United States Eventing Association

USA Horses All Cleared for Competition in Rio at First Horse Inspection

Bom Dia (pronounced Bom Gia and means “Good Day” in Portuguese) from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil! We had a whirlwind trip down to Rio from our home in Indiana filled with as many challenging obstacles as a 4*cross-country course, but we finally arrived in Rio yesterday, August 4th (a day later than planned, but very happy to be here)!

After a cancelled flight on August 2 and sitting for hours on the 3rd with fingers crossed in Miami’s airport hoping to make it onto a plane from the standby list, we finally arrived in Rio at 5:30 a.m. yesterday. Severely sleep derived, we wound our way through customs, had our Olympic credentials validated, found the transport bus to the Main Media Center, hailed a taxi from there and finally lugged our eight bags of clothes and equipment through our apartment door.

But, back to our report of the Olympics…Rio is a city of over five million people. It is nestled between miles of white sand beaches facing the southern Atlantic Ocean and granite based mountains on the inland side. We are here during their winter when temperatures average between 65 and 80 degrees. So far we have found the Brazilian people to be very friendly and interested in helping us in any way that they can, with the possible exception of a few taxi drivers who like to drive up the fare by going out of the way to get us to our locations.

Yesterday afternoon right after we arrived at our apartment Allen grabbed his camera and sped back out the door to travel out to the area called Deodoro (about 25 minutes north of the main Olympic Village) where the Olympic Equestrian Park is located for the FEI-sponsored barn tour and cross-country walk. Here are some photos from these tours as well as photos from today’s first horse inspection for the eventers.

We are happy to report that all of the U.S. horses including the traveling reserve easily passed the first veterinary inspection today. A total of 73 horses, including eight reserve horses, were presented for inspection from 24 countries. Thirteen countries will be fielding teams: Australia; Brazil; Canada; France; Germany; Great Britain; Ireland; Italy; New Zealand; The Netherlands; Russia; Sweden, and the United States of America. Belgium, Japan and Switzerland sent two riders each and one rider competed from each of these countries: Chile; China; Ecuador; Finland; Puerto Rico; Poland; Spain, and Zimbabwe.

The only concern during the inspection today was that the horse from Spain, Hito CP, was sent to the hold box and then was accepted on being represented. Also the horse for Anna Nilsson from Sweden, Luron, was listed to go in the inspection, but sadly is out of the competition at the last minute with a respiratory infection, so he was not presented. Sweden’s reserve horse Fairnet ridden by Linda Algotsson will compete instead.

Lauren Kieffer and Veronica, Boyd Martin and Blackfoot Mystery, Clark Montgomery and Loughan Glen and Lynn Symansky and Donner (alternate). Allen MacMillan Photos.