THE GREAT RACE GOES OFF THE RAILS
Of course, with all the events of the day today, many of you are screaming at me for burying the lede. The big story of today is that after 100 km of endurance racing, we will crown no world champion here at Tryon. After dinner we cornered a young Englishman who worked with a middle eastern country’s endurance squad and got the whole story and it’s a doozy.
The endurance race got off to an epicly bad start when FEI officials sent the field or a portion of the field in the wrong direction. That, apparently, has never happened before. Of course it begs the question - how is it that riders do not know which direction to ride in after someone yells “on your mark, get set, GO!” I guess someone official looking pointed right instead of left and no one mounted said to themselves “Wait. What?”
After a tearful meeting with massive apologies from the FEI officials in charge, the entire field had to be collected at the first vet stop, regrouped and restarted. By that time however, several competitors had already been eliminated for lameness, including a Prince from the UAE, the son of a Sheik who had financed a large portion of the event. (I will leave it to others braver than myself to detail the story of the “Sheik Shack in shambles”.)
Oh but wait, there’s more.
Apparently, the endurance competition may have been too much for the horses once the sun came back out and many of the quickest horses were not doing well. Indeed, many of the favorites from the middle eastern countries did not look likely to complete, leaving the ultimate championship within reach of smaller countries within the sport.
Not satisfied with the directional start debacle, FEI officials said “here, hold my beer, watch this.” And did something that will live in infamy. With the leading horses not looking good and heat and humidity a problem, the ground jury decided to abandon the competition and call it a day. Yes that’s right, the race was “abandoned.” The official reason given was that after the mid day deluge, the weather was just too hot and humid to let them finish. And to be clear, this has never happened before either.
Predictably, having their chances at a world championship title taken away because of weather made people who had been going well quite angry. What would you do if you had flown to Tryon ahead of a hurricaine just to have the race abandoned two thirds of the way through because a bunch of guys were riding too hard?
Well what happened next will make Tryon go down in history for all time. I don’t have all the details but it includes competitors becoming violent, destroying the vet enclosure, a Frenchman cold cocking an FEI official then getting arrested by policemen who had been called to protect the officials from the angry mob, the appearance of the remaining French team challenging the police and trying to free their teammate (swooping in mounted like Knights of the Round table but, you know, French), an angry mob empowered by the spectacle of Frenchmen on horseback advancing on police oppressors like a scene from Les Miz, then the Brazilian and Spanish contingent joining in like it was the crusades … it was in a word biblical.
I am not sure I have all the facts straight. What I learned is all second hand and I have been known to embellish a good story. But it is true that endurance will have no champion this year. I don’t think it is unreasonable to ask why the officials couldn’t find a way to crown a winner. It is what they came here to do after all. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why the endurance race at this World Equestrian Games will forever be known as the Great Goat F$#@ of Tryon 2018.
stormborns
dededos
andulkaphoto
pixelskylines
gummygunk
izzy806
romaincrisis
