The photo is captioned with the phrase ‘Royal approval’. Which Royals would those be? The Queen certainly didn’t break out her string of pearls for the endurance race taking place on her front lawn. In fact, I suspect the Baba Yaga costume was a half-hearted effort at a disguise in the hopes that folks wouldn’t recognize their monarch dressed in such drabbery. Even more successfully incognito though, was Prince Phillip, who was kitted out like a pensioner who had strayed off course on his daily constitutional. No, I think ‘Royal approval’ must refer to the King of Bahrain, who positively glows with contentment standing there beside HM, watching the race that he sponsors.

So what about the central message in this article by Simon Briggs (whose photo on the byline finally solves for me the puzzling question from London last year about who was that Mr. Bean look-a-like hanging around the media centre from time to time)? It turns out the headline was just a hook, and not an accurate representation of the meat of the article, which is simply another bit of exposure about how endurance racing is the FEI’s unclean discipline, particularly in the Middle East.

I expect you may be tiring of this topic, much as you almost certainly experienced fatigue of my many posts about the Welly Wars. So unless something really eye poppingly scandalous takes place, I’ll stop making you endure endurance for a little while.

First of all, I’d like to give my weekly ‘intrepid reporter’ kudos to Pippa Cuckson, who has posted as a guest here before and is a regular contributor to the parent mag of this blog, Horse Sport International. Pippa wrote both of the stories I will refer to here today in my pathetic (and possibly fruitless) effort to make sense of WTF is going on in Sheikh/HRH/FEI land. And ‘intrepid’ is actually insufficient as a term for Pippa’s forthrightness, since it takes more than an ounce of courage to stick one’s neck out in such company.

At the curious hour of one minute before midnight on Tuesday, the Telegraph published an online article written by Pippa with the following headline:  ’Endurance horses trained at Sheikh Mohammed’s Dubai stables involved in doping scandal’. So it wasn’t just that loony Zarooni who was giving out the roids to the ponies. Someone in the Endurance barn was delivering a little juice to the distance runners too.

And here’s where it really goes sideways. If you are up to speed as per my advice above, HRH accepted her husband’s invitation to become Chair of the Dubai Equestrian Club last week. Well, today, the British Endurance community is gobsmacked by the sudden announcement – in a single, sad sentence posted on the Euston Park website – that all four of its FEI sanctioned endurance races for 2013 have been cancelled. Now, just to get an idea of how thickly intertwined the British venue (and by extension, British endurance racing) is with the Ruler of Dubai, the logo features the Union Jack and Dubai’s flag joined together by a rather ugly beige silhouette of an endurance rider and horse.

You don’t have to be the sharpest knife in the drawer to make the very small hop to the conclusion that this sudden cancelling of all the races at Euston Park is connected to the latest public airing of many years of doping busts suffered by the Sheikh’s endurance horses (it would not be an exaggeration to say that the Maktoum steeds have something of a drug habit). Read Pippa’s other, even ballsier, article to understand just how this tale of doping woe has unraveled.  Of course it’s not news at all that the Sheikh’s endurance horses have been caught red-hoofed on a routine basis, nor is this the first time I have scratched my head about the contradictory situation arising from the fact that the ‘clean sport’ FEI Prez is married to probably the single worst offender the FEI has ever had when it comes to doping.  But if HRH had a rat’s chance in hell of helping clean up the mess by taking over the Dubai Equestrian Club last week, that’s up in smoke now. How can any of us think the Sheikh has any interest in changing his spots, given this latest development? It’s equivalent to a law student, upon getting caught cheating on exams, dropping out of law school.  Not really the way to prove your innocence, is it?

I wonder what the chats are like around FEI HQ’s water cooler these days. I imagine there’s quite a bit of whispering. Or the bedtime patter at a certain Royal household…

Racing: the domain of rich people in silly hats

Way back in her first term as FEI Prez, I remember hearing HRH Princess Haya mention that the disciplines of racing and polo were on her radar as potential future FEI family members. Because WEG isn’t big enough already, right? And because equestrian sport isn’t already an exclusive activity reserved for the world’s one percenters. Well, the line between Thoroughbred racing and the FEI just got a little blurrier. Hot on the heels of the scandal of Sheikh Mohammed’s trainer getting caught giving some of the Sheikh’s racehorses a steroid cocktail as a chaser for their oats, comes yesterday’s bombshell that the Sheikh has appointed his wife, aka HRH, to occupy the Chair’s seat at the Dubai Equestrian Club. As the Wall Street Journal report points out, the Dubai Equestrian Club is an FEI discipline kind of affair, not involved with racing at all. Racing is governed by the Emirates Racing Authority – a completely different animal, so to speak.

