One Horse Held, Approximately Ten Million Accepted at Boekelo First Horse Inspection

Photo by Tilly Berendt.

There’s just something about Boekelo, isn’t there? The much-loved CCIO4*-L at which we find ourselves this week is most riders’ favourite event – and with very good reason. It sits at a sweet spot in the calendar, right at the end of the season, when we’re all faced with the prospect of not seeing one another week in and week out for a few months, which means the end-of-season feeling is high; it also sits at a sweet spot in the Netherlands, right on the German border, which means that you probably won’t find a friendlier event anywhere in the world.

The Dutch know how to have a good time, and that’s the spirit at the heart of the competition: not only is there a robust social calendar through the week, with parties raging on well into the wee hours, every single cross-country fence is also furnished with a packed bar, making Saturday’s cross-country a hub of atmosphere and fundamentally impeccable vibes. That’s only been magnified by the Dutch contingent’s successful bid for a ticket to Paris at the European Championships a couple of months ago, and it’s clear from the offset that they intend to celebrate that moment properly this week.

When I arrived today for the first horse inspection, still colossally hungover from last night’s famous welcome party in the stables, I parked up next to an empty bottle of vodka and, I think, devastatingly, a puddle of human widdle. What happens in Boekelo stays in Boekelo, until you start letting journalists come to the parties, and then, I’m afraid, you’ve created a monster. And maybe a gossip columnist. Look, at least no riders broke legs this time at the party.

Jonna Balk and Swarovski (NED) deliver the outfit of the day. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

This year’s edition of Military Boekelo is its biggest yet: there are 110 competitors, representing 14 nations, coming forward for this week’s global showdown. Of those, 11 will be contesting the Nations Cup team competition, which is the finale of this year’s series – and that means that a number of titles are on offer this week. Of course, there’s the obvious ones – we’ll see a team take top honours, plus an outright individual winner of the competition, but we’ll also see the series title awarded to the team that’s amassed the highest number of points across the span of the 2023 series, almost certainly to upstarts Belgium, who’ve been firing on all cylinders this season to come into the finale on a whopping 600 points.

Beyond that, there’s also the not-at-all insignificant matter of the Dutch National Championship, which has eleven exciting competitors battling for the title — and, last but certainly not least, we’ll see the Nations Cup Olympic team ticket awarded. While it’s not truly official until it’s announced, this will go to Italy, who’s only viable competitors in this final leg would have been Spain, but the Spanish elected not to put a team forward.

So with some things decided and some things very much not, let’s look ahead at what’s to come, and what’s already happened.

Felix Etzel and TSF Polartanz. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

This afternoon saw the first horse inspection launch the competition in earnest, with all our competitors presenting in a new location on the site in front of a ground jury comprised of President Judy Hancock (GBR), Xavier Le Sauce (FRA), and Merel Schurink (NED). We’re used to seeing the trot-ups happen in the main arena here, and while the relocation meant that horses had to trot on a hard surface — something that tends to show anomalies in stride more clearly — this didn’t actually translate to more ‘excitement’ in the inspection.

Just one horse, Felix Etzel’s smart Trakehner stallion TSF Polartanz, was sent to the holding box, and even that bit of protocol was the speediest and least complicated we’ve ever seen. Within two horses’ time, Felix was able to re-present and was readily accepted into the competition.

Cosby Green and Jos Ufo de Quidam. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

A couple of other riders had to visit the jog strip twice: Italy’s Alberto Giugni had to trot up Galwaybay Talent a second time as the sparky Irish Sport Horse was far more focused on trying to bite his handler on his first pass in front of the ground jury, and Cosby Green and Jos Ufo de Quidam of the USA also took a second spin, but were then accepted, as were Dutch combination Althea Bleekman and Granncord.

World Champion Yasmin Ingham and Rehy DJ. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

The real drama, though, came for some of the British line-up, who faced paperwork issues while trying to leave the UK – an unfortunately common hurdle many riders have faced since Brexit. Luckily for them, and for us, Ros Canter, Yasmin Ingham, and their compatriots were able to arrive just in time to present out of order at the very end of the first horse inspection.

Now, with a whopping entry field to get through, we’re looking ahead to the first of two busy dressage days and slightly earlier starting times than usual. Tomorrow’s dressage will be the domain of the team riders, beginning at 9.00 a.m. CET (8.00 a.m. BST/3.00 a.m. EST) in the main arena. Australia will be the first team to come forward, getting our day started bright and early with pathfinder Ryan Wood and Cooley Flight. The full draw of nations is as follows:

1. Australia
2. France
3. Great Britain
4. Italy
5. Switzerland
6. Germany
7. Ireland
8. Sweden
9. The Netherlands
10. USA
11. Belgium

Check out tomorrow’s dressage times here, and Friday’s here.

Jennie Brannigan and FE Connory. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

This week’s competition will be live-streamed in full via the ClipMyHorse/FEI TV partnership, which you can tune into here using a ClipMyHorse subscription or by taking out a free trial. As always, we’ll be bringing you jam-packed full reports on each day of competition, so keep it locked onto EN for all the insights and analysis (and half-pints of Grolsch) you need this week. Boekelo 2023: let’s do this thang.

Military Boekelo Links: Website | Entries | Live Scoring | Live Stream | EN’s Coverage

EN’s coverage of Boekelo is presented by Kentucky Performance Products.