EN would like to thank Austin Ligon, who is attending the CCI*** in Italy this weekend. Since I’m not even sure where Montelibretti is, and I struggled mightily trying to navigate the Italian corner of the internet yesterday searching for scores, this first-hand report is much appreciated! Thanks, Austin, we owe you an espresso!
Dear Eventing Nation,
Pan suggested I send you a report from the field…..
Since I was in Berlin and London for fun and a little business anyway, I decided to attend one of the final Olympic qualifying competitions this weekend so I could observe and report live to Nina and Pan on how things look for her as we get down to the wire (being a semi-retired travel bum has it’s compensations). 🙂
It was a tough choice: “Downpours and Guiness” at Ballindenisk (where I could SORT of understand what they are saying), and the “Sunshine and Espresso” in Montelibretti (where I ABSOLUTELY can’t understand anything…except “bellisimo cavallo” and “benissimo….. bravi! bravi!”) . And Montelibretti also gave me the chance to cheer on Alex Hua Tian of China and Lukasz Kazmierczak of Poland, two really good guys we met riding in UK and Czech this summer. Both still have a shot at individual qualification, and know the tough ropes of being “on your own” with no national team structure to smooth the way. So I am their cheering section.
As you can see from the photos, I chose sunshine. And, as you can also see, I was more fascinated by the fact that this competition is occurring on a military base (Centro Militare Di Equitazione), and there are mainly soldiers here….LOTS of soldiers. Maybe 10 or so for every civilian. And tanks, jeeps, heavy army trucks. No fancy-dancy suburban riding club this… it is an ARMY base.
But, they are as nice and helpful as can be, and I GUARANTEE the food at the cafeteria is THE best food anyone has EVER eaten at a horse show. And of course, Italian soldiers, both male and female, manage to be just a bit more stylish in their uniforms, berets, boots, and jackets than any other soldiers you have ever seen.
So perhaps today, I will actually take a picture of a horse…but for the moment, here are the atmospherics to set the mood….enjoy.
Oh, and of course the scores… though updated real time on the internet, a bit hard to find unless you know how to navigate the Lazio Regional Equestrian Committee website…fortunately, I have a very helpful Italian brother-in-law:
[Scores]