Still, one can’t deny the interesting timing of such an appointment. HRH has been described as an FEI Prez ‘elected on a clean sport mandate’, and certainly we have seen improved statistics of late in that regard (except for Endurance Racing that is, which curiously enough is the pet discipline of HRH’s horse loving hubby).  London was declared squeaky clean in spite of the laundry list of past offenders who participated and even won medals there. It would seem that even the most persistent horse ‘medicators’ have learned that drug crime doesn’t pay, not on HRH’s watch, anyway. So did the Good Sheikh decide to appoint his anti-doping wife in an effort to prove his allegiance to clean sport too? I would guess the answer to that question is yes.

Endurance remains the FEI’s worst offender when it comes to doping cases, and the UAE is the most frequent transgressor. But Endurance has more shame to its name than mere banned substances. The Swiss, Belgian and French federations have all written to the FEI with strongly worded requests that HQ do some major housecleaning on behalf of horse welfare in Endurance. That their concerns are valid is underlined by the fact that even an Endurance website has published a story about it as well as posted all the letters from the national federations.  If there were no merit to the accusations of cruelty – from catastrophic leg fractures to horses dying of exhaustion in races – surely the industry itself wouldn’t be so quick to air these dirty little secrets?  As for the FEI, it has remained mum on the topic, and as far as I know they have yet to officially respond to the requests.

But back to horse racing. The links between the FEI and that industry are getting too numerous to ignore. Let’s not forget that Longines is a major supporter of horse racing, to name one recent new thread in the web. Here’s what bothers me about the whole picture. Throw enough money at something and get enough people depending on you for their bread and butter, and you become too big to fail. It’s all over the British news this week: there is a real concern that Sheikh Mohammed will pull all or some of his horses out of England, or will just dump racing altogether. And that has people who depend, directly or indirectly, on his massive investments in British racing, full of Kierkegardiaan fear and trembling. So much so that while he owns the yard and horses that have become the Lance Armstrong story of racing, everyone is terrified to say he could be in any way guilty, even by association.

I should think HRH would have an Everest to climb if she were to set herself to bringing racing into the FEI fold, and by extension cleaning it up to the level of the FEI’s WADA-like doping standards.  But stranger things have happened, as they say.

Since I’m talking about racing, I thought I’d share a rather ridiculous video with you. Don’t worry, the horse isn’t hurt, though someone’s ego takes quite a bruising in the mishap.  If you always wondered how many bodyguards the leader of Turkmenistan has, here’s your answer.

You’d think that in the world’s most populous country – one with an ‘authoritarian regime’ no less – they could compell some bums into seats, even if it IS to watch third rate show jumping. You’d also think there would be at least one photographer on hand who understands that nose-first is not the most flattering perspective from which to shoot a subject (I’m talking about the horse!). I can count without using fingers or pencil and paper the number of people in that section of the Bird’s Nest in Peking Beijing. Estimating we are seeing about a fifth of the place and assuming there is a similar ‘crowd’ scattered around the 80,000 seats, that brings the audience for the Longines Beijing Masters to a whopping 60 people, or about 0.075% of capacity. Oh, sure the press release said 10,000 were in attendance, and the absence of fences in the ring would suggest an after-thought kind of photo shoot of Laura and her homely mount, but I’ve WRITTEN press releases and I know the numbers are always exaggerated by more than a smidge. Nice looking footing, though.

So show jumping hasn’t quite caught on in China. I’m just trying to imagine how much money was squandered (no, I do not think that is too strong a word) for this shindig. What kind of rent must they charge at the Bird’s Nest, for instance? And how about all those first class flights for the riders, not to mention the ‘incentives’ they must have received in return for showing up at the (nearly empty) stadium?  And how about the course design fees for Frank Rothenberger? Given the likely caliber of the borrowed horses, having him design the course is a bit like having Mario Batali cook dinner for a toddler.

