Tuesday, August 22, 2006

De Rosa Daily
FEI World Equestrian Games 2006 - Aachen Germany
Exclusive coverage for HorsesDaily text and photos by Diana DeRosa

The Logo That Wasn’t

Dutch Rider Laurens Van Lieren Riding Hexagon’s Ollright Loses Schooling Time All Because of a Steward’s Mistake and a Misunderstanding

After the first half of the riders for the Dressage Grand Prix had gone there was a Press Conference held in the Media Center. Germany’s Heike Kemmer was leading the way with her ride on Bonaparte. Her score of 75.792 was a strong lead over Dutch rider Imke Schellekens-Bartels (71.542) on Sunrise and third place finisher, Sweden’s Tinne Vilhelmson on Solos Carex (70.333).

When the press conference started the questions were focused on these riders and their horses and what it was like to ride in the arena but then suddenly the topic changed. While these champions were in the room ready to talk the media was focused on another incident that happened earlier that day to Imke’s fellow competitor Laurens Van Lieren who was riding Hexagon’s Ollright.

The Real Story

After the conference I asked Laurens if he would sit with me and explain just what happened and so here’s what he had to say. Laurens was the first team member to compete and was warming his horse up. They were schooling for about 15 minutes. He explained, “Normally I warm up for 45 minutes to an hour and a half.” Since he had ridden earlier that day he was anticipating a 45 minute warm-up.

“I was riding for about 15 minutes when the steward came to my father (Leunus van Lieren) and National Trainer Sjef Janssen. They were standing together helping me and he told them I would have to switch my saddle pad because there shouldn’t be a sponsor logo on it. I didn’t hear anything for a couple of minutes then I saw that they were in some kind of argument with this man.”

Apparently there is a rule in the World Equestrian Games that independent sponsor logos are not allowed. However, team sponsor logos are. Laurens continued, “They told me I had to go to the stables and change the saddle pad because it had a logo on it. The steward convinced us it was wrong. The steward has that power to send you back,” he explained. In fact the steward was mistaken, apparently not realizing that it was a team sponsor logo but this was not discovered until much later when it was too late to undo.

Laurens was half way through his warm-up when all of this took place. He rushed back to the stables and desperately searched for a white saddle paddle with nothing on it and was having no luck. During that time Laurens recalls being very upset that his National Federation would give them saddlepads that were not allowed.

Finally they found a white training pad “that was still wet. We just put a number over it and I only had a short time of schooling time left.” When he returned he had 5 more minutes of warm-up in the schooling arena before he had to move to the small arena right outside the Main Stadium where he only had another five minutes to school.