Why the US shouldn't host the FEI World Equestrian Games ever again.

Why the US shouldn’t host the FEI World Equestrian Games

In 2010, the Kentucky Horse Park was chosen to host the first ever FEI World Equestrian Games in the US. It was a huge landmark event, and American horsemen flocked to it in droves.

It was, to be blunt, excrutiating. Not the horse events, mind you. No, it was the tsunami of relentless, ubiquitous and obnoxious advertising by Alltech.

The fact that this was the FEI’s World Equestrian Games was almost lost in the flood of Alltech advertising. It was, in reality, The Alltech Games.

You could not do a thing without seeing, hearing or having Alltech advertising in your face. A plane circled the Park every single day, all day long, towing a gigantic banner with the words Alltech on it. It was so low that, during the Dressage tests, the audience was silent...but the plane droned and droned and DRONED overhead.

Everything had the Alltech brand on it. Shirts, hats, horse blankets, you name it. They had an entire tent...a gigantic one..filled with nothing but Alltech stuff.

A year before the Games, Alltech put out a request for volunteers to ‘help’. I did, and was accepted as a scribe for MY veterinarian who was going to serve (and paid) to be one of the Endurance ride vet checks. I even got an official Acceptance from Alltech as a scribe. I was assured I’d have a place to stay during my work as a scribe, and that they’d contact me ‘soon’ with more details.  

But months went by, without another word from Alltech. I emailed, I called (and got a ‘this number has been disconnected” ) without any luck. One month beforehand, I, using a phone number my vet had, managed to contact someone at Alltech regarding my acceptance email. First, she snapped, "how did you get this number." When I told her I was going to be working with my veterinarian,  she was very pissed, and proceeded to tell me that there was ‘no record’ of my being accepted as a scribing volunteer. Somehow, my acceptance letter had disappeared into the internet black hole.

Wisely, I’d made other arrangements..to go as a spectator, not as a volunteer. I went with 7 other women. We got our tickets, rental cars and motel rooms arranged. Had I not done that, I would never have gotten the tix, nor the motel rooms. Those were booked or snapped up within days of the tickets going on sale.

 BUT!

Within days of that call, I received an email from Alltech, saying that I HAD, actually, been accepted as a volunteer, and they really, really wanted my free labor.

But not doing what I wanted to do.

 No, they bamboozled me and many, MANY other horsemen into doing the shitty jobs, the dirty jobs, the Nothing to do with Horses jobs that Alltech didn’t want to pay a company to do.

Tasks like recharging portapotties with toilet paper. Handing out maps. Picking up garbage and trash, bussing tables, standing guard -they had a lot of people doing guard duty-at the entrance to the stadium or the cross country course. Jobs like managing the parking, the bus station, jobs that needed to be done but Alltech didn’t want to pay a company to do it. No, the hoodwinked volunteer did that. I talked to a few of them. They were, by the way, told not to answer questions about Alltech’s bait and switch tactics. Nevertheless, they did. One woman told me “If I’d known I’d be stuck refilling the portapotties with toilet paper I would NEVER have volunteered.”

The volunteer was given an Official Alltech fanny pack with a box lunch (Alltech logo prominently displayed) consisting of a white bread sandwich, an oatmeal cookie, and a bottle of water. For an entire day of work.

If you happened to be actually working in the competition arena, (for instance, showing people where their bleacher seats were), you were allowed in to that venue ONLY. You weren’t allowed to WATCH. Should you want to see anything else in the Games, you had to buy the tickets for it, just like everyone else.

No free parking was given to the volunteer, and despite the original assurances that you’d have a place to stay, no accommodations (i.e. motel room) were provided.

The most onerous of Alltech’s disgusting advertising onslaught was at the main entry gate.

Well, let me back up.

Alltech provided A food court. The tables were few, especially considering that the average daily attendance was in the thousands. The culinary choices were typical horse show food: pop, mystery meat hamburgers and bubble gum pink hot dogs, all horribly over-priced. I purchased a plastic box (with a plastic fork) of wilted lettuce with one half frozen cherry tomato and a slice of soft cucumber, accompanied by a tiny packet of industrial grade raunchy I mean ranch dressing. I think it was supposed to be ranch, anyway. Price: $9.50, tax not included. A bag of M&M’s was $4.50.

Oh, I could have paid $35 to enter the VIP tent where real meals were served...but that was just to enter the tent and sit down, I’m told. But the hours were unrealistic and the food smelled no better outside the tent than in the ‘food court’.

Alltech wasn’t done gouging. If you were wearing a shirt or cap that had the logo of a company NOT Alltech but horse related, you were told to remove it. Even the vendors for things like riding boots and saddles were discouraged from displaying any form of advertising if it didn’t say Alltech.

That still wasn’t good enough for Alltech. They had Gate Nazis. I don’t believe they were volunteers. The Gate Nazis INSPECTED your bags...for food. They didn’t want you bringing in so much as a peanut butter sandwich.  One woman said, “I can’t believe Alltech has this World Class Event and is feeding horse show food.”  