In more relevant news, we have Rolex AND the World Cup to look forward to this weekend, both of which will be live streamed online.  Notice what I called North America’s only four star three day event? Thank goodness Rolex is more loyal to its relationships than some of its former partners in sport…

One of the bloggers at EventingNation has posted a hilarious set of tips on how to entertain your husband at Rolex. I encourage you to click here and have a good belly laugh at it like I did.

And finally, one more bit of nonrequired reading before I sign off for today. An intrepid colleague in the UK was thoughtful enough to forward me a link to a news story from the BBC this morning regarding what has been called ‘one of the biggest doping scandals in British racing history.’ Involved is an ignoble fellow who goes by the vowel-rich name Mahmood Al Zarooni, and who for the past three years was in the employ of none other than our Good Sheikh Mohammed, aka HRH’s husband.  Turns out Al Zarooni didn’t see any harm in slipping a few anabolic steroids into the bloodstreams of 11 racehorses at Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin Stables.  Al Zarooni of course pleads innocence, arguing that because the horses were not racing at the time, he didn’t know they weren’t allowed those kinds of treats. Sure.

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.

A word of advice for Mr Knippertz: you might want to avoid the slip you made in your press release when you called Beijing by the former name imposed on it from outside, Peking. According to a recent Economist article, you aren’t making any new Chinese friends with that kind of sloppy nomenclature.

But back to the incredibly awesome Longines Beijing Masters itself. I wanted to give you a link to the press release, but the competition’s website appears to have nothing but a front page with some photos on it and text in Chinese.  The reason I wanted you to be able to see it is because there are a couple of interesting omissions. The first is that, in spite of the fact that this event is both an FEI CSI2* and sponsored by the FEI’s brand-spanking-new Top Partner, the FEI is mentioned nowhere at all in the press release. Tsk tsk.

Even more remarkable is the failure of the press release to convey the fact that the Beijing Masters will take place on borrowed horses. The only reason I know about this major detail is because China has quarantine and disease-control issues that render every horse’s visit to mainland China a one-way trip. That’s why the equestrian events were held in Hong Kong at the 2008 Olympics. I emailed Herr Knippertz to ask how the Chinese quarantine issues were being resolved. His reply was accompanied by a silent snort of derision:

“Dear Karen, the answer is simple: The riders will start on „borrowed horses“.” Well, if it’s so simple, why didn’t you say so in your press release? Hm? Could it be that the image of some of the world’s most successful show jumpers attempting to ride off-the-track Thoroughbreds over a course (of what, 1.1 m?) might suggest to the world that this event could be quite a rich visual feast, but for all the wrong reasons? I personally would pay money to see Ludger Beerbaum on a 15.3 hand lunatic that spent five years racing before retiring to  its new (and probably short-term) career as a show jumper.  How much are they paying Nick Skelton to make an appearance in the Bird’s Nest, I wonder? Good thing Longines is along for the ride, because I’m sure Nick doesn’t come cheap.

For those of you who think I’m taking a dump on China for wanting to raise elite equestrian sport in its population’s esteem, I am. I have no time for the delusions of horsey grandeur in a country that permanently reigns at the top of human rights violation lists. Besides, no one but the very, very rich in China would ever dream of owning a horse for a purpose other than putting food on the table, whether that’s pulling a plough or going into a stew. Let’s be honest here. They eat horses in China. And dogs. And birds’ nests.

False advertising, you say? An exaggeration? Not really. I did the arithmetic with my pen – the crossing of fifth lines over little ranks of fours and then counting them all up: five, ten, fifteen twenty… The Global Dressage Festival last weekend offered a total of 111 classes, from Training  Level to Grand Prix. A whopping 50 classes (that’s 45%) had just a single entry. Another 24 had two riders vying for that holy grail of Dressage, the winning score, while just 12 classes had three entries. Only 25 classes (that’s 22.5%) had what I documented as ‘greater than three’. Some of those greater-than classes were actually quite big. The division that is thriving in Welly DQ World is definitely the small tour, especially the PSG. So what gives? I’m sure M&M of ESP would love to know, because the DQs are clearly not following the patterns set by the competitors down the street, where there’s gravy to be had for the organizers in all those dozens of low divisions in the hunters and jumpers. For those whose finer instincts have been honed in the world of the H and the J, Dressage really does seem to be from Mars. Or Venus. Or the moon.

