I've been home for five days now since the dressage part of the 2010 World Equestrian Games came to an end with a magical freestyle night on Friday evening 1 October 2010. As soon as you come home and get back into the swing of things, it seems like the WEG is already months ago, but when you start browsing the internet you notice it is still buzzing with reactions, impressions and emotions generated due this competition.
Triple gold medallist Edward Gal has hardly had the time to breathe because he was immediately invited upon his return to appear on television in Pauw & Witteman. Dressage fans had to brave 20 minutes of hard core political talk before it was Edward's turn to share his experience of the Games. Gal was funny when he talked about Totilas' breeding duties "at a fixed hour on Monday, Wednesday and Friday," which raised eye brows with the politicians that had never even sat on a horse. The next morning Edward was invited for brunch by His Royal Highness Prince Willem Alexander and his wife Maxima at the royal palace. Not too shabby!
Australian Hayley Beresford, who was eliminated in the Grand Prix because her horse was unlevel, reported that Eduardo Fischer's Relampago do Retiro sustained an injury in the left front fetlock. As soon as the horse arrived home he was taken to the clinic for a full check up. "We expect a full recovery in a couple of months," she reported positively. Swedish Patrik Kittel and his Australian fiancee Lyndal Oatley arrived back in Germany for one day and then flew to Australia where they are getting married on Saturday. The wedding will take place on Hamilton Island. Congratulations.
So, I want to pick up my blog again where I left it on Thursday 30 September 2010.
Thursday was a day off for dressage so finally I got some time to catch up on writing and posting articles on Eurodressage. Leah, Stefanie and I stayed in the camper until 2 PM working hard at getting as much done possible. Mary's working student Stefanie Jones celebrated her 21st birthday that day and Leah and I decided to make it special. We took JJ's truck to downtown Lexington and explored the city.
While we drove into town I noticed beautiful European style brick houses with a nice entrance and a mini lawn in front of the house. In town there were tents set and a big screen set up in the squares for people to watch the Games. We first went to the bar De Sha's on the corner near the Hilton to drink a cocktail for Stefanie's birthday. Her first legal drink in the U.S. I took a cosmopolitan (as always), Leah had a Georgia Peach and Stefanie ordered a Lemon Drop. We chatted for a while, had some nibbles (crab cakes and chips with a spinach dip sauce) and then took off to explore the shops in town. I was a bit surprised not to find any nice clothes stores, but Lexington seemed mainly to be filled with Arts and Crafts boutiques. I ended up buying two bracelets: a ridiculously bling bling one and an absolutely gorgeous one hand made with beads and Swarovski crystals (sold at the shop Artique).
The three of us decided to go for sushi and drove JJ's huge truck 2 miles further down Broadway to find a petite little restaurant called Seki squeezed in between other buildings. I had a glass of wine with a delicious combo of sushi and sashimi. An hour into our dinner we met up with a Spanish couple to talk about ponies and had a fun chat.
Afterwards we headed back into town, browsed some more shops and then went into a bar that played some music and was full with young people. We had another two cocktails (which weren't that good and I regret ordering them especially because I still felt their effect the next day) before going back to the camper for an early night sleep (which is 11 PM).
Because it was my first time in Kentucky, Mary insisted that I would see her house and property in Columbia. On Friday morning 4 AM we got up and dropped off Leah at the airport before making the two-hour drive to her place. I tried to sleep in the car as I was exhausted and when I arrived at their house I was freezing cold (from the airco in the car and it was cold outside) but fortunately the gorgous house was nice, warm and cosy. Mary showed me around, I looked at all the picture frames and recognized many objects which she used to have in her house in Florida. While Mary took a bath, I worked on my Grand Prix Special report and prepared photos for the article.
Then JJ took me out on the four-wheeler and we drove around the entire property following trails which were pretty steep and adventurous to take. The main creek hardly had any water in it but there were still small fish living in the left-over puddles. We then headed to JJ's hooch which he built from scratch himself. I signed the "guest book" and praised JJ for his hard work. The entire property is 127 acres so it almost took us an hour to cover it all. Finally JJ showed me the beautiful guest house, in which a state trooper would be moving on the weekend.
