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.

We're ALL Pony Nuts

The women at the barn all have good riding horses. Not a one of them is un-rideable. All of them are multi-talented, well behaved, mannerly horses.  Most of them are registered purebreds of one breed or another. One or two of them have been successful in the show ring, the dressage arena, or the 3 day events. ALL of them are deeply loved. We all love everyone else’s horse, and watch over them like doting aunties.

Yet, when Gretchen led Romeo, a rescue pony (officially a “miniature horse’, but let’s be honest. He’s a pony.) out of the horse trailer, every one of us women went suddenly batshit goo-goo crazy.  As the well-shaped ‘silver dapple’ stopped and looked around at his new home, we all went into paroxysms of “he’s so cute”. Even the Barn lord, who has never, ever in her life seemed to demonstrate any form of ‘awwwwwwwww’ was taken with him.  

Romeo, the barn's newest heart throb

We were as smitten as if the pony had been the latest Hollywood heartthrob.

Despite their appearance, ponies...especially Shetlands...are not domesticated animals. Due to their small size, (and obstinate refusal to be relegated to beta status) they can’t be ridden by an adult horse trainer. Thus, most ponies are halter broken and not much more.

Add to that the fact that they are as intelligent as any full sized horse, with a huge addition of mischief and out right scoundrel. Every horseman I’ve ever known has a story about a Devil Pony.

It was interesting to see the resident horse’s reactions when they first get a good look at Romeo. They are, in a word, astonished. Raven looked at him long and hard, snorting a little. He could SMELL a horse but this little creature was no bigger than some of the dogs. Another gelding bolted when he saw Romeo. Gretchen’s daughter’s gelding, Macho, could not believe his eyes. He literally reached out, gingerly, to touch this tiny creature. Suddenly understanding that Romeo was equine, he very civilly began to nibble the pony’s spine. Romeo kicked at him.

Romeo has little man syndrome. He charges any gelding he’s turned out with, consequently, he’s in a pen by himself. I believe he was gelded very late (he’s said to be 13) because he acts like a recently (or proud cut?) gelded stallion, by trying to dominate the much bigger geldings.

          But the mares? He struts, like a prince amongst the peasants. With one exception, the mares in the barn are as babytalking crazy about the pony as the humans. They think he’s the most adorable thing they’ve ever seen. Amazingly, Brandy, in the neighboring pen, is the most smitten. Brandy can be  difficult. She’s very, VERY alpha, opinionated, and will push you around if you allow it. But she is putty in Romeo’s hooves. On the few times she had foals, she was a doting, protective mother, and now, we are convinced, she thinks Romeo is a foal. She now sticks very close to Romeo, watching his every move.

Brandy and Romeo

The one mare exception is Gretchen’s mare, Lucy. SHE knew immediately that this pint sized invader had stolen Her Momma’s heart. Jealousy made her smoke, giving Gretchen the stink eye and pinning her ears at the very sight of Romeo. Romeo, Shmomeo, get the hell outta here, Romeo.(my apologies to Shakespeare)

What is it about this little horse that has turned all the women into slobbering fools? He has no training, but Gretchen is teaching him to lunge. He is much too small for anyone to ride, and we don’t know if he was ever saddled or bridled. He’s in a halter made for foals.

I think I know what it is.

Romeo is a toy horse. A living, breathing toy horse. Quite a big larger than the toy horses, the models, the Breyer’s horses you collected as a kid and if you tell me you’re all grown up now, you don’t have any toy horses, I’m going to think you’re lying or embarrassed. Hey, look. It’s okay. It’s just us horsemen here. I still have all the ones I collected during my childhood. Battle scarred, I admit, they can’t be considered in pristine condition. But they still stand proudly on a shelf, faithfully carrying my childhood dreams on their dusty backs.

My childhood dream weavers

We don’t grow out of our attraction to tiny horses. It matters not how good our real one is, or how old we are. We still go bananas over tiny horses.

Just like the toy horses, you can’t ride a pony, but you can enjoy them for their being small enough to be manageable. You can push a pony around, unlike that monster 17 hand warmblood that just looks daft as you try to push him off your foot.  We women have this innate attraction to small, cute things. Maybe that’s why so many women like babies, although THIS woman never could get it, and thus, never had them.

The advantage Romeo has is, we believe he was not only never broken, but never really handled. He came from a very bad neglect case, where over 25 ponies, a couple of horses and several dogs were taken away from the ‘hoarder’ owner who had never taken proper care of them. I’m certain she had Pony Syndrome just like the rest of us. Maybe she had brought home a mare, and then a gelding that was said to be a gelding but wasn’t...and things just took off.

But then, I’m giving the hoarder too much the benefit of the doubt. Like puppy millers, I don’t have much patience for someone who will throw fifteen horses on a bare dirt, five acre lot with a bucket of filthy water.

