On Monday, October 11th in the wee hours of the morning I headed to the Blue Grass airport in Lexington to go back home. As happy as I was to return to see my daughter and husband, it was a bit sad that this much anticipated, international large scale event had finally come to a close. Spending 16 days there assisting the organizing committee, observing many of the competitions and meeting horse people from the world over became a way of life. Living in Switzerland for almost 4 years developed my passion for international scenes, so to speak. I had met a retired bull fighter from Mexico City on the bus into the horse park one morning. He now rides Lusitanos for dressage (a lot less dangerous than for bull fighting I might add)! I used to think Portugal was the only country that had bull fights on horses but apparently they also do the same in some parts of Mexico and Spain. I currently own a Lusitano so found our conversation to be quite fascinating, especially from a bull fighting perspective since that’s what this breed was bred to do.
By now most of the remaining horses are on their way back to their respective farms and competitors are settling back into their daily routines. Already on Sunday some behind-the-scene-preparations for the dismantling of infrastructures had begun. The report is that there has been record attendance of over 500,000 at these Games which is great news. http://www.alltechfeigames.com/news/detail.aspx?id=5836
Congratulations to Kate Jackson who headed the competitions department and her staff on a job very well done! Organizing 8 FEI disciplines in one venue is no easy feat by any means.
I leave you now with some more photos of these World Equestrian Games 2010.
Entertainment in the Alltech Experience area.
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