Back in April first ever title sponsor Alltech and official UK feed partner Baileys, teamed up to offer one Horse and Hound reader a once in a life time trip to the World Equestrian Games! We asked the winner to keep a diary to give us a 'behind the scenes view' of WEG and keep us up to date with all of the action!
 

Behind the scenes at WEG!

 
When we first received the email from Jadine at Alltech telling us we’d won a trip to WEG, we thought it had to be a hoax! We read and re-read the email but it didn’t really sink in until I spoke to Jadine on the phone. She confirmed it - we were off to Kentucky! We couldn’t believe our luck!
 

Wednesday

It was a VERY early start on the Wednesday morning when Dave picked Simon and me up at 4.30 to head to Gatwick airport. Our excitement and Dave’s friendly enthusiasm helped fight the fatigue we were feeling from our lack of sleep. That was until events took a turn for the worse once we reached the airport. Our flight was delayed, and then eventually cancelled! The earliest they could get us to Lexington would cause us to miss our brewery tour and first afternoon at WEG.
 
We reached for the phone and made a desperate plea to Kerry to see if any other flights were available. Luckily for us Kerry did an awesome job (thank you Kerry) and got us on the next flight out of Heathrow! Cue mad dash via scary taxi ride to Heathrow before we were finally on our way to Kentucky! 15 hours later (and 25 since we woke) we arrived at Lexington airport. Tired, but very excited!
 

Thursday

Thursday and our first day in Lexington! A fabulous breakfast at the hotel woke us from our slumber, and feeling surprisingly refreshed, we headed off to find the Alltech brewery. It was fascinating to hear about Dr Pearse Lyons, how he started Alltech, and particularly how much it meant to him to host WEG at Lexington. The brewery’s brand new visitor centre was brilliant – designed to look like an old Irish street complete with various watering holes and old fashioned gas street lamps. An interesting and intimate tour of the brewery followed, whereby we learned (and saw up close) how Alltech’s three fabulous beers and their bourbon and malt whiskies are made.  Naturally we headed back to the bar afterwards to sample the fruits of all their extensive labour! In addition to the beers and malt, we were also treated to the fantastic Bluegrass Sundown, a Kentucky take on the Irish coffee. Obviously we don’t usually make a habit of drinking beer, whisky and liqueurs at 10:00am, but after all we were on holiday! Thanks to the girls (and Robin) at the brewery for making it a very memorable experience. Not only did we leave a little light headed, but with some great tips for places to go, restaurants and bars to try and a real good introduction to Kentucky hospitality! We headed back to downtown Lexington to try the first of our recommendations for lunch (and walk off some of the booze) before going on to the Kentucky Horse Park for our first experience of WEG!
 
Alltech provided a brilliant shuttle bus service from the Hilton to the horse park, which proved to be worth its weight in gold (especially when 25,000 people all want to go home at once). We hopped onboard to be warmly greeted by Bob, whose impromptu commentary entertained us all the way to the park. The Bluegrass countryside, just minutes from leaving downtown Lexington, was simply breathtaking. There were literally hundreds of horse studs with vast paddocks stretching as far as the eye can see; each separated by miles of immaculately painted wooden fence (thanks to Bob for pointing out the poor soul who has to paint them). The open space was simply incredible.
 
So finally we arrived at the horse park… Wow! The first impressions blew away any preconceived ideas we had. The park is huge, and very beautiful. The welcome we received was warm and genuine. The park was clearly designed purely with horses solely in mind and was therefore the perfect venue for WEG! Sadly Simon wasn’t allowed to take a telephoto lens into the park (WEG rules), so we had a minor delay at the gates, but once inside we could really appreciate the spectacle that Alltech had put on. Despite the numbers of people, nowhere felt cramped or overcrowded (apparently the park is 1200 acres, 3 times the size of the previous WEG venue)! There were sideshows, demonstrations, food and drink (more of Alltech’s Kentucky Ale of course), a huge trade fair and the brilliant ‘Alltech Experience’ tent. However, with no time for that just yet, we headed straight to the main arena for the dressage phase of the eventing competition.
 
