For better or worse, Princess Haya was re-elected to a final four year term as FEI President early Friday morning. According to the Horse and Hound, “from 120 possible votes, 90 national federations backed Princess Haya for president, 23 voted for Sven Holmberg and 11 voted for Henk Rottinghuis.” That’s fuzzy math, but you get the idea–the Princess won big. Since each National Federation had one vote and because the ballots were secret, the reality is that the vast majority of the equestrian word in terms of horses and riders could have voted against the Princess. We will never know.
Am I happy? No, but what did you expect from one of the most aristocratic and bureaucratic organizations on the planet? One interesting question moving forward is whether the US will face some kickback from USEF President David O’Connor’s endorsement of Henk Rottinghuis. I have a lot of respect for David supporting a reformer who was apparently destined to lose and David is unquestionably a leader of principle. Maybe the new dressage tests will be printed with the text reading from right to left. On the bright side, we are assured four more years of stuff to write about from the FEI and we can look forward to an inevitable celebratory FEI press release on Friday. Yay. Now onto some eventing notes…
–The Pau CCI4* dressage starts at 4am ET, Boyd rides at 11:10am ET—Live Pau Scores, Times
–Boyd has posted a full Pau XC course preview with pics on his blog
–It’s going to be an interesting weekend on Eventing Nation in terms of timing as we write about Pau, Galway, and all of the events between them. Consider that Pau (GMT +1) is 5 hours ahead of the East coast (GMT -4) and 8 hours ahead of California (GMT -7). That means that the Pau dressage will begin at 4am ET and finish just after Boyd’s ride at 11:10am ET and then the Galway CCI3* dressage will begin at 4pm ET and last until 7pm ET. That’s 15 hours of nearly continuous CCI4* and CCI3* dressage around the world on Friday.
–Looking ahead to the Galway CCI3*, Arthur won the AEC dressage by 7 points so it’s hard not to expect Allison to have a big lead at the end of the day in California. In fairness, I’m not as familiar with some of the West Coast horses, but I would also expect Jennie Brannigan and Cambalda to be near the top after the dressage. If EN were a betting site, what would be over/under for Arthur’s lead?
–The Royal Winter Fair starts in Toronto, Canada today. Several well known Canadian eventers are competing in the indoor eventing competition Friday night. We’ll have full details, including a link to live video streaming, later today.
–Eventing with a Twist has written a nice Jimmy Wofford clinic report
–You may have already seen this video already, the Boston Globe published it on Monday and the COTH republished it on Thursday. It shows two teens who were suspended for leading and riding a horse around their high school in celebration of spirit week. Damn horse Nazis.
–We have a very busy day on Eventing Nation with dressage from Pau and Galway, a quick report from Australia, the Canadian Royal Fair, and hopefully someone will do something stupid, entertaining, and miraculously safe involving horses and put it on Youtube so we can post that as well. See you soon.
