SHAME ON YOU LEXINGTON. Carriage vandalized.

[SmplySweet1021]

[QUOTE=Go Fish;5149005]
Since it happened after 7:00 p.m., it’s entirely possible that the vandal HAD security clearance. Lights out (so to speak) is 10:00 p.m., right?[/QUOTE]

Yes Lights out is 10 PM

Yes I do need that sort of response especially after Isjbrand himself said he does not blame the organization and thinks it is a Crazy. There is no need for a poster who (from what I remember) isn’t even in Lexington, who wasn’t there at the start line or at the press conferences to make a direct assumption that it was Lexington that did this. I take great pride in WEG and in Lexington. No need to bash this city because there is a crazy person (Exact Ijsbrand Words) who sabotaged Ijsbrand’s Carriage.

[2ndyrgal]

Don’t go over the top blaming security…

Let’s just say that none on this post so far have all the facts. This is what I can say for certain. The State Police, the WEG, the FEI and TPTB all took this very seriously and acted on it quite quickly. This is absolute fact which I know for certain.

And while his driving was nothing short of spectacular, he used his own rig (others offered theirs, also fact) and, having gotten rather rapid permission to go last (all the chef d’equip’s had to agree) he knew exactly how fast he needed to go to beat the best dressage score on record. When he came in at the end of the marathon, he was not ranting about sabotage, he was being greeted by 20 screaming and I mean shrieking, screaming people on his “team”.

Ample staff to have a watchful eye on everything, every hour, every day.

I worked with million dollar racehorses for years, and trust me when I tell you, we didn’t depend on track security, hired nightwatchmen or anyone else to watch them, depending on what track we were at, we either slept right outside, or inside their stalls.

It was an ENORMOUS advantage to go last. And with the availability of other marathon carts at hand, unless a crazy did it, which would be highly unlikely, since no one else had any damage, cart recovered after, etc, only tampered with things they could easily fix, etc, the only advantage went to Chardon, who then went last.

[kwmred]

[QUOTE=SimpsoMatt;5148940]
I think the title should just be “Shame on somebody.” It’s certainly reasonable to be outraged that somebody was malicious enough to do this, and I can understand why War Admiral felt compelled to express that outrage. But at this point, I don’t think the outrage can be directed at any specific individual or organization. We don’t know whether WEG Security screwed up and let an unauthorized evil-doer slip into the stables, or whether it was done by someone with credentials for stable access.

One positive note was the reaction of the other competitors, who voted to allow him to delay his start to repair the carriage after FEI originally said No. Some even offered to lent him a carriage. That’s true sportsmanship, wanting to make sure your competitor has a fair chance to compete.[/QUOTE]

That’s true! We don’t have all the facts, so don’t really know who should be held responsible.

So great to see good sportsmanship at play at the WEG.

[Equibrit]

@War Admiral;5147824

I’m so embarrassed for my country I could just plain puke.

Dont waste the puke. It could have been done by a person from any other country attending the games.

[MHM]

@2ndyrgal;5149347

It was an ENORMOUS advantage to go last. And with the availability of other marathon carts at hand, unless a crazy did it, which would be highly unlikely, since no one else had any damage, cart recovered after, etc, only tampered with things they could easily fix, etc, the only advantage went to Chardon, who then went last.

What are you trying to say, exactly?

[farmgirl88]

if you have ever been to the horse park or shown there; it is nearly impossible for security to cover the entire park all of the time. if the carriages were supposed to be kept in a certain area all together and supervised 24/7 then i could see an issue there. Look… $%^& happens…sometimes you just have to take it with a grain of salt and move on. the less classy of folk will always exist in the horse show world

[SmplySweet1021]

[QUOTE=2ndyrgal;5149347]

It was an ENORMOUS advantage to go last. And with the availability of other marathon carts at hand, unless a crazy did it, which would be highly unlikely, since no one else had any damage, cart recovered after, etc, only tampered with things they could easily fix, etc, the only advantage went to Chardon, who then went last.[/QUOTE]

As someone that saw him and his family when they came up to the 10 min box, going last and having this drama happen to them was in no way an ADVANTAGE.

His wife/navigator was in tears, Ijsbrand was silent & he is normally talkative. You could see the stress in their faces about what had happened. The stress of not knowing if the brake lines are going to break during the marathon…yeah that is an “advantage” Addition I just re-watched a video on www.paardensport.tv a Dutch site where Ijsbrand states that other competitors were watching him and saw that the brakes weren’t working as they normally were in the first part of the marathon. Other competitors were offering their carriages but the reason he kept using his carriage was of familiarity. He said that it takes about a 1 1/2 years to get adjusted to a carriage and for that reason he kept using his carriage.

They cannot easily fix tampered brake lines, there was no carriage builder on the grounds. They kept testing the brakes to ensure they were working.

Honestly how dare you assume that this was an advantage to him. I was his translator on Saturday and this was in NO WAY an advantage to him or his team. His whole team was in panic that their horses were possibly drugged, their carriage was cut up and their brake lines tampered with at an INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION. Ijsbrand used his own carriage only after the first marathon section where he could properly test his brakes. He and his wife both said the brakes weren’t 100% right and they had slight issues on the course.

Were you at WEG at the start/finish line? By your posts I don’t think so, I was and I saw the family/team in person. There was No advantage to them.

[Touchstone_Farm]

[QUOTE=SmplySweet1021;5149700]
As someone that saw him and his family when they came up to the 10 min box, going last and having this drama happen to them was in no way an ADVANTAGE.

