2002 World Equestrian Games

Journals from the WEG
By Astrid Appels

Saturday September 7, 2002: Bye Bye Belgium, Welcome WEG

So, being out of the routine of horse shows and after a year of total concentration on university life, a master's thesis and finals exams, it was hard for me to reshift my focus onto horse shows. They require a totally different perspective. I had to drop my supposedly intellectually fixed mind for an unreal, often self involved world that idolizes one central gentle natured animal, the Horse. The show scene is a world "driven by the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, and lots of money. A world populated by the ultrarich and the very poor; celebrities, royalty, and ordinary people [...] people who love horses, and people who love to exploit people who love horses. A world with a glamorous surface and a tough underbelly," as Tami Hoag describes it in her new novel Dark Horse (Bantam, 2002).

It has always been my goal in show coverage to mention the winner but also to praise those riders who deserve the credit, even if they finished at the bottom of the ranking. This is also what I hope to do for the World Equestrian Games. As a treat, I offer you "Postcards from the WEG", a diary of my daily excursions in Spain and in Jerez in particular, focussing on the special aspects that make show coverage worth the effort and intellectually, emotionally and socially fulfilling.

My dear parents and grandmother accompanied me to Brussels Airport where I had to take a direct flight to Jerez at 4.40 PM on Saturday September 7, 2002. Knowing that I'm a homesick person, they reassured me that the trip to Jerez would be an exciting one and that I hardly would have the time to think about home and the people and animals I would be leaving behind for 11 long days. At the gate I noticed the Belgian dressage official Jacques Van Daele, but he didn't recognize me. That's what happens when you work with websites. You write hundreds of articles but nobody knows your face. It's in fact pleasant to be so "low-profile". Most people don't even realise that I'm an equestrian journalist as I am 22-years old and supposedly "too young to be taken seriously professionally."