avonbridge entire in
high regard since purchasing him as a 2yo at the 2011 horses in training sale for a meer 11,000gns on a handicap mark of 78. His best performance in England was when running second to the talented and unbeaten Harbour Watch. In Scandinavia, Avon Pearl has been a regular stakes performer and on arrival in Dubai he fitted neatly into the handicap division with a mark of 100. Now back in training outside Oslo, Avon Pearl is set to be campaigned across Europe this summer with plans afoot to run in a Listed race on Derby Day in Germany followed by a trip to Newmarket during the July Festival. Haugen is a well known figure on the
Scandinavian circuit having been champion jump jockey in Norway in 1994 and then champion trainer for the three seasons from 2004. He was also a leading Scandinavian show jumper and in the build up to the Beijing Olympics was looking after much of the training (of horses) for the Olympic show jumping team. Adding a further string to his bow, as a man never afraid of challenge, Haugen has recently also started training and driving trotters. Haugen is a great passionate believer in technology to help him train horses and has spent much time working with and developing strategies for the use of heart rate monitors as well as analysing lactate rates in blood tests. Another trainer with strong beliefs in the same training technology is Jeremy Gask, who ironically won the race following Avon Pearl’s victory on the same Meydan card with the ever consistent Medicean Man. n
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