His wife/navigator was in tears, Ijsbrand was silent & he is normally talkative. You could see the stress in their faces about what had happened. The stress of not knowing if the brake lines are going to break during the marathon…yeah that is an “advantage” Addition I just re-watched a video on www.paardensport.tv a Dutch site where Ijsbrand states that other competitors were watching him and saw that the brakes weren’t working as they normally were in the first part of the marathon. Other competitors were offering their carriages but the reason he kept using his carriage was of familiarity. He said that it takes about a 1 1/2 years to get adjusted to a carriage and for that reason he kept using his carriage.

They cannot easily fix tampered brake lines, there was no carriage builder on the grounds. They kept testing the brakes to ensure they were working.

Honestly how dare you assume that this was an advantage to him. I was his translator on Saturday and this was in NO WAY an advantage to him or his team. His whole team was in panic that their horses were possibly drugged, their carriage was cut up and their brake lines tampered with at an INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION. Ijsbrand used his own carriage only after the first marathon section where he could properly test his brakes. He and his wife both said the brakes weren’t 100% right and they had slight issues on the course.

Were you at WEG at the start/finish line? By your posts I don’t think so, I was and I saw the family/team in person. There was No advantage to them.[/QUOTE]

What you said. How anyone could think this was an advantage…let alone POST such an absurdity…has no idea the pressure on these competitors. And in this case, the stress of wondering if the taped-up brakes will hold? Gee, think there is any stress with that on your mind AND negotiating those obstacles?!

[Beverley]

@hitchinmygetalong;5148005

War Admiral, I think it would be nice if you could change the title of this thread and point the finger at WEG, not Lexington.

This is not a Lexington screw up, it is not a United States screw up, it is a WEG screw up. Period.

As a proud resident of Lexington, I ask you to please rethink your title.

Thank you.

Having returned home from WEG today, let me say I agree completely. There is plenty to criticize about these games, and best I can tell it should ALL be directed to the WEG foundation/ organizers, led by Jamie (drawing blank on last name). Quoted in the Lexington as saying ‘hey, not our fault.’ Also quoted earlier in the week as saying, in response to vendor complaints, basically, tough, you paid your bags of money and took your chances.

I have to say I found the citizens of the entire region, Lexington, Richmond (where we stayed) and pretty much everywhere we traveled when not attending the games themselves, to be very friendly and welcoming and folks I want to go hang out with again some time! I was somewhat mortified for them as well, I heard plenty of tales from locals (hotels, business owners) about how they were promised a golden goose by the WEG poobahs that Just Did Not Pan Out because of the way they planned these games (hotel and ticketing stupidities would be my summary).

[2ndyrgal]

simplysweet

I was at the finish. Not at the finish line, at the finish.I won’t say more, because I won’t break any confidences, and what I posted was only what I observed, first hand, and heard with my own ears. And when you’re quiet and invisible, you hear plenty. There was elation, probably 15 people screaming like banshee’ at the finish line, and rightly so, it was, without question, a brilliant drive.

When I say it was an advantage to go last, I didn’t mean that if your rig had been seriously damaged to where competing would be dangerous, type of advantage, last, I meant, that based on the scores from dressage, if you gave anyone in the medal hunt a choice of what position to leave the start box in,
they’d chose to be last. And while I’ll give that a marathon carriage might be enough different to be noticible, with someone at that level of experience, I would have thought it preferable to driving with brakes that I had any doubt about at all, but I don’t drive at that level, I know that there are probably as many individual adjustments as there are in a race car, so yes, it would make a difference, but the “motor” and “driver” would still be the same, as would the “racetrack” only the body of the car and the seat would be different.

I’m going to say again that it was very unfortunate that anyone would damage a carriage at any event, that I was there for more than a week and all but tripped over security, my husband was pulling a rig in with a marathon cart for one of the drivers and they searched it with drug/bomb dogs. There was security. Lots of it. You can’t (and shouldn’t have to) put cameras everywhere. If you are at an international event, and you are in the least competitive, you should be watching all your stuff and all your horses all the time. I’ve been all over the country in far far seedier, more criminal places than Lexington, with horses worth millions of dollars, racing for millions.
We did not, ever depend on racetrack security. Ever.

[Glimmerglass]

I’m sure it was a heat of the moment posting of the thread although I find it hard to blame an entire city on a single act of competitive jealousy. Obviously this was an inside job and not a couple of drunk frat boys staggering through the Park after too many at the Rupp Arena. [Geographically impossible anyhow …]

If you polled Lexington residents about the games I doubt you’d break the 70% in hindsight saying the games were good for the city So nailing them all to the cross for this is just a double whammy.

Herald-Leader Oct 11, 2010 “No progess in vandalism investigation”

and an earlier bit of coverage:

Herald-Leader Oct 10, 2010 “Investigation puts focus on security breach”

Police were still investigating whether any of the 100 security cameras around the park had picked anything up during the night, but Dutch officials said the carriages were placed in between two trucks and unseen by any cameras.

No fingerprints had been found on the carriage or at the scene, Jude said.

[MunchingonHay]

2ndyrgal there is no advantage as to going last on marathon. Any driver can watch the marathon being driven before he/she has to go. Actually, I dont like going at the end. Its hotter, the course is torn up. Chardon did not have anything “handed” to him. He is one of the greatest drivers in the world. Count ALL of his gold metals. And believe me, he would have gone that fast if he did go at this regularly scheduled time. Chardon ROCKS !

[2ndyrgal]

I stand humbly corrected,

but my mistaken ideas/opinions came directly from drivers and officials used to and who had competed at that level. I’ll just defer the bb for any useful information from now on…