WEG blog: 25,000 spectators — bring it on!
Tonight’s grand prix kur is said to be a sell-out. If that’s true, and 25,000 people are going to be in that stadium, the atmosphere is going to be out of this world.
Even half full, the noise generated here by enthusiastic clapping, waving, cheering and foot stamping is something else. It feels more like a concert than an equestrian event. And the commentators actively keep the crowd going in recesses (breaks) by sticking on YMCA or Macarena for everyone to shout and flail their arms to.
I. Can’t. Wait.
It’s going to be a late night, but worth staying up for if you can catch it live. I know there have been issues with viewing red button and FEI TV, so I’ll do all I can to update you via Horse & Hound’s facebook site and online.
Tomorrow, we’re straight into cross-country. I understand there are pleas to move the start to 10am so that the sun has time to lift a little.
Amazingly, considering my considerable ineptitude with my own fujifilm mini camera, H&H snapper extraordinaire Trevor Meeks is trusting me with his second camera at the water jump. Big responsibility, but he assures me he’ll set it up so that a monkey could do it. I’ve assessed my subject and decided the idea of jumping up a step out of water and bouncing straight over a rail into space and falling back in to the water is barmy. Rather them than me, I say.
The Brits are doing an excellent job in the eventing dressage, though we’ve come to expect no less. Unfortunately, Pippa Roome tells me others are doing unexpectedly well and going ahead of us. We don’t want that now.
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Yesterday evening, I went to the reining wrap party following the individual championships and freestyle demo. It was held in the veterinary centre across the road’s “soundness pavilion”. All riders were looking perfectly sound, dancing away to Born In The USA. It was good to see Adelinde Cornelissen letting her hair down after her huge disappointment being eliminated from the dressage. And Anky van Grunsven was up on the bar getting down to Aerosmith. Having watched her reining freestyle earlier in the day it strikes me that, she might be a dressage legend, but she seems to be having a whole lot more fun reining…
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Sarah has worked at an equestrian journalist and editor since 2004 and has held the position of Horse & Hound Editor-in-Chief since 2014. She has reported for Horse & Hound from major championships including Europeans and World Equestrian Games. She has co-written books on horses and horse sport including The Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia of Horses & Ponies. She has owned and ridden horses since 1993, and worked for and trained with Olympic gold medallist event rider Leslie Law prior to going to university. While studying for a BSc at London School of Economics Sarah also worked for top British dressage rider Louise Spate.