Luckily, it appears Romeo hasn’t learned all the dirty tricks a pony demonstrates...running full tilt into a tree to scrape a kid off his back, tearing up the blankets of the bigger horses around him, sneaking under the hot wire fence to get into mischief.

He’s friendly. I entered his stall and first marveled at how tiny his manure piles were. Compared to Raven’s mountains of poop, Romeo’s could be picked up with a hand shovel. 

Tiny horses make for tiny manure piles.

Gretchen, though, says that yeah, his piles are small but he makes a LOT of them. I guess it all evens out in the end.

He came right up to me, looking for treats, or scritches, I don’t know which. I literally had to step outside his pen in order to get a picture of him.

We must be careful. His hooves show he’s foundered at least once. Not unusual in ponies, they’re easy keepers and horribly inbred. In the short amount of time that he’s been at the barn he’s put on some weight.  So...no treats for Little Big Man.

There are no plans for him, honestly, other than something to play with. Although, knowing Gretchen, she’s probably going to try and break him to saddle and bridle. The problem is finding the tack. Maybe she'll break him to drive. I know Barn lord probably knows how to train a horse for that. That would be fun.

But if that doesn’t happen, he’s still the barn mascot.

As for us? Well, here’s a picture (sorry to say, it’s a third generation reprint, I don’t have a scanner that can take 35 mm anymore). I took at a 3 day event near Houston, TX, many years ago. 

All those kids in love with ponies.

The mounted girl is riding “Goldilocks”, a lovely palomino Welsh mare.  The girl won all sorts of ribbons. She was a good rider, and Goldilocks was well trained and willing. But I suspect that in most of the classes, she won because she was the only child rider in her age group competing.

The girl could not ride ANYWHERE without attracting a bunch of like sized girls-and even one boy. All of them were oohing and ahhing over Goldilocks.

Just look at the faces, the need to touch the little mare. Those girls were...like us...batshit goo-goo crazy for a pony.

My Non-Horsey Husband knows me. He stuffs a toy horse in my Christmas stocking every year. 

OK, so I'm still getting toy horses for Christmas

He found a phrase somewhere on the ‘net that fits me perfectly:

“I might be old, but I’m still going to ask for a pony for Christmas.”

This horrid nightmare

   I did not vote for the Great Pumpkin.

   I didn't like Hillary Clinton, either. Honestly, I wanted Bernie Sanders. I even though John Kasich would have made a good President, and he's a Republican.

   But this...this...excretion, this orange turd currently stinking up the White House is the worst thing that has ever happened to my country. He has insulted every one of our allies and friends, and is sucking up to Putin. He adores Putin.  His Republican Party (the spineless ones) are right in line behind him. They agree and fully support everything he says, has done and believes. They loathe the poor but are working hard to make all of us that way. He has filled the Cabinet  and government offices with his friends, self serving plutocrats who are busily dismantling the Constitution and making it into something that benefits the rich corporate white man at the expense of everyone else.
He has started a trade war with everyone and the only folks who will be hurting is US. I fully believe he is going to start a war with SOMEONE.
He spends his time on his golf courses.
He doesn't read. He doesn't listen to his advisers. He had his so called book ghost written and then didn't pay the writer. 

   He is a cult leader, and his believers have been given carte blanche to assault, attack and even kill anyone who derides their little tin god. 

Oh my god. What did we do to deserve this. 

After the fall

Well, it had to happen, eventually.

I've been riding Raven for several years. Bareback, usually.

I'm not quite sure what set off the normally unflappable Raven, but today, he shied (napped?) and I came off.

He'd been unusually fresh this afternoon. I think it's because Anakin, one of the mares in the barn, may have been in heat.  She stuck her head over the wall into the arena to say hello to Handsome Raven.

Raven is a gelding, of course, but being one merely means he is unable to actually mate with a mare. (and I knew a gelding who could almost achieve intromission. He pestered the hell out of his female donkey pasture mate when she was in heat.)

A gelding still knows he's a male and what male horses do. They're not misogynists. They can still chat up the ladies (when the lady allows him to.).  

Anakin finally left the side of the arena, where she'd been hanging out in her paddock, and it took more than a few minutes for me to bring Raven's mind back to what we were doing...riding.

I don't know what caused it. I apparently didn't have his full attention, because he suddenly leaped forward and I fell over his right shoulder. It happened like that.



You know the 'things they tell you to do' in a fall, of course. It's usually advice to someone in a saddle. I'm betting had I been in a saddle I would never have fallen off. But Raven is slick as a seal this time of year and I was in jeans and bareback.

So much of the advice was useless to me, talk about slipping your foot out of the stirrup, throwing the reins away, etc.   You're told to curl up into a ball. "Tuck and roll", they say, don't stick out your arms or hands to break your fall, etc.

