Karen's WEG Blog

Mood Swing
Now that the show jumpers have taken over Aachen from the dressage queens and eventers, the testosterone level has palpably risen. Also, my favourite hang out, the Warsteiner tent right by the in gate, is packed to the gills so I’ve had to take my thirst elsewhere. When dressage and eventing were happening it was only busy. The jumpers are definitely living up to their party-hardy reputation. No nine o’clock starts for them, no way. They even moved the start time yesterday from 11 am to noon.

The reiners have arrived, so now the odd cowboy hat can be seen. It didn’t rain today. (oops, I said I would cool it on the weather news, but no rain IS a drastic improvement)

Jump!
Team jumping final tonight – lots of bier und wein going down the gullets at all the bars and beer tents. My goodness these jumping horses like to cross-canter. Some of them even take off over six foot high oxers like that.  One of my favourite horses of the competition is this little tiny chestnut stallion called Dover. His passport is Brazilian, and his rider is a young Portuguese woman, Luciana Diniz. The horse is seventeen, and he is just such a power pony. I don’t think he’s more than 16 hands on his tip toes. Went clear yesterday, just one rail today. I haven’t been able to talk to Eric, who had a really disappointing go. It all unraveled a little for him when he left a stride out to a vertical right before the big triple combo. Hickstead doesn’t like hitting the jumps, and I think they were both a bit distracted going into the huge triple combination at number eight. Yesterday, the same combo (it was numbered nine yesterday) is what caused almost all of Canada’s problems.

Torchy Millar said he was told last night that the turf in the main stadium, which was redone completely last year, cost around 1.5 million Euros. There is a layer of mesh under the grass, which gives the roots something to bind to, and prevents the horses from punching through and really tearing the grass up. It is obviously a good system. The footing has held up brilliantly.  Another bit of amazing innovation here is this camera that runs on cables from four corners of the stadium, so it can take video from anywhere. Much, even most, of the video coverage is shot from that camera. It gets frighteningly close to the horses sometimes but as it is above and usually behind, they don’t see it.

The “Ukrainian” team consists of three Belgians and a German, all of whom were wooed into changing their nationalities by a Ukrainian businessman. In the press conference the other day, one of them, Jean Claude van Geenberghe, explained that at the moment he was asked if he would represent Ukraine, “I was kind of pissed off with the Belgian team and so I did it.”  Heartbreak for those voluntary exiles, a single time penalty in the last round took them from the silver medal to fourth place, with the Germans beating them by 0.1 point, and the US 0.31 points better for silver.  It was great to see the flying orange Dutchmen win the gold. They earned it with great riding on great horses.