I would hate to be the one to try and solve the problem of diminishing returns in Welly World’s dressage show circuit. It certainly does seem to have reached – perhaps exceeded – the saturation point. One big difference between the DQs and the H/Js is that DQs don’t like to show every week. They kind of like to train sometimes too. Most of the time, in fact. And that can be troublesome if you are a show organizer looking to run a circuit modeled on the other discipline.  No sane person should expect any other sane person to do something as stressful as run horse shows and not at least pay the bills at the end of it. Not more than once, anyway.

You would think I, someone so well versed in all things DQ, would have some advice to offer. But I don’t, other than to DQs looking for some easy wins, as per the opening paragraph of today’s post.

The subject of my Low-Down column in issue two of Horse Sport International will be the mileage rule, and how changes to it could be both good and bad for show organizers in the world of H/J. Why am I focusing only on the mileage rule’s impact on the H/Js? Well because it’s abundantly clear that the mileage rule isn’t even relevant for a discipline like dressage, whose shows can’t get the numbers to sustainable levels – with competing shows not even on the same date, but on the weekends before and after. Nope, dressage will never be a repeating loop of successive weeks of showing, at least not in my lifetime. If I were any one of the dressage show organizers in Welly World I’d be swallowing my pride – and maybe just a bit of bile – and trying to get together with my colleagues/competitors to work out a solution before everyone lose’s his or her shirt and just packs it in.

Without further ado (blather), here it is:

Clearing the Air

An Exclusive Interview with Mark Bellissimo and Michael Stone

The home of the Global Dressage Festival, a facility considered by many to be the finest dressage show venue ever to be built in North America, has been plagued by controversy at every stage of its conception and creation over the past two years. Some residents of Wellington, Florida, particularly the family of billionaire Jeremy Jacobs, have objected to the building of the venue where the Global Dressage Festival now takes place, which is in a protected area called the Wellington Equestrian Preserve. Legal and political wrangling has created an environment of adversity that has become a drain on a community whose economy is largely dependent on the equestrian industry doing business there. With fresh law suits being filed on both sides in the past two months, there is no end in sight.

Equestrian Sport Productions’ CEO Mark Bellissimo and President Michael Stone took time out of their busy schedules running the Winter Equestrian Festival and Global Dressage Festival (WEF and GDF) to sit down for an in-depth interview  and to respond to the questions I believed were relevant to understanding their point of view.

In the press conference held on the first day of the CDI-W at the GDF, you said “politics will come and go and we will not be deterred”. From ESP’s point of view, what do you believe are the driving forces behind the opposition, particularly that of the Jacobs family, to the development of the property where the GDF takes place?

It is very hard to understand the motivation: sometimes you back yourself into a corner and then can’t get out, and maybe they just can’t get out and are opposing for opposing’s sake. We have withdrawn the controversial commercial elements that included the hotel and we believed that this would end the opposition – but sadly that has not been the case.

In that same press conference you made reference to becoming more pro-active in communicating to the community. Could you identify some misconceptions that have either been perpetuated by those opposed to the project or by assumption because ESP did not sufficiently convey its goals and actions to the public?

The most popular misconception is that we have no permits to build and develop the GDF facility. The venue is in the Equestrian Preserve area and barns and arenas both covered and uncovered are permitted, as are horse show facilities. We obtained all the necessary permits, everything is built to code and has passed all the building inspections.

Some people have questioned your motives in building the dressage venue. There was a gap of only a few weeks between ESP’s cancelling of the 2011 World Dressage Masters Palm Beach and the announcement that you were about to invest millions of dollars in building a dressage facility. Can you briefly describe your reasons for this apparent contradiction, as well as your long term commitment to dressage in Wellington, including the proposal you made to Wellington Classic Dressage in regard to a well-funded dressage circuit at existing venues?

We actually cancelled at the end of November 2010 because we had been promised top level riders and horses by the WDM management and they were not able to deliver them.  Several top Dressage riders contacted us and said that they really wanted a top level circuit in Florida and felt it could eventually be similar to the Jumper circuit. Robert Dover and Kim Van Kampen were the main drivers behind this effort.  At first we thought we could construct a circuit with the Jim Brandon center and White Fences with a large money final at PBIEC, but the other management teams were not interested in the strategy.  Having felt the enthusiasm of the Dressage community, we thought that a dressage venue would work and following several community meetings we launched the project in March 2011.   Despite the challenges we are glad we proceeded and we are confident that over time it will be the premiere dressage circuit in the world.