And it's all bullshit. I mean, it is very relevant and very good advice but a fall takes a split second. One moment you're on his back, and the next moment you're on yours.

 I remember the very first time I fell off a horse. I was going over a very small jump. My school horse, a big rangy Appaloosa named "Sarge", went left and I went right. I remember thinking how odd the world suddenly looked, and then bam, I'm on my back with no wind in my lungs. 

I seriously doubt that anyone can plan on what to do when you're about to hit the ground. Our minds just don't work that fast. Gravity, we know now, works at the speed of light. Our minds don't work that fast. Even our nerves don't. Your mind is still trying to understand that you are about to fall. It can't process that fast and I'm absolutely sure that a yellow sticky note doesn't pop up into your mind saying " You're about to fall so do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in that order....."

Let's not forget that, unlike cats, we can't turn our bodies in midair. Wellllll, perhaps if one has trained as an acrobat, but, ordinarily, we don't have the leverage to conform our bodies into the desired shape whilst flying through the air.
Not relevant to today's fall, but the torques that a stirrup holding your foot is going to cause some hard to overcome elements to a 'successful' fall. 


Not for me the slip the feet out, throw away the reins, tuck and roll.  Not having all that extra stuff to do while in the middle of coming off was of no advantage. Nope, my mind had no idea my body was in the air.

What 'they' also don't take into account is that gravity is unrelenting. It works every time.

But I can say that I did have an advantage. Well, two.
The first was that I was wearing my helmet. In fact, that was the first thought I had when I realized that I had fallen. I am so glad I was wearing my helmet. This despite the fact that I didn't hit my head.
The second thought, then, was...I don't think anything is broken.  The third thought was, wow. I tucked up, without thinking, because I had landed on my left shoulder and hip, my head up and off the ground.

How I did that...well, it's funny how muscle memory...and training...stays in one's brain despite many years of non-use.

When I was in 7th grade (which means I was, um..........12? 13?) I took a class in Judo.
My sensei (teacher) was the  schools  girls gym teacher  who was  probably one of the first women in the US to hold a black belt in karate.
For a week, the first thing we learned was...how to fall. I learned to tuck and roll! I learned to stop a roll with an out flung arm, but learning how to fall was undoubtedly the best thing I've ever learned in my physical life.
She also taught us self defense measures, which, at the time, wasn't considered very lady like, but she was pragmatic. She knew girls were the preferred prey for rapists.

 This, too, came into play once in my life when I was attacked by a guy, who came at me in a fury, fully intending to knock me down and try to kill me. I kicked him in the nuts. Oh, man, that was the most satisfying kick I've ever experienced. He went down like he'd been shot and I got away, unharmed.

I don't remember purposefully filing 'how to fall' in to my brain, but I didn't have to. My reptilian brain...that hunk of brain matter at the back of your head, had filed all that muscle data into long term storage labeled 'Use in Emergency".

It worked. Again.

I lay there for a moment, thinking how grateful I was for wearing my helmet, and then saw Raven standing next to me. He was calm, head down, reins on the ground before his hooves. Good boy. 

After a few moments, I took stock of me. Nothing seemed to be broken. I got up, took the reins and thought, okay, get back on. I'm no longer the type to be afraid of riding after a fall, but...it's good to do so anyway. So I got back on and rode a few circuits in the arena, just to set things right in BOTH our minds, then called it a day.

Raven was a bit embarrassed, I think. I didn't tarry too long after our ride. I unbridled  him and put on his halter, walked him out to his paddock and let him go with my customary gift of a some carrots.
Usually, when I've done that, he either heads right out to the middle of his paddock, or he gets a drink from his trough.
But this time? As I shut the gate and was about to put up the hot wire, he came up to me and put his handsome head over the gate. It was obvious he had something to say.

Sorry.

I patted him. "It's okay. I'll be fine."

Well, as fine as a 64 year old woman who's just fallen off a horse can be and still be in one piece. My neck hurts. My shoulders hurt. My hip hurts.

I was grateful, too, that I wasn't alone at the barn. Our stable girl was cleaning stalls and two other horsemen were there, but no one saw me fall.
How many times have you gone to ride without another soul around? We treasure those moments, when you have the arena to yourself, when you don't have to deal with other humans, but sometimes...sometimes you WANT someone around, in case you really get hurt and need help.

The moment I got home, I took a hot shower, slathered on the Ben-Gay liniment, and took some aspirin. My husband came in just then and asked me the usual, "How was your ride?" and I said "Bad".

"BAD?" in exclamation point eyebrows and verbal  all caps.

"Yeah, I fell off."

"You okay?

"Yeah, but I'll be sore for a few days."

And I will be.

Will I ride tomorrow?

I should. But I'll let my body call THAT shot.