Between 1 and 2 PM we left to house and stopped at Walmart to pick up some water and Subway as lunch. I chose the Chicken Terriyaki one and while I was sitting in the car eating it, I read the nutrition list printed on the soda containers. Of course I took the one with the most calories (280 Kcal - still better than McDonalds). Dang. After two hours we arrived at the camper where I had to push Mary to get changed quickly as I wanted to have some extra time before the freestyle started.
We drove to the Horse Park again and stopped at the USDF headquarters where a party was being hosted. They served wonderful canapes which turned out to be my dinner for the evening and I got acquainted with the amicable Tyrone Neal, whose younger sister Lea Anne used to be a young rider that competed at the North American Young Riders Championships. Mr. Neal had tons of interesting information to share with me about his latest "discoveries" in the horse world and told me a story about a famous dressage trainer who was deposed by U.S. Marshalls on Wednesday at the warm up area (confirmed by witnesses), as he still ows the Neal family a substantial amount of money. Justice will prevail. (for detailed info check out the replies of "Rat King" on the Chronicle forum)
The freestyle class was fabulous. Though the sound quality was not the best with an irritating delay echoing from one side of the arena to the other, especially at the beginning of the class, the level of riding was high and some music was quite entertaining. The ride of Spanish Juan Manual Munoz Diaz drove the crowds wild and I have never before heard so much cheering for one rider (not even Matine and Totilas have generated this mass hysteria in competition). The medals went to Edward Gal, Laura Bechtolsheimer and Steffen Peters, to which there was little to object.
After the class Mary, JJ and I went back to Spindletop Hall for another glass of wine and a late night nibble. Most people were still in a trance from the memorable evening they had just experienced and the freestyle was the only talk of the town. It was already past midnight when we got back to the camper to sleep.
I was flying home on Saturday 2 October 2010 and in the morning we just stayed in the camper to work on photos. Mary decided not to photograph cross country as she had Diana DeRosa to cover it for her. We worked till 12 and then JJ and Mary drove me to the airport where we hugged each other and said goodbye. The airport was crowded with riders and trainers going home. While there was a big queue at the KLM/Air France check in desk, I could walk straight up to the American Airlines counter and get my one suitcase checked in. Once through security everyone gathered at the De Sha pub and restaurant for drinks and lunch. On my left side at the bar sat a young man who was two months away from graduating as a veterinarian. This Australian had worked at Hagyard Equine hospital and was now flying to New Zealand to work on healing broken down thoroughbreds. On my right side there were Portuguese trainer Francisco Cancela and Brazilian Christina Avila (stable manager of Villa do Retiro) with whom I had a fun talk as well. Almost the entire Spanish and Dutch delegation were in that bar but round 2 PM people started to scatter and go to their planes.
I shared a flight home with the Belgian team who alo had a lay-over in Chicago. Fortunately this time the wait was only short and I got the opportunity to switch planes within two hours. Everytime you board a plane and get comfortable in your seat you make a crucial decision: "shall I talk to the person next to me or not?" On my flight to the States I did not and was happy about it. On my flight home I took my chances and started a conversation. Of course in ended up in what a feared... a very loooooooooong winded conversation with the guy not being able to shut up. We discussed a few items that were quite interesting, including a story of a shoot down in his street in Phoenix, AZ. One of his neighbours is a gun collecter and he got burgled one day. When he got home he started shooting at the thief who ran from the house, jumped in the car, and drove down the street. The neighbour kept firing his gun until the car had left his sight even though worried people had come out to the streets to watch what was going on. Only in America!
I read my book, tried to sleep at least for one hour (which didn't really work) and saw Robin Hood halfway through for the second time. We landed in Brussels at 7.15 AM, 45 minutes ahead of time. It was the end of the 2010 World Equestrian Games experience.
Back to the 2010 WEG index