Corona Pandemic Keeps European Riders and Horses Grounded in Florida

Dressage

Germany

Several European riders and their horses are stuck in Wellington, Florida, and can not travel back home due to the Corona virus crisis, which is now also picking up in the U.S.A.

Flights Disrupted Due to Overdemand

Equine and passenger air transport has been disrupted due to an overdemand with the corona crisis. While some sources say freight flights are operating at full capacity, unlike passenger planes, other sources say that horse cargo leaving Miami has been majorly disrupted.

"At the moment flights for horses and people are still going," Patricia Koschel told Eurodressage. "The judges were able to fly out (of Florida after the CDIO Wellington) and also some friends, but we are forced to stay here as long as the horses are here."

For instance, Christoph Koschel and Michael Klimke are two riders temporarily stuck in Florida.

Christoph and his wife Patricia Koschel annually take a string of horses to Florida to train and compete. It includes their own as well as those of clients.

This year Christoph Koschel, who is the Japanese team trainer, convinced the Japanese equestrian federation to sponsor a training and competition camp for Japanese Olympic team hopefuls in Florida. Masanao Takahashi, Masahiro Kosaka, Akane Kuroki, Kazuki Sado, Ryunosuke Kuroda, and Kiichi Harada were amongst those who competed at the 2020 Global Dressage Festival.

The Koschels have 12 horses that need to be ridden and trained. The couple has decided to stay in Florida until they can all leave together..

"Christoph has many clients in Wellington, so we can train at their facility," said Patricia. "We have our own house here and are together as a family. The school for kids is now closed here, but it's the same in Germany, so we are doing home schooling."

She also added that, "we are not flying out because we first want to get the horses out. And their flight was originally planned for the 30th of March after the last CDI. So we work now with the shipper on a plan how to get the horses out earlier and after that we try to fly out."

Patricia stated, "the situation here at the moment is more relaxed than in Europe, but I'm sure that will change in the next few days."

Horse Cargo Issues with Grooms

Horse cargo complications due to Corona is world wide and unrelated to the equine.

Claudia Friedrichs of IRT Germany explained that "the problem for the horses returning is not so much the horses, but the grooms getting on the flights. And as the horses can't fly just them on the aircraft that's our biggest challenge at the moment. This will be the same for all shipping agents so it's a real tricky time, like for everyone of course!"

Dressage-News reported that "special care also has to be taken of grooms who travel with the horses because of restrictions on humans on both ends of U.S.-Europe flights. American grooms who fly to Europe with horses, for example, stay with the aircraft for its return flight."

High Demand due to Corona Cancellations

Christoph and Patricia Koschel annually snowbird in Florida

The 2020 Global Dressage Festival (dressage) and Winter Equestrian Festival (show jumping) came to an early end due to the corona virus. The show was cancelled two weeks beforehand, which has led to a rush on flights for a huge amount of horses that need to move back to Europe.

Guido Klatte, who is an experienced shipper on the Miami-Amsterdam route, told Eurodressage that, "the problem is more that now everybody wants to go and we only have limited spaces on the flights, so we cannot ship everyone at the same time."

Klatte stated that so far there are no problems with the grooms. "We are still receiving European grooms from the USA and also horses from USA. And we do also still ship horses to USA."

Guido Klatte continued, "we still ship and get all our clients accommodated, perhaps not all immediately but we are pretty much on schedule. Groom spaces are limited which is normal In peak times but there are still sufficient passenger flights to Europe. Only non EU citizen without visa/work/residence permits can not go. So far, we are also able to cross borders with horses within Europe. This info is for the moment though."