Nine days after entering the top ten at 1.45m in Lier, Shk. Rashid bin Ahmed Al Maktoum and Diva DXB did it again—this time at 1.50m in Opglabbeek. The pair finished tenth in Saturday's CSI3* Longines Ranking qualifier, then returned on Sunday for the 1.55m Grand Prix.
One placing does not tell the whole story of a partnership. A short sequence can say more. Read together, the official results from Lier and Opglabbeek show the same combination appearing in progressively bigger classes and holding a top-ten place at two successive international shows.
A weekend that moved upward
Sentower Park's CSI3* programme built towards Sunday's Grand Prix. On 12 September, Shk. Rashid and Diva DXB contested the 1.50m Longines Ranking class listed by the FEI as a qualifier for the Grand Prix. Their tenth place put the combination inside the top ten of a class carrying €28,200 in prize money.
The following day, the pair started the CSI3* 1.55m Grand Prix and finished seventeenth. The result is more useful when described precisely than when dressed in speculation: it records their presence in the weekend's principal 1.55m class, but the publicly accessible FEI profile used for this report does not provide enough detail to reconstruct every technical moment of the round.
From 1.45m to 1.50m
At Lier on 3 September, Diva DXB and Shk. Rashid had finished tenth in a CSI3* 1.45m class. The Opglabbeek result came at the next height in the pair's published sequence: another tenth place, now at 1.50m.
That progression should not be confused with a claim about strategy, fitness or intent. Those belong to the rider and team. What the record confirms is simpler and still meaningful: two top-ten finishes in nine days, at two venues, followed by a 1.55m Grand Prix start.
Sunday at 1.55m
Grand Prix classes change the scale of a weekend. In Opglabbeek, the FEI schedule listed Sunday's class at 1.55m with €56,800 in prize money. Shk. Rashid and Diva DXB's seventeenth place closed a three-result line that began in Lier and climbed through 1.45m, 1.50m and 1.55m.
That is the kind of sequence worth preserving in an athlete's season: not because it predicts what comes next, but because it gives the next performance a clear point of comparison.
Galb DXB adds a second line
Opglabbeek also placed another DXB horse on Shk. Rashid's official record. On 13 September, he and Galb DXB finished sixteenth in the CSI1* 1.25m class. It was a separate level and a separate combination, and it should be read on its own terms rather than folded into Diva DXB's CSI3* story.
Together, the entries show a weekend divided between the development of one partnership and the demands of another. That broader view is often lost when attention rests only on the Grand Prix.
What the official record shows
The FEI athlete profile now lists 585 international starts for Shk. Rashid. It confirms the placings, dates, heights and horses used in this report. At publication, the same profile listed no next event, so this article does not project a future start or assign a competition that has not been officially published.
The numbers are already enough. Tenth at 1.45m in Lier. Tenth at 1.50m in Opglabbeek. Seventeenth in the 1.55m Grand Prix one day later. A compact September sequence, and a documented step into the biggest class of the weekend.
Shk. Rashid bin Ahmed Al Maktoum is a current Vainqueur Cheval sponsored athlete, and the competition photograph comes from the brand's authorised archive. Results and event details were checked on 17 September 2026 against the official FEI athlete profile, the Opglabbeek event page and the Lier event page.