The Pan American Games are the second largest sporting event in the world behind their big brother, the Olympics, and held once every four years, mainly as a qualifier for national teams for the following year’s Games but also as a celebration of athletic endeavors in the New World.
While equestrian sports are not at Big Tour level, in dressage, for example, the competition is just as fierce at Prix St. Georges/Intermediaire as the European Championships are at Grand Prix.
At these Games, the 16th, a record of 12 nations sent teams to contest the dressage Nations Cup, most with four riders, demonstrating both growth and commitment throughout the Americas. With Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in just five years, the Americans (meaning those who live in the 50 or so countries and another two dozen dependencies from pin pricks in the Caribbean to economic and population behemoths like Brazil, Mexico and the U.S.) will be looking to celebrate only the second Olympics in Latin America. The first was Mexico City in 1968.
The dressage competition was at the Guadalajara Cuntry Club, a beautiful shaded sports enclave 20 minutes from the center of Mexico’s second largest city.
The competition facilities were first rate, from stabling to footing (sand and wood chips that won lots of praise and not a single complaint) to security (polite and friendly and not needed) to spectator seating (when was the last time the stands were near full for the opening morning of a championship anywhere? though hot sun in the open stands drove out spectators in the afternoons) to almost always full VIP sections to a media center with working communications and as friendly and helpful as the best press rooms.
For the record, this correspondent heard nothing but praise for the judges, nothing negative whispered off the record. The judges were Stephen Clarke of Great Britain, president of the ground jury, Gabriel Armando of Argentina, Lilo Fore of the United States, Cara Whitham of Canada and Raphael Saleh of France.
To the delight of the non-Mexicans, the flavor of the show was Mexican, as shown by these ladies leading in the individual medalists for the magnificent awards ceremonies.
Jim Koford of the United States on Saturday ruled out competing Pharaoh at the World Cup Final next month in what would have been his first ever championship, when...
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