Where WEG began

I have wanted to ride at the World Equestrian Games my whole life.

Okay, this isn't quite true. Let me rephrase that. I have wanted to ride a Haflinger at the World Equestrian Games ever since I discovered that it may indeed be possible to do such a thing. Really, it wasn't so much that I wanted to ride, but that I wanted the Haflinger to be there, because I knew these little horses could do it, even if the mere thought made me lose my appetite for weeks on end. And this year, my dream came true.

But that's not how it all began. Three years ago, when it was firmly established that the 2010 World Equestrian Games would be held (for the first time in the US) in Lexington, Kentucky, a call for entertainers went out. And there is nothing that the Haflinger does better than entertain. Well, except maybe eat. So a frantic cry went up amongst the Wisconsin Haflinger junkies that we had to apply ASAP before any other cute-looking Haflinger group got their hooves on an application. So DVDs of all our performances were made and I set to work on a 4,982 page application that covered everything from average piles of manure made per day per horse statistically to hours of sleep required for each performer. Well, not really, but it was long, detailed, and covered pretty much every major detail of our gig. Which, incidentally, we said was anything under the sun, from a single horse to a full-blown sixteen horse Haflinger circus. We wanted to be at WEG no matter what, which we said in so many words. We made sure to tell the powers that be that we could be found at the 2008 Breyerfest, also held at the Kentucky Horse Park, so they could give us a "demo performance." Several Sound of Music presentations later (with lots of cameos by some cute lion cubs with vaulting tendencies), we were firmly in the waiting game.

And we remained there for almost two years, until one fine early July day in 2009. I was with Ingrid and our Haflinger-enthusiast friend, Karen, riding in the truck on the way to the Ohio Haflinger inspection. Casually checking my email on my iPhone, I saw an intriguing email from HOW's president, Rachel Meek. HOW was (more or less) invited to WEG. My reaction?

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH OH MY GOD! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

I don't tend to scream upon hearing exciting news. But by god, I was screaming in that truck, and floated on air for the rest of the weekend, or possibly the rest of the year. Our horse didn't do well at the inspection? Well, guess what, we're still going to WEG. Pony picked up the wrong lead? Who cares, we're still going to WEG. It was the perfect catchall excuse, and the closer WEG got, the more we used it. And we didn't even feel bad about it, because, after all, we were going to WEG.