The FEI World Equestrian Games overall produced glorious sport with a bonus for the home fans who dominated the stands at the Tryon International Equestrian Center in Mill Spring, North Carolina, in September. The spectators were thrilled to see so many U.S. competitors claim a slew of team medals—gold in show jumping, driving and reining and silver in dressage. There also were several individual U.S. medals, including silver for dressage rider Laura Graves and America’s first three WEG para-dressage medals, along with silver in driving and silver and bronze in reining.

See also: Practical Horseman’s 2018 World Equestrian Games Coverage

Another first was the only tie-breaker in WEG team show-jumping history, pitting the United States against Sweden. The American squad, anchored by McLain Ward, claimed the top prize by a mere 2.06-second margin in the jump-off.

Two days later Ward just missed the individual medals, finishing fourth on Clinta. But as he pointed out, all four team members, including Laura Kraut and rookies Devin Ryan and Adrienne Sternlicht, finished in the top 16 out of 124 starters from 25 countries.

By virtue of their medals, U.S. show jumping and dressage qualified for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Finishing eighth, the eventers didn’t make the cut and will have to try to qualify at next year’s Pan American Games and, if necessary, the Nations Cup. Eventing Performance Director Erik Duvander—who by WEG had been at the helm less than a year—worked on developing a new plan designed to put the United States back on top.

The eventing competition itself went beautifully with its centerpiece cross-country course designed by former U.S. Coach Mark Phillips drawing raves. The route, replete with options, was safe and sane. It marked the first time a world championship was held at a three-star level, rather than a four-star level, and all 16 teams taking part completed, something that hasn’t happened at a world championship since 1994.

In the wake of a disaster involving the endurance race on the first day of the Games (more on that later), some officials wanted to err on the side of caution and reduce the optimum cross-country time from 10 minutes to eight. Along with a group of chefs d’équipe, Phillips fought that. They succeeded, compromising by taking out two fences but leaving in a long run up a hill near the end of the course that had been a hot discussion topic in the months before the Games.

See also: What Went Wrong at WEG? 

The Challenges

While WEG offered many shining moments, there also were a lot of not-so-happy memories, many of which involved the weather.

“There’s been some fabulous competitions in fabulous competition arenas, but there’s also been challenges and the weather hasn’t helped. It’s been a difficult WEG,” observed U.S. Equestrian Federation Director of Sport Will Connell, whom American athletes praised, along with his staff, for their efforts to make their experience as smooth as possible.

FEI Veterinary Director Göran Åkerström said the governing body studied the area’s weather for the last three years, prompting them to move the Games from August to September. But still, often oppressive hot and humid conditions prevailed with the threat of Hurricane Florence dominating the headlines.

Even in the two years leading up to the Games, high temperatures and rainfall hampered efforts to execute an ambitious plan to expand TIEC, and Mark Bellissimo, the managing partner of Tryon Equestrian Partners whose ambition for years was to host a WEG, said the booming economy also made it difficult to get some construction materials. As WEG teams began arriving, the facility looked like a construction site—the soundtrack of the early days was the noise of hammers and riveting.

Lack of adequate housing for grooms, along with organizational chaos, didn’t help. On the first day of competition, endurance riders were misdirected, leading to a re-start. Later that day, officials cancelled the championship when the combined temperature and humidity index went too high for horse welfare and part of the newly prepared trail became slippery from a sudden storm. Some angry riders and team officials got into a skirmish after the cancellation and law enforcement was called in to calm things down. The FEI is investigating the situation.

“We got off to such a bad start with endurance that was actually no fault of the organizer, it was just a succession of mistakes. That set a tone … that was very negative,” said Michael Stone, president of the WEG organizing committee.

Meanwhile, throughout the Games, spectators in the main arena grandstand had to sit in the blazing sun amid 90-degree temperatures without anything overhead (except in the upgrade/VIP area) to shield them. Parking and shuttles were a problem early on, as they usually are at a WEG or Olympics. U.S. Dressage Federation President George Williams recalled standing in line for two hours on the first day of dressage before he finally could get on a bus to the venue from the spectator lot.

“We made mistakes,” admitted Bellissimo. “We did the Games because we wanted to save the WEG. From a sport perspective, if the goal was to save the Games [after original 2018 organizers in Bromont, Quebec, bowed out due to financial problems] and produce top sport, I believe we did that.

“What was most important to me is that we stepped up in difficult circumstances and did our best,” he added.