It has been pointed out in media reports that the location and physical appearance of structures on the illustration of the master plan are different to what was built. Could you explain whether or not an illustration on a master plan is in fact a commitment to build that exact structure in that exact place?  The residents of Polo Island have strongly objected to the proximity of the barns to their land. Why were they built in that location and not somewhere farther away from homes?

Firstly the “master plan” is actually a planning term that just indicates roadways and entrances to a piece of property. We illustrated a concept that had a hotel, a commercial retail area, and the equestrian facility. Originally, on a conceptual site plan, we had the covered arena where the barns are and vice versa, but following consultation and recommendation from village staff, who had contact with the homeowners onPoloIsland, we swapped the locations.  A number of residents complained but certainly not the majority; in fact, the President of one of the associations on Polo Island, Bob Bushey, has publicly supported the dressage facility.   Also, in terms of barn locations, the setback for barns against the property line in Wellington’s Equestrian Overlay Zoning District is 100 feet.   In our plan, the fourth barn would be 150 feet from the property line, 50% greater than the standard.   Currently the third tent would be close to 250 feet set back.

Regarding the reported violation of the South Florida Water Management District at the dressage venue: can you comment on the current status of this situation, as well as explain its nature? Michael told me that SFWMD is in fact on ESP’s side in this case. Is that true?

We believe our permit is appropriate and had been approved by SFWMD.   Charles and Kimberly Jacobs challenged the permit and sued both us and SFWMD as co-defendants.   We believe the suit is frivolous, as one of the core allegations is that our design will somehow flood their home on Polo Island.   The Trial was in Early January.   We are confident we will prevail.   We will share with you the results in the next month or so as the case is adjudicated.

The master plan was revoked because ESP failed to conduct platting of the dressage venue by the deadline that was set by Village Council. There is some question about whether the Village’s previous lawyer Jeff Kurtz gave verbal assurance that you would receive the extension necessary to deliver the plat at a later date. Is that accurate?

There is great mythology here.   We first submitted the Plat on Feb 28^th, 2012, a month ahead of the deadline.   Jeff Kurtz had not officially reviewed the Property Owners Association (POA) documents, which were a simple ministerial requirement of the platting process, and there was a basic title issue that needed to get resolved.   The Council, who could have voted on the issue even without these simple omissions, given the political environment, chose to defer the February vote.   We cleaned up the title issues and the final plat documents with final POA docs that were delivered on March 5^th, 2012 (ahead of the deadline).   The next scheduled meeting was on election day (March 13^th), and then the recount debacle essentially made the late March meeting an impossibility for placement on the agenda and the vote.   Kurtz conveyed to our attorneys and our engineer that, given the contentious election and given that the plat was a simple ministerial issue, it would not be a problem.   Kurtz, as an agent to the village, assured our legal counsel that he would confirm the extension.  He did not deliver the confirmation of the extension.  Further, he did not officially “approve” the plat document until late April, a month after the deadline.  We then scheduled the next available meeting, which was in May.   Given that the “offending” commercial elements were removed and the Plat (which is a ministerial approval) was completed and actually in hand at the village meeting on the day the revocation was approved, it is hard to believe that they did not have an agenda to somehow reverse the approvals.   Despite some public posturing, it is clear is that the Jacobs want the equestrian elements torn down and removed.  This council is supportive of the Jacobs. Also, we have filed a complaint with the State and County ethics commissions on some alleged ethical improprieties by certain council members that occurred a day before the first revocation vote.   It is at the very least very disturbing in this day and age.

Please explain your motivation for voluntarily removing the hotel and retail element from your project. Do you foresee pursuing it again in the future, and if so, would it be at the same location?

We understood that with the change in council we had very little chance of being successful; we felt that it was better for the community to take what was a divisive issue off the table.   We currently have no commercial plans on the table and are reviewing our options internally.

