I don’t think the customers that were engaged in this deal have to worry about those expenses. The costs were negligible compared to what they pay in showing fees each year.
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I was referring to your question about why Tori was not there. I don’t believe she has a client of that means. Nick was competing in the WCHR Hunter Spectacular which he won for the 2nd year in a row.
Especially because the top two teams each had the same owner for all three horses.
I thought some aspects of the premise were intriguing but it just felt so … inefficient … to take American horses, American riders, and American judges alllll the way to Europe to compete in an American sport. And as a spectator it would have been more fun for the horses to be either all hunters or all jumpers so they could all have some reasonable fighting chance.
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This just reminded me of the NFL taking American football over to London to try to get it more of a world wide following. Same thing with needing to bring all the officials, teams, players, and staff over. They have since expanded to Dublin, Berlin, Madrid, and Sao Paolo, so it’s working.
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After reading some of the comments on Facebook posts promoting this event, made by presumably UK and European folks, well, now I’m getting defensive.
I say next time, spend the money to bring Facebook critics over here, and drop them off at a rated in-gate with the challenge of producing 8 good fences, maybe even with their own horse (shoutout to the possibly Czech but definitely offended lady who may’ve thought another commenter was proposing selling her horse into American hunter slavery … 
in a standing martingale no doubt ).
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That facebook thread was very entertaining. I learned that at this level a gallop is really just a canter where you stand up. Some blonde american told a bunch of people that they don’t have the finances to ever get close to this level of competition. Harrie Smolders got slated for his apparently terrible equitation. Chad Keenum weighed in. People have got the impression that the class is called the hunterjump. Amazing.
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Does anyone know what the entry fee was?
Where was that on Facebook?
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It was a CMH post with video of Juan Carlos in the Classic round …
nevermind … I can’t seem to paste the link for some reason. But the date on it is July 13.
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Thanks!!
Has anyone found Lillie‘s round from Saturday online somewhere?
Edited to add: Wow, those people on Facebook did not hold back their thoughts.
It was sort of funny and also representative of the whole Facebook experience to see the words fantastic and abomination used to describe the same video. Lol.
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300k per team, but that includes everything- all horse and human flights & paperwork, team hotels, groom hotels, VIP table, etc
Well, as a result of this particular competition I have done an Internet dive into trying to understand how hunters are judged. I can’t say I’m any more informed. Experts consistently contradict each other. “Pace” and “expression” and “pointing toes”… Beautiful horses, beautiful uniforms, beautifully dressed fences but I will just leave now, shaking my head and muttering “it’s an American thing”.
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300K (euro, so 350k USD) was the prize money. The prize list doesn’t give an actual number, just what it is valued at:
“This package is valued at over €100,000 and will be offered at a special rate for
this inaugural event. We are proud to offer €300,000 in prize money over the
three-day competition.”
Honestly, for what it costs to enter and travel, not sure $300K is enough prize money. Winning team only gets 91K euro and, according to their own prize list, it costs more than that to enter and get there if they remove the “inaugural discount”.
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I’m watching this comment to see if video turns up because, if there was one thing I wanted to see aside from John French, it was her 
Surely someone with an iPhone caught something … Likewise, if I’ve missed any articles or posts where the European riders talk about their experience – those are the opinions I’m most interested in.
I think maybe it’s one thing to consider the viewpoint of the simply uninitiated where hunters are concerned, and it’s another to consider the altogether foreign viewpoint. Granted, my only experience is reading the Horse and Hound Forum, but (for example) it seems like they’ve got even stronger feelings on the standing martingale than we do. If I ran this particular zoo, considering hunters from uncomfortably outside our American shoes, would be a long part of the pre-pro meeting. Especially with the commentators.
I tuned in late to the Classic round so backed it way up to see the horses that I missed. Honest to god. The amount of time those two spent fixing feathers and mics, etc, before the broadcast started, looked like a lot of wasted, additional opportunity to me (for planning).
Honestly, it’s not like we ourselves don’t discuss fake tails (even my non-horsey stepmother noticed those when I had the Classic round on), pace, and rider form over fences. These things become bigger elephants in the room with a new audience. I wonder how it would’ve gone if they had taken questions the way the commentator teams do sometimes here via Instagram.
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istg if I hear “pointing toes” ONE MORE TIME 
I’m generally not one to call out commentators, I think that’s 100% a damned if you do/damned if you don’t job, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why Dani??? Like, when was the last time she laid down a hunter trip … the juniors? Just a missed opportunity there. Honestly would have loved to have Hope commentate and find a different judge.
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You forgot the “beautifully combed tails.”
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@HipNo34 Well, given the current COTH discussion about to braid or not to braid for shows I found it interesting that in my research into how to judge hunters some experts/trainers/judges said “compulsory” but others said “not compulsory”. Seems like a rather basic thing to be agreed upon.
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I look at braiding as more like having to figure out when and how much to dress up 
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They will need quite a few letters as it is no secret.
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