If they could push the flights, I am sure they would have considered that avenue. Please see my post #33 here regarding the logistics involved in shipping horses out. https://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/f…ancelled/page2
The flight schedules are tight because of the needed equipment and personnel on both ends.It would wreak havoc on the shipping schedules to delay one flight just to force the dressage freestyle. Yes, it is very unfortunate for the riders and owners and spectators, but I doubt the horses care very much.
Granted I don’t work in civilian aviation, but I do work in aviation. I can only assume the charter companies are the ones with the issue. Not ground crew.
The weather forecast for tomorrow is problematic. Eventers now have a day off before they jump. No one is riding outdoors tomorrow. Period. It’s not anyone’s fault.
1 - they can’t do the freestyle on Sunday in the outdoor arena because of the extremely heavy downpours expected throughout the day.
2 - they can’t do the freestyle in the indoor arena on Sunday because they don’t have time to get the footing repurposed from what reining horses need to what dressage horses need.
3 - they can’t do the freestyle in the indoor arena on Monday because most (all?) of the European dressage horses are schedule to fly out on Monday (and as mentioned above, they can’t delay/reschedule those departures for logistical reasons).
Yes, sounds to me like it is the dressage spectators that are being whiny. I guess they would rather them run the freestyle in the outdoor in tropical storm conditions (so they can bitch about that). Or run it in the covered arena on reining footing (so they can bitch when Bella Rose gets injured again). Or have a freestyle with no European horses/riders so America can win Gold and Silver. Gee, how sporting.
Yes, there were a lot of waivers and variances and exceptions made because TIEC picked up WEG only 18-20 months before the event. It was either give TIEC some leeway, or cancel WEG 2018 (the only other site in contention was Slovenia, and that proposal was also fraught with an enormous amount of risk).
It seems Bellissimo did what he could to pull it off, but he just ran out of time. As mentioned elsewhere, MANY of the issues with the site would have resolved if there hadn’t been constructions delays caused by record rainfall over the spring. If he’d had another six months, things would no doubt have been very different. I hope FEI’s big “lesson learned” is that if a site backs out only a few years before, it is better to cancel/reschedule the event than to try to run it at a brand new site where the infrastructure is not fully in place.
Thank you for reposting this ! I was just searching social media to find it again. The logistics of flying horses are more than we can imagine and you outlined everything so clearly.
With the rain? Show jumping for eventing got pushed to Monday. I think, I could be wrong in the indoor. So maybe the freestyle got sacrificed to finish eventing? Either way the footing has got to change right?
I’ve seen a few indoor eventing competitions. Not many, but a few. They may have been special event classes, but I believe there were some pretty famous riders doing them. If they have to choose between jumping indoors and abandoning the competition, I think they would probably prefer to jump indoors.
FWIW, I have worked in civilian aviation, and I suspect there are real problems somewhere in the stack but they’re getting lost in translation. Flight schedules get screwed around with all the time; weather happens, planes break (and then stay parked for 12 hours while parts end up on the next flight from another continent), people drive ground equipment into planes and break them, crew gets sick, local labor actions shut down the airport; the variables are endless. If the weather had been down the tubes on Monday the horses would have flown Tuesday and it would have quietly worked out and not particularly been news.
That said, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a decision-maker dealing with this mess stuck between a rock and a hard place with a logistics problem, and saying “the plane has to leave on Monday” is a lot easier than a real explanation. A bunch of people here like to hate on Tryon (I sure have my issues!), but I’ve seen an enormous amount of work coming out of there from people who’ve been dealt a bad hand who are really genuinely trying to make this work as best they can.
PS: We have the same mess for 2022; Samorin bailed and nobody else wants to host. My money’s on Tryon again.
If that happens, I have a feeling it will run much more smoothly. And maybe they will schedule it a little closer to the end of hurricane season to improve their odds on the weather.
I agree with your post, and hoped that the “trial events” held earlier in the spring/summer would have illuminated some of the problems ahead of time. But that did not happen, it seems. And now with weather issues, well, there’s no getting around that. Of COURSE we want all involved to be safe and uninjured, competitors and spectators alike.
What is VERY disappointing is that there seems to be no restitution for events that do not occur, flat out cancelled. The cost of tickets is but one part of the expense to be there. But those ticket proceeds have probably gone back in to making the WEG happen at all. So is there any way to refund tickets for non-events? Is there a fix there? Is that part of the extensive planning that goes into such an event? If not, it should be. Hind sight 20/20, and all.
FWIW, there are other events that may also be affected by weather and facility conditions, Combined Driving, for one, as well as Para-Dressage. I hope they have better conditions for competition.
Hurricane season runs through November 20. After that there can still be significant storms.
I also have to wonder how many competitors and spectators would give TIEC another chance. Or would they stay home, save money and watch online / on tv?
Other venues may be prepared for that eventuality. This is an unusual circumstance, this venue is not prepared and apparently many of the riders were not on board even if the footing change was possible.
