Or is it? It depends on whether you are a dressage rider from Mexico. Or an eventer from Canada. The FEI Sports Forum was the talk of Lausanne these past few days. And it was the filler of my inbox. Holy sheesh that was more press releases per diem than they have during the Olympics.
Have you been following this Swiss shindig? Feeling up for a little pop quiz? I’ll make it easy – multiple guess.
Which of these didn’t actually happen at the FEI Sports Forum this week:
1. Participants debated about whether or not the FEI should royally screw the Americas (except host nation Brazil which gets a team berth regardless) for qualifying Eventing and Dressage teams for Rio 2016 – aka the next Olympics.
2.The FEI unveiled with great fanfare the ‘fabulous’ (FEI’s description) morbidly decomposing (my description) Fursiyya Nations Cup trophy.
3. Delegates were regaled with a presentation on how to make ‘frequent flying’ horses have a more comfortable lifestyle as they jet from show to show around the globe (and increasingly to the Middle East).
4. the FEI announced it will now officially recognize gay horses.
To find out which is the correct answer, click here.
I’ve had a couple of moles at the Sports Forum, but with the time difference and all I haven’t yet had a chance to pick their overstimulated brains. One attendee did use the words ‘lip service to democracy’ and ‘not to be trusted but they say it with a smile’. I would have killed a pigeon to be there. Maybe two pigeons.
In other news, I did promise a certain devoted reader and influential person (especially when it comes to the continued existence of this blog) that I would write not another word about WEF. So technically I’m not writing any words – just giving you some links. Here is a link to the best article EVER written about the Welly Wars – by a Florida country mile. If you aren’t completely sick of the saga or if you are sick of it but still don’t know WTF it’s all about, it’s worth the slog through 7k words. Not only is the journalist someone whose first book I’m already lining up to buy (because his writing is that good), he managed to get just about everyone into compromising positions with their quotes.
And after you have survived that five page tour de force, you can treat yourself to these two blogs, the first of which comes from horsey land, and the second of which proves that if you want equestrian sport to hit the mainstream sports media, you need to have perfectly ‘awful’ characters involved whom everyone loves to hate.
