European Championships 2009, Assisi
The European Championships held at Assisi in September were memorable for many different reasons!
The venue, with the city of Assisi overlooking it, was stunning, especially at night when the Basilica of St. Francis was floodlit.
The large marquee, which dominated the venue, hosted concerts every night.
The trade stands included expensive kitchen displays, furniture and local pottery.
There were various attractions going on at the venue in the days before and during the endurance event, including a firework display on the Sunday evening after the ride.
 photo by Sue Broughton |
 photo by Sue Broughton |
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Then there was the European Championships -
For the British team, it was a particularly challenging event.
A phone call from Chris Yeoman about two hours before I was leaving home on the Thursday, dropped the bombshell that she had just been informed by the BEF that she was suspended from competing, due to a positive drug test on her horse at Euston Park in August, and wouldn’t be able to ride in the championships.
Her two horses, Midday and reserve Taquillero, were already on their way to Assisi with the rest of the team.
Rachael Atkinson was then contacted to ask her to join the team. Together with husband Andrew and daughter Kate, she left Dover with Vanash on the Saturday to travel to Assisi.
That was a huge undertaking, but the journey was anything but straightforward, as they were stopped at the Mont Blanc tunnel due to the lorry being more than ten years old.
They had to do the scenic route round by Marseille and Nice, involving over 200 tunnels, and corralling Vanash overnight at a campsite in France, before finally arriving at the stables on the Tuesday afternoon.
In the meantime, the other horses had arrived at the stables on the previous Friday, which were about 20mins drive from the venue, on Philip Hirst’s lorry and with Georgina Hirst travelling with them as assistant vet.
They all looked very well, and the stables were excellent, with indoor and outdoor schools, turnout paddocks and access straight onto good tracks for exercise.
After seeing the conditions at the venue on the Saturday, where two lorries were already stuck in the mud by the stables, we decided to stay at the outside stables as long as possible! A lot of work was done at the venue in the following days, putting down gravel etc. and the venue vetgate, start and finish materialised by Tuesday.
On the Sunday, we had a bad storm with lightning striking the hotel building where we were Beccy Broughton got a severe electrical shock as she was touching a drainpipe as the storm hit. It could have been much worse.
The following day, Fiona Hamilton was nearly hit by a local person shooting birds, luckily it was the numnah that got hit, not Fiona or Sharifah.
Enough dramas, it was time to be very positive!
The crew started recceing the course on Tuesday, finding that many crew points had limited space for parking, so that would be challenging on ride day, As the main vetgate was outside the venue, each rider had two crews, one to crew on route and one to crew in the vetgates.
The outside vetgate was not fully set up until the day before the ride, so most countries had set out their crewing areas beforehand, with Great Britain having a prime spot and room for a gazebo and small corral.
At the only chef d’equipes meeting, which was on the afternoon before ride day, the draw for positions in the vetgate was done. You had to feel sorry for the poor steward who then had to go to the vetgate and try to get countries to move all their equipment to different places. It just didn’t happen, we all stayed where we were!
The opening ceremony, with live TV coverage, took place on the Thursday evening in the middle of Assisi. It had a medieval theme, with various displays in one of the main squares, followed by a medieval banquet and firework display.
It was unanimously decided that Rachael would carry the Union Flag in the parade.
The pre-ride vetting took place on the Friday morning, with all our horses passing without a problem. The very difficult decision then had to be made as to who should be on the team of four and who should ride an individuals. We declared the team of Fiona Hamilton, Ros Jackson, Beccy Broughton and Catriona Moon, with Annie Joppe and Rachal Atkinson as individuals.
Championship ride day started with the horses being fed at 2.30am then saddled up by 4.30am for the 5.00am start. The first loop was ridden in the dark, with no lighting on course, but plenty of hazards. Four of the British riders started together in a great position just behind the leading riders, with Fiona and Ros slightly ahead.
Horses had transponders on their bridles so they would be automatically timed over the line into the vetgates and out again. Riders also had GPS systems so their progress could be tracked throughout the ride. Unfortunately, the system crashed at the first vetgate, so it was pen and paper to the fore again! The leading riders about to go out onto the second loop were asked to “come back in 10mins”. However, the system did get started again, so we were able to have on-going information about the team and individual standings, with Stevie Martin, who is fluent in Italian, responsible for that aspect.
The horses all passed through the first vetgate and went on to the second loop with the steepest part of the course ahead. They came into vetgate 2 in quick succession, with Ros and Fiona riding together.
The vetgate, which was too small an area for so many horses, had soon become a slippy sea of mud, after all the water used in crewing. Luckily, the weather was hot and dry all week, or it would have been a real nightmare. One horse and at least one chef fell on the treacherous surface.
The water bowser was constantly driving in to re-fill the water butts whilst horses were being crewed around it.
The third loop included a river crossing followed by a wide water-filled ditch with steep, slippy clay sides. A security police quad bike, which got stuck in crossing, dug up the bed of the ditch so that the following horses struggled to get across. Ros and Nazeeka got through, but Fiona’s Sharifah had another horse fall under her and in consequence, by the time she represented in vetgate 3, Sharifah was eliminated as slightly lame.
Later horses were diverted along the road to avoid the ditch.
Over 50% of competitors had been eliminated after the third vetgate, but we still had five horses going strongly and were in 4th position. At vetgate 4, with only three countries, including ourselves, still with a team, it all went wrong. Annie and Rachael were eliminated with slight lamenesses, then Catriona’s Leila was eliminated on metabolics. Her parameters were no worse than the previous vetgate and she was not required to go for treatment. It late transpired, after arriving home, that Leila had developed a respiratory infection though there was no indication prior to the ride.
Meanwhile, Ros and Nazeeka were going from strength to strength, finishing in 11th place, only one minute behind two Portuguese riders and with a final loop speed of nearly 19km/hr and an average speed of 17.3km/hr, 64mins behind the winning horse.
Beccy and Java were leaving on their last loop as Ros finished, but had the devastating result of failing at the final vetting when Java trotted up lame.
We took a strong team of riders, horses and crews to the Championships, who all worked very hard and efficiently together. We were so close to a medal, but ended with only one horse completing the event, but that horse finished in style.
Of the European countries, 23 horses finished, and only 31 in total from 107 entries and 101 starters. Spain won the team gold medal, with Portugal taking the silver medal. The bronze medal was not awarded. In the open competition, Bahrain won the silver and Portugal the bronze medals.
The individual gold medal winner was Spain’s Maria Alvarez Ponton with Nobby, who is the current world champion
The British team impressed many people with their turnout, performance and attitude. We should have been able to bring back medals, we had the horses and the riders fit enough to succeed. They had all worked so hard towards that goal. Such is endurance riding!
We now move on to preparing for the World Equestrian Games in Kentucky next year, with a team squad of nearly 30 horses, including some very experienced international competitors.
The cost of taking a team to WEG will be very high, but we believe we have the quality of horses and riders to be very competitive there.
I would ask all the EGB members to back the British team squad to raise money for our best horses and riders to be able to compete in Kentucky at the 2010 World Equestrian Games.
The pre-ride event takes place on October 14th and the event next year promises to be something really special. Please support your international riders, who put so much time and effort, at great personal expense, into producing their horses to the level required to be real prospects on the world international scene.
Liz Finney
Chef d’equipe
British Endurance Riding Team
Sponsors news:
Caldene sent some lovely white breeches, Baileys sponsored the feed for Leila and Java, and NAF sent lots of goodies. David Marlin sent some Science Supplements Electrolytes.