Residents on Polo Island have been concerned that if the zoning is changed to allow commercial development at the dressage venue, which is in the Wellington Equestrian Preserve, it opens the door to commercial development on other undeveloped property in the Preserve, such as the polo fields on the east side of Polo Island. What would be your response to such concerns?

The property is already zoned Commercial Recreation and has existing entitlements.  Those entitlements do not include a hotel, but include many other commercial elements that we will provide to you.  We have no interest in the other polo fields and that owner is free to do what he wants within the existing entitlements.

I understand that part of the master plan was to relocate the entrance off Pierson Road to a spot some distance further east, the purpose being to make it possible to add a right turn lane to the intersection of Pierson and South Shore. I’ve also been told that this road modification would have been made at ESP’s expense. Have I understood correctly?

You are 100% correct.  We would have had to improve the junction at our expense and we were happy to do it.  Having the entrance on Pierson is better for traffic and a safer route for horse access and transportation.

Was it the revocation of the Master Plan by the current village council that has resulted in the closure of that entrance  on Pierson Road and the halting of any plans to move it and improve the safety of the intersection at Pierson and South Shore?

This is also correct and it is worth noting that the Master plan confers no rights to build anything, it just confirms the actual location of entrances, and it also changes the designation from Polo and Tennis to Equestrian and Dressage.  This entrance has been in use for  more than 30 years.

Please explain your plans to relocate the main WEF entrance to Lake Worth Road. Would ESP bear the cost of the road improvements or would that be the responsibility of the Village? What barriers are there to making this change, which would dramatically reduce traffic at Pierson and South Shore, an intersection widely agreed to be a dangerous one?

We own the land from the Junction of South Shore Blvd and Lake Worth Rd. all the way to the show grounds.   It makes an obvious entrance, which would significantly reduce traffic on Pierson and give a much needed second entrance to the show grounds.   Unfortunately, it has been opposed by Victoria McCullough (an influential supporter of the Margolis, Greene, and Willhite slate) as the road would pass by her estate (the road would be about 300 feet from her home and would not be visible).  She appealed our approval by suing the Village’s Decision on the Master Plan and the courts quickly rejected her appeal, supporting our approval.   The new access would be of great benefit to the facility, the industry, and for both equestrian and non equestrian members of the community that use both of these roads (it would also take traffic off of South Shore). Unfortunately, certain members of this council are more interested in protecting friends and political allies than in doing what’s in the best interests of the community at large.

Recently, red stickers went up on structures at both show venues, presumably because of incomplete permitting processes or incomplete approval of the construction. In the media, Mark, you have been accused of hundreds of permit violations over the years.  Can you explain the reality of the situation, particularly in regard to the failure of the Village to provide you with an up-to-date code, for which you filed a law suit in late 2012?

This is a complicated issue.  We do not pull permits, our contractors do.   It is their responsibility working in concert with the designed plans.  I believe over a thousand permits are pulled every year through a large number of different contractors.   When they get inspections, if there is something that needs to be corrected, which happens all the time, it is written up and then corrected by the contractor. These “write ups” or corrections have been portrayed as violations by certain people with a political agenda.  If you ask any contractors in the country they will tell you that this is common practice.   As we have studied this issue, I believe there have been a very small number of permit issues where the contractor applied for a permit but it was incomplete, and then started the work while they were completing some of the requirements that get them the “official” permit (i.e. it is a two-step process).  We have told our contractors that this is unacceptable and not to proceed with the work without permitting. The Village now allows us to go online to check the status in real time so we can monitor our contractors.   Now that we can check online, we have made it clear to all of our contractors that we are confirming all permits and that no work should be done before the official permit is granted.  People have assumed that the abundance of “violations” this year is related to a new more “stringent” council and staff.  First of all, the Village staff are very competent and are caught in a political situation.  What many people do not realize is that for the first time since we have run the WEF, a practice that I believe was in place when Stadium Jumping ran the property, was discontinued.  It was called the Equestrian Response Team (ERT) meeting.   For years, starting every October, we would take meetings every other Tuesday with all of our contractors, our key management, and all of the major departments in the village (planning, engineering, code compliance, etc).  There were about 25 people in the meeting.  Everyone had the goal of taking a very complex process of setting up the largest equestrian festival in the world, which required thousands of interaction with permits, inspections, plan reviews, and site reviews. We coordinated all the activities in the spirit of cooperation and in the best interests of the equestrian industry, which generates over $100 million dollars of annual economic impact to the community.   This year, without explanation, we were told that they had discontinued the ERT meetings.   Eliminating the meetings created a massive coordination problem.   No one was prepared for the impact of this decision.   I can only assume it was politically motivated as they knew it would create problems in the setup process. Now that we know this is the agenda, we can plan better for circuit.

