The 2007 World Championships for Icelandic Horses - Oirschott, Holland
A week or so after the British Championships in June Fiona was officially invited to join the team to Holland and time then compressed into a total blurry flurry until Friday, 3rd August found us, once again, ensconced in Malcolm and, this time, en route to Holland. Malcolm was suited and booted (he’d had a wash and we’d sprung for new tyres all round after losing one on the way back from Scotland) and he gaily tripped off up the M5 to start the journey to Oirschot – at least I think he tripped gaily as it was far too early in the morning to be really sure.
We were travelling M5, M4, M25, M20 to Dover where we were joining Seafrance to Calais – Seafrance had come up trumps and allowed us to cross on the ‘tourist tarrif’ rather than the ‘freight tarrif’ which cut our ferry bill by over half – the whole junket was quite expensive so every little did help. We were assisted by a number of commercial sponsors that Fiona had contacted as well as our families - many thanks to all of them.
Unfortunately things went a little awry when we stopped for coffee at Clacket Lane Services on the M25 – Malcolm flat refused to start and we were an hour waiting for the ‘man with a van’ to come and rescue us. Fortunately Fiona had a bright idea about how to fix the matter (I should point out that this involved a certain person lying under 7.5 tonnes of a certain lorry and shorting the solenoid out with a screwdriver whilst, simultaneously wondering if
(a) he’d put the lorry in neutral and
(b) if (a) applied has SWMBO, with an eye on the life insurance, popped it back into gear? [Not forgetting thought
(c) – why do lorry drivers NEVER use the facilities but take their ‘comfort breaks’ right by the lorry in the lorry park? Makes it quite fragrant crawling around on your hands and knees]
Cancelling ‘man in a van’ we hit the M25 and, one eye on the clock, screamed down the motorway to Dover trying to make the ferry, unfortunately we hit a tailback in Dover itself and missed the ferry by only 10 – 15 minutes. Fortunately Daren and Iris Ashman were stuck in the queue with us – OK so not that fortunate for them but, as things turned out, a boon for us later in Holland.
So, we had to stand around at Dover for a bit before we boarded the ferry and decided to pass the crossing in the restaurant with Daren and Iris. They had previously been to the Oirschot stadium in 2006 and suggested that we travel together after Calais – they would take the lead after crossing the Dutch border and guide us to the stadium. So, at Calais, it was dock ferry, fill up with diesel for Malcolm, beer for me and hit the Autoroute with time now being of the essence.
The journey through to Eindhoven was fairly fast and uneventful – apart from the state of the Belgian motorways around Antwerp, both inner lanes had a pretty decent set of ‘tramlines’ moulded into the road surface by heavy lorries and Malcolm was skipping and hopping from one to the other (jolly decent of the Belgians to stick a few warning signs out just in case the Guide Dog didn’t spot the ruts in the road ). Toots had an enjoyable twenty of thirty kilometres whilst Yours Truly wrestled with the steering – fortunately the road improved dramatically on crossing into Holland.
We reached Eindhoven just after dark to find that the route we had meticulously planned out had been buried in road works – we were now following Daren and he led us a merry dance around unsigned diversions and road works directly to the Oirschot road. I reckon without his lead we would have been sailing around the Eindhoven ring road until first light.
We parked up about a mile from the showground where we were met by Marina who led us to stabling area where we arrived at about 10.30pm to find some of the officials were awaiting our arrival. We quickly bedded the horses down and, after agreeing to finish the formalities in the morning, joined the rest of the British team in the camping area. As we were setting up we saw some of the Finnish competitors with their horses arriving after a 36 hour journey (made ours seem a day trip – actually, it was really).
We spent the weekend settling in, finding our bearings and meeting up with old friends, making new friends and, for myself, sussing out the watering holes.
The Dutch organisation was faultless – they had a large number of hard working official backed up with an army of orange clad, multi-national volunteers who worked hard for their board and keep. I subsequently learned that Rhona and Charlotte from Britain were amongst the volunteers but I never got a chance to say ‘hi’ to them at the event - thanks to them and all the other volunteers for helping make things run smoothly.