Even their best couldn’t overcome Mother Nature, however. Although Hurricane Florence was a tropical depression by the time it reached the Tryon area five days into the Games, its arrival still caused major problems organizers were powerless to prevent.

Predicted day-long rainstorms and wind gusts resulted in the eventing show-jumping phase being postponed from Sunday to Monday. The dressage Grand Prix Freestyle, also scheduled for Sunday, was cancelled when the FEI and organizers said they could find no way to stage it before the European horses were scheduled to fly home on Monday.

Laura Graves had led the way to silver for U.S. teammates Kasey Perry-Glass, Adrienne Lyle and Steffen Peters and also earned an individual silver in the Special, second to Germany’s Isabell Werth on Bella Rose. Graves, riding her Verdades, was itching for a rematch in the freestyle.

When Graves, who is not known for being emotional, was informed the freestyle had been cancelled, she said, “I burst into tears. It hit me really hard. I’m sure it was disappointing for a lot of people, but it was especially for me, in my home country, to have that opportunity taken away,” she continued, explaining how much she had wanted to share with fans her “very American freestyle” to the song, “Coming to America.”

The Future of WEG

While some of the problems of the Tryon WEG were unique to that venue, many of the difficulties were related to the concept of holding eight world championships at the same time.

“The WEG itself is a massive undertaking and a huge expense to accommodate a large number of athletes and grooms and all the officials,” USEF’s Will Connell said. “The current format is probably unsustainable. It makes for a beautiful menu of sport. But I wonder who can afford to take it on in the future in its current format?”

The FEI is wondering that, too. FEI President Ingmar de Vos promised a re-think at the organization’s annual meeting in November. No one has bid for 2022, so that year could involve individual world championships or pairs of championships that might work well together, such as eventing and driving.

See also: Will There be Another WEG? 

The WEG is meant to bring in more people to watch horse sports than would attend stand-alone championships, but at Tryon, weather kept crowds down. The organizers originally planned for WEG to draw 500,000 spectators. But estimates by the end of the Games were that approximately 200,000 attended.

Opinions vary on whether having all the championships together is a help or a hindrance to good sport. Apparently, it depends on which discipline you’re talking about. Jimmy Fairclough, a member of the USA’s gold-medal four-in-hand driving team, said being part of the WEG helps his sport, which also has a stand-alone championship once in every four-year cycle.

“I prefer the WEG,” he commented. “We had a lot of people for our marathon day. If it was just a stand-alone world championship, I don’t think you would have gotten as many people. So many people came up to me and said, `I never knew this existed.’ They were there for jumping or something else but came to watch it because they had time.”

On the other hand, U.S. Show Jumping Coach Robert Ridland said, “The time is right to go back to a show-jumping world championship … WEG is unwieldy.”

Acknowledging that at the WEG show jumping helps promote some of the other disciplines, he’d prefer single or double championships, mentioning that when he ran the FEI World Cup Finals in Las Vegas, jumping and dressage were put together in that format for the first time in 2005 and it worked.

Robert Dover, the U.S. dressage technical advisor, is on the same page as Ridland. “It’s a very different proposition going forward—we’ve seen so many WEGs now lose a huge amount of money,” Dover said.

“I forsee it more probably going into either individual world championships or smaller groups of world championships, where they mesh more easily together. I can imagine endurance will be an individual world championship from now on.”

Jon Garner, Equestrian Canada’s director of sport, observed, “At the end of the day, you’d be hard-pressed to say the sport hasn’t been incredible. I thought when Tryon was awarded it … the competition side would be no problem at all—it would be the other stuff. That’s been proved to be pretty much correct.”

“The number of people you have to entertain, the number of people you have to host, the complications with transport and housing,” said Michael Stone, president of the Tryon 2018 organizing committee. “It not only is a financial burden, but it is also an enormous logistical burden for people who have never done it before.”

Competitors and team officials have a different experience than the average spectator, and many of them praised the WEG, including the stables and arenas. Dover said, “The staff and volunteers were exemplary in every possible way, and the competition itself was the greatest competition in the history of the sport of dressage.”

Garner pointed out that there are pluses to having so many disciplines in one place. “When you get an event like this, you really do get to see what the horse is all about and how this four-legged creature has so many different abilities within their own breeds. As a horse fan, it’s really cool to see.”

