Ten reasons to watch 'World Cup of horses'

WPTZ.com - Full Article

By Ollie Williams for CNN
Published 8:34 AM EDT Aug 22, 2014

(CNN) — More than 70 nations, 1,000 athletes and as many horses. The World Equestrian Games are upon us.

The biggest equestrian event outside the Olympics comes to Normandy, France, on Monday for two weeks of drama, daring, dressage and ... "Don Johnson."

Normandy claims to be home to 93,000 horses and more than 400 equestrian centers, but France has never seen anything on the scale of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games (often shortened to "WEG").

You can win world titles in no fewer than eight types of horse sport at the four-yearly showpiece. All three Olympic equestrian disciplines are involved, alongside the Paralympic sport of para-dressage.

So what should you expect over the next two weeks? Where to look? Who to follow? CNN World Sport answers those questions and more...

Read more: http://www.wptz.com/sports/ten-reasons-to-watch-world-cup-of-horses/27678706#ixzz3B8GOs06A

WEG endurance: A true battle of the fittest

The number of endurance riders and nations competing at the upcoming Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games beats all previous attendance records, writes Berry Pattison.

When the 160km ride gets under way at Normandy on Thursday, August 28, some 47 nations from as far afield as China, Colombia, Kazakhstan and Thailand, will take their place on the track.

There are definite entries from 173 athletes, with 198 horses declared for the competition in Sartilly, just over 100km from the main Games venue in Caen.

The ride base opens on Monday, August 25, and National Federations are able to enter up to five athletes and seven horses for the pre-ride inspection, with chefs d’equipe declaring their final horses after the inspection.

The 2014 Games has seen the introduction of a higher minimum speed, this year set at 15kph, to ensure that all horses competing are fit enough to deal with the distance and tough questions asked on track. And for the first time at Championship level, the 160km track is made up of only five loops rather than the more traditional six-loop format.

[Full articale at horsetalk.co.nz...]

2014 USA Endurance Team Member: Jeremy Olson and Wallace Hill Shade

August 21 2014
by Merri Melde-Endurance.net

Considering his background, it was somewhat inevitable that 39-year-old Jeremy Olson would one day end up on the USA Endurance Team. His dad Craig Olson started in the sport in 1978 when Jeremy was 3, "so I did my first 50-mile ride when I was 7, in 1982. And I've been in endurance pretty much ever since," Jeremy says. Craig Olson's early AERC record shows a lot of 100-mile rides - sometimes that's the only distance he did during the season. He also won the 1990 Race of Champions and Best Condition on Spruce Sarta, a horse who had a 23 for 23 100-mile record, and where he defeated future multiple World Endurance Champion Valerie Kanavy.

Jeremy did leave endurance for a while - a business degree in college, and then working in the Real World for about 6 years kept him busy. "But it's always been in my blood, it's one of the only equestrian disciplines I've ever known."

After he and his now-wife Ellen Olson (also on this year's USA Team) moved closer together in Iowa, they decided to try endurance full time. Around 2008, they both quit their jobs, went to Florida with 6 endurance horses, and had a very good (winter) season there. Subsequently, they were offered jobs training and riding in Qatar in the Middle East, where they went for 3 winter race seasons. It was an invaluable experience.


"We got to expand our knowledge of the sport so much because we had about 80 horses in our control," Jeremy explains. "We designed all the training for the barn, and oversaw everything; so we could take 10-12 horses, put them in 3 different groups and try different philosophies in the back of our minds and see how they were brought into races better, whether it was walking vs running vs swimming vs treadmills. We had all the toys, and we could do it all and kind of fine-tune our training program. You don't have that opportunity here very often - that many horses to do that many different things with, to just expand your knowledge base, learn the best way to keep them sound and healthy and fast enough to be competitive. So it was great."

Back in Florida in the winters is where the Olsons got to know Kentucky endurance rider Amy Wallace Whelan, and her gelding Wallace Hill Shade. The 12-year-old half Arabian, half Tennessee Walker has an AERC record of over 2000 miles, 34 completions in 38 starts, and 5 of 6 100-mile completions in over 8 seasons. Amy knew her horse's potential, but she didn't have the time to devote to bringing him along to the top international competition level. "We talked about it," Jeremy says, "and came to an understanding and agreement that we take him and condition him and start riding him. It's not a permanent arrangement; at some point he'll go back and Amy will continue riding him, but she thought through his prime years it would be good to try to bring him as far as he can take us, because she felt he's such a nice animal." (Amy recently competed in the Mongol Derby in Mongolia, billed as "The Longest and Toughest Horse Race in the World", where she suffered an injury and could not complete the race, but still calls it "The greatest adventure ever!")

In January 2014, Jeremy and Wallace Hill Shade finished second and got Best Condition in the Broxton Bridge 100-mile ride in Ehrhardt, South Carolina; following that on April 18-19 they participated in the Endurance Team Selection Trial at Broxton Bridge, and the effort resulted in their being ranked 6th on the shortlist for the USA Team bound for the Endurance Championship at the World Equestrian Games, on August 28, 2014, along the Bay of Mont St Michel, Normandy, France.

As the first team alternate, Jeremy and Wallace Hill Shade have travelled to France with their teammates, and are ready to step up if called upon. "Ellen's horse Hot Desert Knight and my horse Shade, they look great at the moment, so now it's our job to keep them looking that way from here until race day and then execute on race day. Pretty much our work is done as far as fitness goes; both of our horses are fit and sound, so we just have to do some maintenance work between now and then, and hopefully nothing dumb happens. We'll do our best to keep them sound and healthy, and hopefully the 5 horses on the team look great and can start, and we can bring home a medal; but if something happens, I'll be ready to step up and help the cause as well."