In their ‘Top 25 of 2012’ report, NARG has criticized the WEF for having ongoing construction during the circuit. How do you respond to this accusation?

We understand the complaint.   The only construction ongoing this year was the International Club and some limited landscaping that was done off hours at the front entrance.  If the village had not eliminated the ERT meetings I am confident all work would have been completed well ahead of time.   Another complicating factor is that we are now essentially a full time facility with shows each week from early November till the start of circuit in early January.  The shows are growing, which makes it harder to isolate the number of rings and creates a smaller construction “window” (usually Mondays and Tuesdays) prior to circuit.   The good news is that the facility is essentially functionally complete.  We are sensitive to the issue, and it will not happen again.

You withdrew your application to host WEG 2018 immediately before you were to make a presentation to Village Council about it. Why did you so suddenly decide to withdraw your application?

We were asked to go to Lausanne to sign a letter of intent and pay a bidding fee. It was clear that the controversy surrounding the change of government and the inability to get a letter of support from the Village in its most basic form meant that we had no chance of being successful in our bid. So, rather than waste our time and that of the FEI, we withdrew.

Wellington Mayor Bob Margolis has said he believes the solution to this controversy, which has dragged on for nearly two years and been a drain on resources on both sides, is through litigation. Do you agree? I know you can’t specifically comment on ongoing litigation, but what has been your purpose in filing the law suits you have filed?

We repeatedly offered a settlement that basically allowed us to have the dressage facility as it is, and we would defend the Village in any law suits filed by the Jacobs or anyone else in connection to the Dressage facility.   The hotel and commercial elements were off the table completely. Inexplicably, in lieu of eliminating all the lawsuits and the contentiousness within the community, and the potential of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and potentially millions of taxpayer’s dollars defending the lawsuit, Bob Margolis would not even live up to his commitment to take the offer to a shade session for internal review and then a public meeting.   As a leader, even if you were against it, the responsible thing to do would be to provide rationale to reject the offer in a public meeting.   Bob talks a great game about transparency on government. Unfortunately, he does not live up to those words.   Instead of reaching out to me or our attorney, he wrongfully asserts that I had changed the offer three times, which is absolutely not true (they got one written offer worked on by both attorneys), and then he had a new attorney send a message back that they were not interested in a settlement.   We have protected, and will continue to protect, our constitutional rights as property owners.   I believe that history will conclude that this will be one of the biggest wastes of taxpayer money in Wellington History, and it will be Bob Margolis’ legacy as mayor.   Bob had (and has) the opportunity to lead this community out of this mess.   In my opinion, he has chosen to spend taxpayer money to protect the interests of the few over the interests of the many.   At any time, he can direct the village attorney to reach out to our attorney and re-establish the settlement, put it in a public agenda for public review, and even if he does not support it, at least provide the voting public with a rationale for spending their money. That is true leadership and transparency.

There may come a day when this controversy is finally resolved, at least enough to allow the dressage venue to operate on an ongoing basis. If you were to look ahead five years, what would you like to see taking place there and at the WEF?

We would like to extend the circuit for both venues on each shoulder period and then be able to use the Van Kampen Arena for summer events and activities for the community. We really believe that we can create the world’s greatest circuits for Hunters, Jumpers and Dressage and in five years’ time the top riders in each discipline will have their winter base in Wellington.

On March 11, in trademark sugar-coated style, the FEI issued an announcement that HSBC will be ending its sponsorship of FEI Eventing at the end of this year. If you wonder what I mean by sugar-coated, here are a couple of quotes, with my interpretation beneath:

From HSBC Group Head of Sponsorship Giles Morgan: “We have had five wonderful years with the HSBC FEI Classics, and still have another one to go, and the series has proved hugely successful. We would like to think that the series has now come of age and, as a result of its phenomenal success since we came in as title sponsors in 2008, that it will be snapped up by another sponsor keen to get global visibility in the equestrian world.”