“I was quite disappointed about all this negative media, social media,” said Graves. “I had three clients who cancelled their trip based on that media review. To not see our stands filled was very disappointing. I don’t think facility-wise you can compare it to anywhere else. People had temperature-controlled restaurants they could sit down in, the shopping was unbelievable. The venue itself was spectacular as far as accommodations for the horses, the stadium, the footing. It was a great show.” 

This article was originally published in the Winter 2018 issue of Practical Horseman. 

The FEI World Equestrian Games Tryon 2018 and the future of the Games were the subject of a well-attended session at the FEI General Assembly in Manama (BRN) today.

The independent Equestrian Community Integrity Unit (ECIU), which was tasked with investigating the issues surrounding the Endurance championships at the Games, presented its findings on the sequence of events that took place from approximately 12 hours prior to the start of competition that ultimately led to the false start on September 12th.

See also: Will There Be Another WEG?

Andrew Smith from the ECIU also detailed the underlying reasons that affected preparations for the Endurance event, with the report’s findings based on information provided during interviews with multiple persons, including key people within the Organizing Committee, the FEI and other witnesses.

The conclusions of the report show that there was no single reason that caused the false start but multiple issues: most importantly lack of communication between Officials – particularly the lack of radios – and also between the Organizing Committee, National Federations and Athletes, delays to the preparation of the Vet Gate and the Endurance trail, and the decision to maintain a full schedule of events at Tryon International Equestrian Center that stretched an already under-resourced team required to deliver both these events and the Games.

The ECIU has also provided a second report to the FEI regarding allegations of misconduct. This will be reviewed by the FEI Legal team to assess whether further disciplinary proceedings will be brought before the FEI Tribunal. The final decisions on any suchproceedings will be published by the FEI.

FEI Secretary General Sabrina Ibáñez then presented the overall conclusions, acknowledging that there were multiple factors that contributed, not just to the issues surrounding Endurance but which also impacted the overall delivery of the Games. The management structure of the Organising Committee, other construction projects and resources that were given priority over delivery of fields of play and other Games-related infrastructures, and communication of vital information in a timely manner were major contributory factors, she said.

However, “to be completely honest we, as a community, were fortunate that Tryon were courageous and willing to take on the enormous challenge to host the Games only 22 months prior to the event. Without them we would have had no WEG 2018.”

She informed delegates that the FEI invested close to CHF 1 million on the Endurance track alone, over and above other financial support provided by the FEI to the Organising Committee to ensure the Games happened. In-keeping with good financial oversight, the FEI had made financial provisions specifically to cover emergency situations specifically related to the Games.

Mrs Ibáñez highlighted the incredible sport over the 12-day Games and the tireless teamwork of all concerned: “the Organising Committee, the volunteers, Officials and FEI staff and the National Federations who, despite the frustrations, continued to work positively with both the Organising Committee and FEI to find solutions and provide the best possible environment for their athletes, horses and team staff.”

She also acknowledged that, despite the FEI’s commitment to support the Organising Committee, in particular during the latter stages of event preparations, the FEI had no realistic mechanism to push the Organising Committee to deliver on its promises other than threatening to cancel the Games, which was not an option due to the time and resources that National Federations and athletes had invested in preparing for the Games.

Prior to opening up the meeting to questions from the floor, the Secretary General talked through the plan to open up the bidding process for individual world championships in all disciplines for 2022, but with preference being given to multi-discipline bids, as detailed in the Bureau published on 17 November.

The Secretary General stressed: “This does not necessarily mean the end of the FEI World Equestrian Games and bids to host all-discipline Games will still be considered.”

FEI Director Games Operations Tim Hadaway had opened the session by presenting a report on the planning and delivery of the Tryon 2018 Games, highlighting both the positive and negative aspects of four key areas: sport, Games operations, commercial, communications & media operations.

Top sport (with the exception of Endurance) was the key success of the Games, along with superb broadcast coverage on NBC in the home market, including 57 hours of live coverage that resulted in a record audience for equestrian sport. However, lack of venue readiness and an under-resourced Organising Committee, both from a financial and personnel perspective, were major negatives that ultimately impacted the delivery of the Games.

Questions and comments during the 90-minute session from National Federation delegates from France, Chile, Spain, Denmark, Belgium, Germany, Uruguay, Italy and Bahrain focused on weather and the suitability of Tryon for the Games, reimbursements to National Federations that sent Endurance athletes and horses to the Games, lack of communication, Officials, and lack of accountability.