But they were. One of the friends I went with made the mistake of having a bag of potato chips in her bag.

The Gate Nazis took it. They literally confiscated it and did not re-imburse her for it.  I’m surprised they let her in, but she DID have a ticket.

They even gave me a hard time over a Nalgene water bottle I carried in. The gate Nazi asked me what was in the bottle. I said “Water” and looked her dead in the eye, daring her to take it from me. She backed down, but still... it rankled. Yet I sure in hell wouldn’t have wanted to do that job. I am truly astonished that they didn’t frisk us. I think the only reason they didn’t is that it would have held up the lines of people wanting in.

So from then on, we hid our lunches on our person. Before we went through the gate, I carried four Subway sandwiches (only one was mine) underneath my sweatshirt. All of the rest of my friends did the same. Between us, we all managed to carry in chips, sandwiches and snacks, food that was much better and that  we’d bought outside of the park, at much more reasonable prices.

Now fast forward to today, 11 Sep 18. (let me pause here for just a moment. :-( 

The 2018 Games are being held in a little town in North Carolina called Tryon.

The grounds are owned by someone named Bellisimo. He promised great things but in reality, never gave a thought to the support staff of the various countries sending teams.

For instance: this World Class Event, only the second to ever be held in the US, made sure that the riders had motel accommodations. But the grooms?

Well, Bellisimo-if he thought about them at all, decided at the last minute to put the grooms up in TENTS. Big tents, similar to those used by the Army. In the tents are bunk beds.

Snipped from Horse and Hound online magazine, 10 Sep 18

I spent too many years in the Army to say that tents are suitable accommodation. In a war, they’re better than sleeping in the rain, but in a world class athletic event? Nope. Imagine, if you can, the stink that would be raised if someone here in the US said, hey, we’ll host the Olympics and the athletes can sleep in tents!!

Bunk beds are not suitable for grown-ups. These tents, from what I understand, have no air conditioning (a necessity in the Southeast). Bathrooms? Nope. Showers? Nope.No place to store your clothing, your wallet, your passport, nothing. Not a bit of privacy. This  looks like something out of the 1940's open bay Basic Training.

Maybe the grooms can bathe underneath a garden hose?

Nor are tents suitable for the people who traveled half way around the world, to care for the very animals that are the whole reason for the Games: the horses.  Most of the horses are worth thousands of dollars and who, overall, make an awful lot of money for the FEI.

No, the tents were an afterthought. Someone said to Bellisimo, um, where are the grooms going to sleep? And he said, “Grooms? You mean like at a wedding?” That’s about as far as he went, I suppose.

If you’ve have never been to North Carolina, I (having been stationed there for three long, miserable years) can tell you, it’s not a very nice place to live. It is humid...100%, usually, hot, and mosquito filled. The grass is full of chiggers and the trees are full of ticks. The water is horrible tasting. But somehow, the FEI thought this was a suitable place for the Games.

Although I think it may be due to a last minute thing. I believe I heard that Montreal, Canada backed out of hosting the Games at the last second, leaving the FEI scrambling for another venue in which to hold them.

Let’s also consider that at this moment, a Category 5 hurricane, Hurricane Florence, is headed for the North Carolina/South Carolina coast. She is packing winds of 140 mph.

Once she makes landfall, after tearing the coastal cities to shreds, will trek inland and dump FEET of water in torrential downpours.

If the winds don’t tear down the tents, the barns and the grounds, the flooding will. Both states are putting out evacuation orders...and where will those people go? Inland.

Once the hurricane hits, even if the winds don’t hurt the tents, the water will do what it always does: destroy the power lines. Flood roads, bring down hillsides, tear out bridges, strand living things on tiny islands, bring in torrents of filthy water carrying dead animals, floating sewage, wreckage of houses, terrified cats and drowning dogs,   tossing cars atop houses, into people, uprooted trees carried like battering rams...

What happens when the rain drowns the grounds? All the hay, the bedding, the horse trailers, all flooded? The arenas, hock deep in water? No power, no water, no way out? It’s going to be a dreadful mess.

What to do? Honestly, the thing to do is to cancel the games, take the horses farther inland...like to Colorado, evacuate the area and refund the money for the tickets.

That’s the smart thing to do but I admit it’s infeasible and once rich men have money in their wallets, they sure in hell don’t ever give it back.

But also, honestly, the thing to do is, I’m sorry to say, cancel the concept of the Games altogether...or keep it in Europe.

Americans have proven they cannot do it right. First, with Alltechs all consuming advertising, so bad that is was  really the Alltech Games, not the FEI and a coalition of riders from all over the planet, and now, with lousy planning and a refusal to accept that grooms are people, too as a background to the very real possibility of lives being lost in Tryon’s upcoming flooding...no, we just aren’t up to it. There’s just too much fixation on how much money can a few rich men make rather than it hosting a showcase of international horsemanship.