"He will slow down for her, but the man when he hits the horse, pulls the horse back and horse will pull him back hard, if you pull the horse hard, you will lose energy and the horse will lose energy."

Perfect partnership

Ponton knows the importance of forming the perfect partnership between rider and horse, in this case her beloved Nobby.

"He's a winner, I think he was born as a winner. He's a champion. Even if he's tired, when another horse challenges him, he will go until the end," she told CNN.

Her last big success at the European championships in 2011 was a particular highlight.

"There was a lot of pressure and a lot of people said that he couldn't do it, that he wasn't good enough for the mountains or something like this," Ponton said.

"I don't know why but I enjoyed it a lot when I crossed the line. I was really really happy to win."

She and her trainer husband are already searching for the new breed of champion horses and have a growing stable of contenders.

"Flat races last minutes but top endurance races can last all day. The key is stamina and Arabians are genetically built for it," Punti-Dachs said.

Royal family

Ponton and Nobby had been trying to match the record of American Becky Hart, who claimed the first three stagings of the world endurance championships in 1988, 1990 and 1992 riding the legendary RO Grand Sultan.

But it may well be that a young Emirati will be the next woman to impress at the highest level.

Sheikh Mohammed's daughter Futtaim won the Ladies' Endurance Challenge race in Dubai last month, beating 63 rivals. Her brother Sheikh Ahmed won the world endurance championship in 2002 aged just 16.

Fatima Al-Marri has also been a dominant figure in the women-only events and her mentor Al-Muhairi believes she has the ability to go all the way.

"She's tough, strong, she pushes herself over the limit, and that's what you need in endurance," he said.

"Fatima braved a sandstorm to win gold at last year's Ladies' Endurance Cup and has placed second and third key races against men."

It is perhaps only a matter of time before she joins the likes of Ponton on the top step of the podium at the highest level.