Our seats were near the front, giving us a great view of the main arena. We were right in front of the scoreboard which showed real-time marks for each movement, the running total score and current leaders score. It really enhanced the spectator experience as sometimes the last movement was all that separated 1st and 2nd place! The standard was incredible, bearing in mind the horses would be galloping around a 6.5 km cross country course in 2 days time! We watched the last horse finished before seeking refuge from the weather (yep, the sun was so hot we had to go inside and get some cooling refreshment). This is when we were introduced to the curious invention that is Dippin’ Dots - tiny balls of ice cream cryogenically frozen in liquid nitrogen!  Well it was definitely different…
 
We spent the rest of our first day soaking up the atmosphere in the park. We saw demos of stunt riding and natural horsemanship at the Equine Village and then we dragged ourselves away to have Kentucky ale or two and some dinner in Lexington. All in all the first day was superb.
 
 

Friday

Friday morning and another monumental hotel breakfast later (did I mention the breakfasts were good), and we were heading back put to the horse park to catch the rest of the GB riders’ eventing dressage. The weather was perfect again - sun and not a cloud in the sky - as we watched team GB perform brilliantly. Other stand out performances included the Italian Apollo van de Wendi Kurt Hoeve (also winner of the longest name) and the amazing La Biosthetique-Sam. The Swedish horse Mister Pooh also entertained the crowds, getting a childish giggle from the audience every time his name was read out!
 
After the dressage was complete, team GB were lying in 2nd place! A brilliant performance only topped by the Germans. We now had a little time to explore the park before the evening’s entertainment, whereby we found some of the show jumpers exercising their horses - a fascinating view of the competition that you don’t see on TV. We also visited the Kentucky Experience to learn all about horse racing, bourbon and of course that secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices that Kentucky is so famous for! We even got to meet Colonel Sanders (well a life size plastic dummy) for a photo.
 
There was time for a quick dinner of… yes, fried chicken before the main event of the evening – the freestyle dressage to music. We already suspected that this was going to be a sell-out show. There was a buzz of excitement in the air and the arena quickly filled with thousands upon thousands of people. Enticing smells of pulled pork BBQ filled ours noses as we took our seats with 25,000 others in the stadium. The sun went down, the floodlights came up and the most amazing spectacle unfolded before us!
 
Now the standard of the eventing dressage was good. Excellent in fact, but nothing really prepared us for what followed. One by one the most formidable looking horses we’d ever seen performed beautifully choreographed tests to music, showcasing all of the most advanced and difficult movements as if they were easy! We were lucky to have two GB riders to cheer on, and both of them rode brilliant tests with Laura Bechtolsheimer jumping into the lead with a score over 85! The next highlight was extrovert Spanish rider, Juan Munoz Diaz, with the PRE stallion Fuego XII. They really looked to be enjoying themselves as the crowd got behind them, the upbeat music perfectly timed with the horses’ movements. As Juan rode down the centre line performing one-time tempi changes, he took his right hand from the reins and saluted, continuing to perform the movement! Dressage probably isn’t renowned for standing ovations, but this test certainly got one! Sadly for Juan, it wasn’t good enough for 1st place, dropping him just behind Laura. However, there was a rather special horse still to come – Moorlands Totilas ridden by Edward Gal. Wow! Totilas went on to score an incredible 91.80 to take the gold medal, leaving GB’s Laura with silver, and the USA slot home in bronze position. It was all simply amazing to watch.
 
We followed the snake of people as 25,000 simultaneously left the arena and tried to get back to Lexington! It seemed an impossible task - every bus had queues of hundreds trying to squeeze on. Then in the gap we saw Bob’s bus waiting for us, no queue, plenty of seats AND heating! Thank you thank you thank you! Simon is now a dressage convert but he’s started asking how quickly I can teach my horse piaffe! Hmm…
 

Saturday

Saturday started with a monster sized breakfast at the hotel (this time we discovered the Belgian waffle maker). This was the day we were most looking forward to… cross-country! Added to that, some friends who live in Michigan had driven down to join us for the day. It was the first time either of them had been to a horse show before.
 