It's all about the USA Team effort, and Jeremy expresses his belief in the USA's chances this year. "We're excited. We think we have a good fast team put together. So we hope to make everybody proud this time, and do something we haven't done in a while.

"There are some fresh faces on the team, and some not-so-fresh faces; so I think that Emmett has really gone out of his way to put a plan in place and give a goal that we had to hit coming into even trying for the qualifications for this WEG, certain speeds that he wanted to see us do in one 160-km ride. And all 7 horses that are listed to go have hit that speed that he's asked. So if we can hit it again while we're there, we'll be bringing home a medal."

For more coverage of the Endurance Championship at the World Equestrian Games, see:
http://www.endurance.net/international/France/2014WEG/

Top photo is Jeremy and Wallace Hill Shade in France
Other photos are Jeremy and Banjara at the 2012 Texas Team Trials

2014 WEG: The official mobile application is now available

Normandy2014.com - Full Article

19 August 2014

The official mobile application of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games 2014 in Normandy is now available on the Apple Store (iPhones) and Google Play (Android smartphones).

With this mobile application, you will get to follow the event with your iPhone/Android Smartphone thanks some of exclusive content :

Schedule, Live Scores & Results of all the competitions
Rankings & Medals
News, photos and videos of the event
Visitor Info (access, catering etc.) and maps to organise your stay
Rankings and Biographies of the 1,000 competitors
Filters per discipline to enable you to only follow the competitions that you like
Social Media Hub : Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest
A photo contest « Fotofan »
A lot more

CLICK HERE to download the app on the Apple Store

CLICK HERE to download the app on Google Play

*the app is not available on Windows Phones and on tablets, but the website www.normandy2014.com is available on all phones & tablets.

Great Britain: RACING: Mowatt’s mount is a Dream come true

Bridportnews.co.uk - Full Article

20 August 2014

A HORSE bred in Bridport has ranked the highest for endurance in a prestigious competition, making it a good bet to compete on a national level.

Horse breeder Samantha Mowatt, from Bridport, gained a higher first premium award with her mount Dream The Way Back at the British Equestrian Federation (BEF) Futurity held in Devon.

The horse, owned and bred by Mowatt, attained a higher first premium of 8.70 in the endurance section – the highest score awarded to a potential endurance horse at the event.

A higher first premium indicates that the horse has the potential and outlook to perform at national level...

Read more here:
http://www.bridportnews.co.uk/sport/11422216.RACING__Mowatt___s_mount_is_a_Dream_come_true/?ref=var_0

2014 France WEG Update from Meg Sleeper

USA Endurance Team member Meg Sleeper (and Syrocco Reveille) has kindly agreed to share her 2014 World Equestrian Games adventure with us:




August 19, 2014

Thank you to everyone sending well wishes and suggestions. I feel like a heel because I realized today I missed at least one company I should have thanked in that previous email. Animal Health Options has supplied us with Promotion eq for several years now and I can’t believe I forgot them!! They have been super supportive and I love their product. I realized my forgetfulness as I was measuring out this morning’s scoop. Hopefully there aren’t many others I forgot!!

The day started out absolutely beautiful but by 11am a new front had come in and the off and on rain settled in again. I had planned on riding on the beach, but was only going to walk anyway, so I decided to change my plan and put Reveille on the walker for a few hours instead. Caroline, the woman we had visited who lives on the trail near the start, stopped by to tell us her friend (who also lives on the trail) was visited by the Spanish team evaluating the trail, and they had a map (argh!!?!). Not to be outdone, we also went to look at that small section of the trail. Her friend told us the organizing committee was redirecting some of the planned WEG trail because conditions were so wet and muddy. Bad trail conditions will make the trail trickier, but hopefully that will be to our advantage.

This afternoon we went to Mont St. Michel. It was a quick trip because there is only so much time I feel comfortable leaving Rev, however it was absolutely amazing. It may have been a short trip, but we saw a lot of the parts of the island because our tour guide was Emilio, the Paraguayan masochist. He is amazingly adept at navigating his way through crowds, so the rest of us were left trotting to keep up and after power walking up to the top and realizing the wait for the Abbey
tour would require at least 45 minutes…he hiked us right back down and then started up again by another route. We finally convinced him a more leisurely trek back down to the exit, with some exploration along the way, would be better :). There are 41 monks that currently live on the island. The pictures really don’t do it justice...

Read more here:
http://www.endurance.net/international/France/2014WEG/MegDiary.html


You can follow Meg's adventures, get to know the USA team members, keep up with the US quest for a podium medal, and keep up with the World Endurance Championship at the WEG on August 28th here:
http://www.endurance.net/international/France/2014WEG/

Definite entries for Endurance Championship at the WEG in Normandy

Definite entries for the Alltech FEI Wrld Equestrian Games Endurance Championship to be held in Normandy, France on August 28, have been up since August 15th. Each National Federation could enter a maximum of 5 athletes and 7 horses.

• Total National Federations (NFs): 47
• NFs with teams: 33
• NFs with individuals only: 14
• 173 athletes, 198 horses

Previous record: 159 participants from 42 nations in Aachen in 2006.

To see a list of definite entries, see
http://www.normandy2014.com/2014-games/nominated-entries/5/endurance