The afternoon had kicked off with a session on the Dressage Judging Working Group, with the Chair of the FEI Dressage Committee Frank Kemperman and Bettina De Rham, FEI Director Dressage, Para Dressage, Vaulting and Reining presenting an update on the implementation of the working group’s 19 recommendations which will drive the future of the sport.

The final session of the afternoon focused on rules changes, with presentations on amendments to the FEI Statutes, discipline specific proposals for rule changes, and revisions to the Veterinary Regulations, the Equine Anti-Doping and Controlled Medication Regulations and the Olympic & Paralympic Regulations. There was also a presentation on the plans to continue with an additional pilot phase for the CSI Online Invitation System, which will be voted on separately from the rest of the Jumping rules at tomorrow’s General Assembly.

At the end of the rules session, the Legal Director reminded National Federations that the age limit will be replaced by a competency based evaluation system, as per the recommendation of the Officials Working Group. FEI Officials reaching the relevant age limit as of 2018 may apply to continue officiating providing they have been active for the past two years, their application is supported by their National Federation and they are in good-standing with the FEI. The FEI Secretary General, in consultation with the relevant Discipline Director and Chair of Technical Committee, will review applications on a case by case basis. FEI Officials who retired in 2017 or before may only re-apply once the competency-based assessment has been implemented.

During the morning meeting between the regional groups and the Bureau, the Secretary General informed delegates that the US-based Reining bodies – the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) and National Reining Horse Association (NRHA) – are in breach of the terms of their cooperation agreement with the FEI. In order to ensure the integrity of the discipline and maintain a level playing field for all athletes competing in FEI Reining, the agreement with these two bodies has now been terminated. Both the AQHA and NRHA have been informed that a binding commitment to implement the FEI rules on anti-doping, stewarding requirements and the age of competing horses are prerequisites for any future cooperation. The Secretary General advised delegates that FEI Reining events will continue, and invited National Federations to provide feedback to the FEI on how they see the future of the discipline at international level.

Tomorrow’s General Assembly starts at 09:00 local time. The full session will be livestreamed and you can follow the debates and voting on our blog.

All presentations from the FEI General Assembly will be available in due course.

The first time I ever saw Simone Blum of Germany, she was raising her arm in triumph following a clean round with the impeccable DSP Alice on the second day of show jumping at the FEI World Equestrian Games. I took a photo, impressed by both her performance and her confidence, but I have to admit she wasn’t on my medals radar. And I’ll bet most of you had never heard of her either.

Although she stood fourth when that class at the Tryon International Equestrian Center finished, I still wasn’t figuring her for a spot on the individual podium, though she was part of the German bronze medal team, headed by world number three Marcus Ehning. After all, 29-year-old Simone is ranked number 142 in the world, and a lot of those ahead of her in the standings demanded much more attention for my predictions.

But this afternoon, on the last day of the Games, she stole the spotlight. Only a single time fault, added in the final round of the top 12 this afternoon, was on an otherwise clean slate for Simone and her German sporthorse mare during the Games. The individual gold medal was hers as she shared the podium with silver medalist Martin Fuchs of Switzerland, number 17 in the world, and the Swiss 2012 Olympic gold medalist and two-time Longines FEI World Cup winner Steve Guerdat, world number nine, who took bronze on Bianca. Two out of three horses in the medals were mares, while Martin’s Clooney was the only gelding representation.

The announcer kept talking about “Alice in Wonderland,” when she entered the arena as the leader for the second round of the two-part competition, but I would translate that to Simone in Wonderland. Mobbed by the media, she kept her poise, though you could see the fuss was quite a lot for her to take in. I did a little video interview with her, but so many people were pressing that I think she didn’t really have the time to deeply consider her answers.

Anyway, click on this video and you can hear what she had to say and perhaps just get a sense of what she’s like. 

Alice, now 11, was discovered four years ago by Hans Gunter Goskowitz, another German rider and Simone’s fiancée. He is, she said during her press conference, “the most wonderful man in the world. It’s just because of him I am sitting here,” she continued, then smiled and revealed, “I will marry him in the next four weeks. He will become Mr. Blum.”

Simone is the first woman to win the world championship show jumping crown since the WEG began in 1990, although Canada’s Gail Greenough—another dark horse—took the title in 1986 at Aachen, when it was still a stand-alone world championship.

But Simone noted, “for me it doesn’t matter if it’s a woman or a man. Today is a perfect day. Alice jumped the whole week really great. She is so careful, always fighting. She has the biggest heart.”