The horses were stabled in large tents in country groups - we had the entire Luxembourg team next to us (all one of her - like Belgium they had sent one rider) with mares, stallions and geldings all side by side. Turnout was likewise organised and the British Team, having four stallions, had to fix up a rota system so that the 'boys' could be kept apart - Toots was quite happy as she got to share turnout with Mike Adams' mare Komma and Jemimah's gelding Draupnir - handy for itching the parts that she couldn't reach herself.
The day we left Britain an outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease had been declared in Southern England. Unsurprisingly this rather concerned the Dutch Authorities and, after a bit of to and fro, up and down, round and about, it was decided that we would have to take all the British lorries and trailers from the camp site to a government cleansing station where they would have to be washed down and disinfected. So, we duly formed up in convoy and drove off through Eindhoven to the station. What fun!
After a bit of waved instruction from the Dutch guy in charge we were let loose with a set of overalls each and a high pressure hose. When I say high pressure I mean HIGH pressure – this was Fireman Sam stuff – we cleaned every last inch of Malcolm, pulled the mats out, washed the floor, walls, ceiling, chassis – you name it – he’d never been so clean. When we got back we were very fortunate to have nearly thirty degrees of sunshine to help dry everything out.
The weather then turned quite wet for the practice days and when the sports event kicked off on the Wednesay morning it was still raining. The method of deciding who goes when in each part of the competition is a lottery but with a twist. First off FEIF will do a draw deciding on the COUNTRY order – so it might go (with an abbreviated number of countries)
Austria,
Germany,
France,
Great Britain,
Slovenia,
Iceland.
Each country then has ten slots and the riders will then come onto the track in the order:
Austria 1
Germany 1
France 1
Great Britain 1
Slovenia 1
Iceland 1
Austria 2
Germany 2
France 2
Great Britain 2
Slovenia 2
Iceland 2
And so on until the final rider in would be Iceland 10
Easy huh?
Only catch is that no country will have ten riders in the same class. Generally the better riders will choose (or be assigned by their team leaders) a higher number so that they go later in the class – this is partly due to tradition but also due to a perception that the later riders get better marks. Personally I think that’s a bit of a chicken and an egg situation and is maybe a bit of an insult to the standard of judges at this event.
So what to do – do you draw a high number and go out there in between a couple of the Big Boys (as did one of the Slovenian riders) or do you draw a lower number, if you draw a lower number then just how low do you go?
Decisions, decisions………………………………………………………
)
Fiona went for number 1 in both the T1 and the V1 – guess who got to go on first in both events, before every other rider? Guess who got to trundle out in the rain, first thing Wednesday and effectively open the sports show? Yup, Toots Tallulah and SWMBO – nothing like going in at the deep end. – the horse was a cool as a cucumber but I think the rider was a little tense 
. Mind you - this did get us mention on the Eidfaxi website along with a decent picture.
The V1 was swapped with the F1 and took place on Friday morning – this was a boon as Thursday was really miserable, cold and wet – Iris and Laura had to ride out in probably the worst competition weather of the week whilst we had to merely shiver in the stands. Things looked up on Friday and the weekend was dry.
Overall we had a cracking ten days in Holland, everybody we met was helpful and welcoming - I got to rub shoulders and say ‘hi’ to all sorts of people; see some great riding; visit a friendly and welcoming country town where spending an hour or two sat outside a café in the town square was definitely the ‘in’ thing and….. I even spoke to Stian Pedersen at the stables in between him winning the Four Gait Final and the T1 Final – he was as cool as a cucumber, very polite and quite bashful about his earlier success and forthcoming chances.
Our journey back was long but uneventful – Toots had travelled loose in the back of the lorry both ways and was totally unruffled by the journey. We got back to find that the wet weather back in England had meant lots of grass and all our horses were somewhat on the porky side.