The Longines arena with the city of Beijing in the background
A little behind the time but a story worth telling… I was fortunate enough to be included as Dave was invited to compete in Beijing at the Longines FEI World Cup China Jumping League. With 11.51 million people living in Beijing there sadly is no room for a cross country course but amazing to have this showjumping competition less than half an hour from the forbidden city which is the heart of Beijing.
The week before the trip was a little stressful firstly because we weren’t sure if we were really going and secondly at such short notice I was still waiting at the Chinese Embassy the day before our depart hoping our visas were granted. Luckily all was ok and we set of on our first adventure to China.
Dave and I at the Great Wall
Upon arrival we were greeted by a friendly University student called Kevin, Kevin became our close friend and shopping consultant. We were exceptionally well looked after whilst we were there and lucky to be taken on two tours; one to the Great Wall of China and the other to the Forbidden City where the Emperor and Empress once lived. The Great Wall was amazing, it is hard to imagine how they got all those stones up there on the highest point of the ridge let alone built it that long ago. When standing on the wall you can look across and see many more turrets of the wall off into the distance. They also had a novelty toboggan ride to speed things up on the way down. The Forbidden City was also very impressive and to this day no one is allowed to enter the rooms where the Emperor and his family stayed, which makes for quite a line to look through the window.
One of the stable ladies washing the saddle cloths
The horses in China were all lovely and you would be hard pressed to put together such a large number of flash horses at a show in Australia, of course most to all of these horses are imported from Europe. Dave rode a horse called Exilio in the World Cup Qualifying classes and was a little concerned on the first day when he asked one of the grooms how big Exilio jumped he replied with “one meter thirty”, Dave then advised the groom that he was intending to start him in the World Cup Class to which the man replied “oh… one meter, thirty five” which we did have a good laugh about! With such a small space to have horses, majority of them are stabled all the time but they were all very happy.
They don't do presentations like that over here… they did this even for the cross rail class!
Franke Sloothaak, Jan Phillips and Luke Dee had also been brought out from Holland, Germany and New Zealand to compete and it was great to share a drink and horse stories with them after the classes. The University students were in charge of getting us to and from where we needed to be and were very keen to help me with my Chinese of course it was very difficult and I was not very good at it but tried my hardest and can now say - “I ride horse” in Chinese! They had classes from cross rails up to 1.55m so it was interesting to see lots of young Chinese out there competing as well. Two of my favourites Tony and Mike showed me the ropes and were very keen to be jumping in the big classes one day.
Me and my buddies Tony and Mike
One of the most frightening parts was the trip was to and from the airport as the driver wove in and out of traffic not slightly slowing down, if there are lines on the road no one seems to adhere to them. With so many cars on the road it is hard to believe that ten thousand people apply for a car each month and only three hundred get to have one. It was an amazing trip and I would love to go back to China one day!