This was the first time the Final Four was not held to determine the individual world championship. That involved the top four riders jumping each others’ mounts over the same course. The format was changed because horses have become so valuable, and even having the world’s best riders take them around on a one-off can be a risk. Also, some deemed it the world catch-riding championship, which really isn’t the point.

But McLain Ward noted, with a small smile, that if there were still a Final Four, he would have been in the hunt. For the world number two, this WEG, like the last, was a case of “almost.” In 2014, he was fifth, just out of the Final Four, and today, he was fourth; again, just off the podium.

I caught up with him shortly before the medal ceremony, and I’m sure he was wishing he was taking part in it. But gracious as always even though others were demanding his time, he gave me a moment in which he expressed his thoughts.

Click on this video to hear what he had to say. 

On the bright side, the U.S. had all four of its team gold medal riders in the top 25, the round that started the day. Devin Ryan dropped a rail with Eddie Blue to wind up sixteenth, but Adrienne Sternlicht and Laura Kraut made the cut with McLain to get in the afternoon’s top-12 ride-off. Adrienne finished eleventh with Cristalline despite rails in both rounds and two time faults during her second trip. The 67-second time allowed was tight. Everyone in the top 12, with the exception of Swiss Steve and Rowan Willis of Australia on Blue Movie, had time faults. Zeremonie, perfect in the first round for Laura, caught two rails and logged a time fault to finish tenth overall.

Click on this link for results.

Another U.S. team earned gold as the Games ended. It was the first time America’s four-in-hand driving squad had ever finished on top. Chester Weber, Jimmy Fairclough and Misdee-Wrigley Miller wound up with 353.39 penalties to edge the Netherlands (356.79), while Belgium was third on 364.

This was a crazy two weeks, and the first one was really tough. As always, it takes a few days for an event of this nature to get into the swing of things, but that was complicated because construction around the grounds continued while the Games began.

As the days went by, the work crews—who had problems with heat and excessive rainfall in the months leading up to the Games–did an amazing job of getting everything built, but then Hurricane Florence conspired to take things off track. Endurance race problems and the eventual cancellation of that competition, as well as cancellation of the dressage freestyle due to weather, were burdens on an already difficult production.

Heat at or near 90 degrees for days wasn’t helpful either. Many people cancelled plans to come or didn’t make the attempt because national news broadcasts painted North Carolina as a total disaster after Florence. Actually, the eastern part of the state bore the brunt of the storm. TIEC, about 250 miles west of the coast, was not affected, aside from mostly flooded parking lots on the worst day of rain, Sept. 16, when competition was called off.

Spectator seating was never entirely filled, with the weather playing a role in that. Crowd estimates were downgraded from the original 500,000 estimate a while ago, but in the end, TIEC Chief Operating Officer Sharon Decker thought attendance was in the neighborhood of 200,000, though figures are not final at this point.

The WEG isn’t easy to stage, and FEI President Ingmar de Vos assured us that the organization is taking a thorough look at what its future should be. After all, Tryon got the Games on very short notice because the original bid winner, Bromont in Quebec, lacked the financial backing to pull it off.

“We did the Games because we wanted to save the WEG,” said Mark Bellissimo, the managing partner of TIEC and several other major venues, including the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center in Wellington, home of the Winter Equestrian Festival.

“Despite historic rains and very difficult circumstances, I would put up this sport against any of the other WEGs in terms of quality of the competitions,” he maintained.

“A number of people within the disciplines said, `This was as strong championship competition as I’ve seen.’ From a sport perspective, if the goal was to save the Games and produce top sport, I believe we did that,” he commented.

The competitions that were staged did indeed offer great sport in wonderful venues, from the cross-country and marathon courses to the various arenas. Riders were complimentary about the conditions under which they competed, and they all voiced approval for the stabling.

Volunteers, of which there were 1,700, without exception in my experience all were warm, welcoming and couldn’t do enough for you. They had real pride in the fact that their region was putting on something that drew people from all over the world.

Sarah Younginer, a resident of nearby Greenville, S.C., sparkled when she talked about the WEG experience in her charming southern accent.

TIEC “had a lot of construction to get done,” she pointed out, but noted it did get finished.

“The riders being able to have their events, that was the first thing that they made sure of.” And she felt spectators and volunteers both were taken care of.

“Overall,” she declared, “it’s been an awesome two weeks.”