February 13 2026
By Alisija Zabavska
The best friendships are built on a bonds, that are created by overcoming a struggles, an adventures, mutual interests, things in common and a happy ends. This is exactly how this one was built.
Efi Koutsafti and I didn’t know of one another at all, till we met in Al Ula, Saudi Arabia for the first time, representing Greece & Lithuania, at a prestigious FEI **120km Al Fursan Cup, which drew 200 starters from a record 71 countries.
As soon as I finally got there, from a 35 hour travel on a day of a vet inspection, we were thrown on the horses we were entered on, to go for a quick test ride and then immediately after that I needed to get some sleep. That’s when I found out that a farm stay, that was booked for us, had only one room for the ladies, with a king size bed and a bathroom to share. Neither of us were thrilled about it but in this situation it was too late to make any last minute changes. We didn’t get a chance to chat at all, because when Efi got to the farm that evening - I was already passed out.
Next morning, we got up early to get picked up to go to the venue and that’s when, during a ride there, I noticed a picture of a cute pup on Efi’s phone screen. I had to share mine with her, only of a 2 pups. That’s how we learned the first commonality - we both loved and lost and that’s how we ended up coping with the forever broken heart.
Ones we got to the venue, it got busy again with the race and then again, after a take off, with 3 horses total in our group, including a young girl from Sweden - Emma, we hardly spoke to one another, because our horses were a little different in personalities, to say the least.
Sadly, Emma’s horse didn’t make it to the last loop, so it was just Efi and I. That is how we started discovering even more shared commonalities, including our age, religious beliefs, the bloodlines of or equine partners, personal lives and so on, which was absolutely amazing, considering we both came from such a different parts of the world, as well as backgrounds and cultures, while our horses were pairing up very well together at that point and doing a great job looking fresh, thanks to their amazingly talented and hardworking trainer - Thibaut Launay.
We rode all the way to the finish and decided to cross the line side by side, to memorize this amazing bond we have created!
Photo credit to Shanti Roos.