Things were going very well for team GB as our first two team horses went clear inside the time, with William Fox-Pitt getting 1st individually. Sadly it wasn’t all plain sailing for all competitors. Poor Simon Deiterman ended up sitting on the last fence, and Patricia Ryan’s horse bolted and had to be stopped by the officials. We missed two simultaneous dunkings in the water (luckily both riders and horses were fine), but there was plenty more excitement to come. Some of the brave but less experienced riders had some close shaves, with the South African rider taking the flag out with his knee and nearly landing underneath the Fallen Duelling Tree. The Brazilian horse also managed to stop on top of the drop at the Red River Gorge despite jumping the rail one stride in front!
 
By the end of the day we had consumed several more Kentucky Ales, and sampled the very delicious pulled pork sandwiches on offer and team GB had advanced to gold medal position prior to the show jumping phase on Sunday! Our friends had enjoyed their first ever cross country competition, and so had we. Next stop was downtown Lexington to see what it had in store for a Saturday night!
 

Sunday

Sunday naturally began with a sumptuous breakfast (we have to get one of those waffle machines). We invited our friends to the hotel to join us, and then said our goodbyes. Luckily for us, we still had tickets for the climactic final session of the eventing competition – the show jumping!
 
The weather had been so perfect up until now, so we weren’t disappointed to see ominous rain clouds ahead. But then we remembered that umbrella’s are not allowed in the horse park! This could have been a problem (we had uncovered seats), but luckily it stayed more or less dry all day. We weren’t quite ready for a 30F drop in temperature though! Clutching hot coffees we took our seats in the arena for what would be the final time.
 
The competition kicked off and we soon forgot about the cold. It was thrilling stuff as the riders went in reverse order. Team GB jumped beautifully with two of our riders clear and Fox-Pitt still to go. As we got to the final 10, the scores were so close that one fence down could drop the rider 6 or 7 places down the leader board!  When it was finally Fox-Pitt’s turn, GB had a buffer of 13 penalties – we could still win with 3 fences down! However, he still had to get round the course so it wasn’t over yet! Naturally, Fox-Pitt put in a superb clear round inside the time to cement team GB’s gold medal, and his own individual silver! What a brilliant performance!
 
The German rider Michael Jung was unstoppable at the top of the table, winning gold on just his dressage score – an impressive 33 penalties - a thoroughly deserved win for him. We really felt for the US team when poor Karen O’Connor had a stop at the gate as that pushed them out of medal position leaving Team NZ to rightfully take bronze and the Canadians silver. The medal ceremony was brilliant as we shouted and cheered the Brit’s victory lap of honour. Then it was time to say goodbye to the arena – we had spent many hours in here in the last few days and it was starting to feel like home.
 
Reluctant to leave the park for the last time, we spent the next few hours exploring things we hadn’t seen yet. We saw some more performances at the Equine Village, and checked out the excellent Alltech Experience. A huge facility showcasing the work of Alltech, with some really interesting exhibits (not to mention the awesome machine that could draw pictures using water drops)! Naturally there was also a bar serving Alltech beers!
 
Eventually we had to call time and head back to the bus for our last journey back to Lexington. The horse park had been the perfect venue for WEG, the people of Kentucky amazingly hospitable, and Alltech had done a simply fantastic job of hosting it. It was an unforgettable experience.
 

Monday

So on Monday we decided to skip the hotel breakfast (yeah right, bring on the waffles and fresh omelettes too!). We were sad to be checking out of the hotel, and with just an hour or so before we needed to leave for the airport, we had one last look around downtown Lexington. Winding forward about 14 hours and we had landed at Gatwick, with Dave waiting patiently to take us home (thank you Dave)!
 
What can we say? It was a brilliant! We saw the best horses in the world compete, team GB get medals in dressage and eventing, and got to experience the truly amazing ‘horse capital of the world’. Thank you so much to Alltech and Baileys Horse Feeds, and to all the individual people who helped and welcomed us, and finally congratulations on staging an awesome WEG!!!
 
Elaine and Simon