January 11, 2014
I’ve always liked horses, but then I think that most young girls do at some point in their lives. My sister followed her horse dream but I let motorcycles take over my dreams, a decision I’m very happy with. However, when the opportunity presented itself to see the International Horse Jumping show “CSI Basel” right here in town, I wanted to go. Dan was also interested and we picked up a couple of tickets. By the way, “CSI” stands for Concours de Saut International, not the TV crime show.
The show ran for four days and we went the second half of the 3rd day. We didn’t have reserved seats so we meandered around, watching from various points of view. Here are some pictures posted below, but if you want to see ALL of the pictures I took, they’re on my SmugMug photo hosting site (link here). I don’t have a fast enough camera to get the focus-thing down, but I’ll work on it!
But I’ll toss up some quick shots here for instant gratification…
The fancy seating section
We came mid way through one show and got the chance to watch them set up a new set of jumps. It was interesting to watch them carefully measure distances and place the decorative plants.
And then the competing riders came out to pace off the course. Some of them were short and had to take exaggerated strides to get the measurement they needed.
And then they brought out Switzerland’s Horse of the Year. There was a lot of talk by the announcer, most of it which was lost on me (not that I was paying much attention anyway). After the talking was over, the rider took the horse on a few laps around the field.
Here is a video showing some of the horse’s fancier moves. Sorry about the focus – this is my first time really trying to taking video with this camera.
After the presentation the “International Challenge”. We saw riders from many countries (Ireland, Great Britain, USA, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Switzerland, Ukraine, Hong Kong). I didn’t get all of the jump descriptions, but one was mentioned to be 1.5 meters high. Goodness, but that’s high!
The opening jump at the International Challenge
And here are some more videos. It captures the essence of the show much better than just still photos. I have no idea how good/bad the sound is, so take care!