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Karen's WEG Blog - Final Day

Golden Cowboy

Once again I missed the reining, with checking out of our place in Belgium and ferrying people around, and all with a gnarly head cold. We were parked out on the main street waiting for someone and we could hear the cheering from there, about 500 metres. The ride off between Duane Latimer and Tim McQuay of the US was apparently one of the most exciting moments of the whole WEG. Latimer got a standing ovation – the crowd’s way of letting the judges know they better pick him. No rhinestones for Duane; gold all the way.

Final Day

Well I’m sitting her listening to a nonstop stream of German speeches while waiting for the final four to go, which is a reminder (as if I needed one) that the one real criticism of the way this event was presented was that it felt like the German Equestrian Games rather than the World Equestrian Games. The Germans HAVE won the lion’s share of medals, as they usually do, but since the language of the FEI is French and the language of most sports is English, it is clear that this organizing committee put the German fans first. And they just can’t get enough of the wave. I have had enough of it, for sure.

The sport at this WEG has been thrilling and unsurpassed. I have to say though, that Spain has them beat in terms of mood, language-friendliness and presentations…not to mention the weather! I am sure the Lexington committee has been taking careful notes, and I don’t doubt for a moment that they will easily beat the Germans for presentation at the 2010 WEG. Knowing the Americans, they’ll even modify the weather to suit. The one place the puritanically inclined Americans might not match the Germans is in the number of beer tents. But that’s what plastic coffee cups are for, right?

Top Four in the World

While most WEG medals are awarded to the best horse and rider combination, the show jumping individual final is very much a rider contest. Imagine if they did this to dressage riders in the World Championships. I’d pay lots to see that. Jos Lansink’s horse is easily the biggest and strongest of the bunch, and very much a man’s man, bucking and tossing his head yesterday after Jos’ second clear round of the day. But either I underestimated the talents of the three petite ladies that rode him or he is a point-and-shoot jumping machine. He almost looks like he prefers the three women who rode him to the bigger and stronger Jos. My bet was on Authentic for being the easiest to ride – Beezie makes him look so simple – but he got hot and hard to slow down for both Jos and Edwina.

I am really torn between admiration for Cumano, who was the real champion today, and Beezie Madden, who was my emotional favorite to win. Beezie rode beautifully all week, and I hope she is happy to win silver behind such a great stallion.

Homeward Bound

Well it’s back to Vancouver after a couple of days enjoying the pleasures of Amsterdam (all of them legal, of course), and then back to work at my ‘real’ job designing freestyles and giving clinics. I hope you have enjoyed my opinions, and see you soon.

Cheers,

Karen

!related!

Jos Lansink & Cavalor Cumano - Gold for Belgium