I have a confession to make. I didn’t even know what the HSBC Classics series was until two minutes ago. That’s how phenomenally successful it is. You see, between that and the ill-fated World Cup of Eventing that was scrapped at the 2012 FEI GA, I wasn’t clear about anything except that the Eventing World Cup had somehow failed to capture my interest in the same way the World Cup in Jumping and Dressage have. I actually thought HSBC was the sponsor of the Eventing World Cup series. And now that I think about it, why weren’t they? The two series effectively cannibalized one another, and the FEI World Cup didn’t have a sponsor. I suspect it may be because HSBC looked at the numbers and could see that the only things the world watches in eventing are the four stars, which are not part of the WC series.

Here is another quote from Mr. Morgan that identifies one possible reason for HSBC’s exit:

“The decision to end our partnership with the FEI was a very difficult one to make, but the banking sector has gone through some tough times recently and we are refocusing our entire sports sponsorship portfolio and sadly that will not include international Eventing after 2013.”

Tough times, indeed. HSBC has 1.9 billion in fines to pay out for their little money laundering spree which came to an abrupt end in 2012 after they got caught with their compliance-pants down.  But let’s just put this in a bit of perspective, shall we? According to the FEI website, HSBC was contributing $1 million USD over three years. That works out to just over $300k per year, which is pocket change compared to the $11.1 million HSBC’s CEO earned last year. It’s 3%, in fact. The million bucks HSBC contributed to Eventing is 0.05% of the amount of the fine they have to pay back for their misdemeanors. Sadly, the numbers suggest that HSBC’s pull-out has more to do with their conclusion that the series was not worth supporting than with the mad money they owe the regulators.

But the real sucker punch to Eventing has been the reappearance of that perennially lurking evil, the rotational fall. On March 2nd, French rider Bruno Bouvier was killed at a two star event in Portugal. A week later, British/Australian Olympian Lucinda Fredericks broke a handful of ribs (the number varies according to news report) and her collar bone in a rotational fall on cross country in the UK.  It’s interesting to note that in neither fall was the horse injured. Apparently horses are made to flip when they trip, they just aren’t meant to be carrying a fragile load at the time.

These two accidents are coincidental to the HSBC decision, I’m sure. Plenty of sports with risk-of-death continue to reap big sums in corporate sponsorship, including fake sports like car racing. It’s an ill-kept secret that Eventing is the only FEI discipline that has a measurable mortality rate. And while stakeholders continually pour admirable amounts of time, money and effort into reducing the risk of serious accidents, you can’t make everything frangible. A bank is a bank is a bank. Heck, accidents happen BETWEEN fences. A good friend of mine from my brave young eventing days suffered a catastrophic head injury when her horse stepped in a hole galloping between fences.  As they say, it comes with the territory.

If Eventing needs to reassess anything right now, it’s the failure to keep a corporate sponsorship alive. If only Arab horses made good eventers (hold your hate mail Arab owners, I know there are a few notable exceptions).

Tune in tomorrow if you are ready for a good Welly World fix. I’ll be posting the entire interview I conducted with Mark Bellissimo in early February, an abridged version of which appears in the current issue of Horse Sport International.

A number of names were published in the more detailed account of the race on Sheikh Mohammed’s own website, so I decided to do a little cross-referencing with the FEI’s suspended list. Believe me, it’s not easy with all the Ali this, Sheikh that, and eight barrelled names. But I found a match, in the form of HH Sheikh Hazza bin Sultan bin Zayed Al Nahyan.  Turns out the good Sheikh is currently suspended (with no end date), because his horse Glenmorgan tested positive for propoxyphene in February of last year.  As the Deputy Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, his name was deemed worthy of dropping into Sheikh Mohammed’s press release, which stated that he was on hand to watch the race.  I think I’ll be keeping an eye out for the Tribunal decision, which presumably is forthcoming at some point in the near or distant future…I’ll be curious to see if this fellow is treated to an extra stint in the FEI hoosegow for visiting an FEI sanctioned event while suspended.

I actually had to look up the race in the FEI database to see if it even was sanctioned (it was a two star), because neither of the news reports bothered mentioning the FEI’s name in connection with the race. I guess the FEI isn’t really that important to the real ‘movers and sheikhers’.