Italy's Vittoria Panizzon and Merlot's Magic at the Normandy WEG Test Event
The Tryon 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games, to be held in September 2018, will be preceded by a Test Event for each discipline earlier in the year. The Eventing Test Event will take place from April 5-8, 2018 at the WEG venue, the Tyron Equestrian Centre in North Carolina, USA and will be held at CIC3* level.
The Test Event is an important part of preparations for the big event, providing organisers with the opportunity to check that preparations are on track while attending National Federation officials (vets, High performance Managers, coaches etc) get the chance to get a handle on the logistics and riders can check out the venue first hand. Although they may not be the same horses or riders competing later in the year they play an important role in checking out the venue and passing back information
In 2014 twenty countries and 45 competitors took part in the CCI2* Test Event for the FEI Alltech World Equestrian Games 2014 at Haras du Pin in Normandy with Italy’s Vittoria Pannizon riding coming out on top
Chris Burton, Andrew Hoy and Kevin McNab competed for Australia at that Test Event with the then National Performance Director for Eventing, Prue Barrett, Australia’s Chef de Mission for WEG, Chris Webb and the Australian Equestrian Team’s Chief Veterinarian Graham Potts joining them. Shane Rose and Stuart Tinney, two riders who ended up competing at the real WEG 2014 event, also dropped by
Australian team members and officials at the WEG 2014 Test Event
Stuart also attended the 2010 WEG test event in Kentucky as an observer and it was a Test Event to be remembered. With tornadoes during the event and fallout from volcanoes disrupting many travel plans, some may remember the saga of two of Great Britain's Oliver Townend and William Fox-Pitt who had to take trains, planes and automobiles to reach Lexington.
Oliver Townend took a train to Paris and then paid $3,000 to ride in a taxi from Paris to Madrid in order to catch a flight to Miami. William Fox-Pitt missed his train to Madrid but was able to persuade a neighbour to give him a ride in his private plane to reach Madrid in time for his US-bound flight. The officials for the Event were also affected - the Ground Jury was depleted but luckily last minute replacements were found, enabling the competition to proceed.
Hopefully the Tryon 2018 Test Event will not be beset by natural disasters but it’s still going to be an event to pay close attention to
