Home from Dubai

[lyoness@castlenet.com (Joane White)]

The trip to Dubai was exciting, educational and, at times, frustrating.
Like Steve Shaw, I will tell the story in tidbits that are more manageable.  

I agree with Steve's assessment of the Closing Ceremony.  There was no
animosity and I did not see it was as "female" thing.  It was definitely a
"National vs. Foreign" thing.  Remember that this country has existed for
less than 30 years and is just developing a sense of nationalism.  I think
they thought it would be disloyal of them to cheer for those who defeated
the home team.  Steve's parallel to a melodrama is perfect--it is merely the
way it is done.  For some it may have been a shock.  I was there to crew for
Christy Janzen from Canada and she had warned us about the cultural
differences.  She has spent more time with the Arabs and assured us that it
was not personal.

Now think about this--Where else has a closing ceremony been held for
endurance riding that puts the Olympics to shame?  We were treated as
respected guests everywhere we went.  The parties were amazing.  The
facilities were world class--who else feeds everyone every meal and snacks
all day long, hauls in tons of ice and delivers it to our crew all day,
creates fans and showers at every crew station for each country?  Who else
has ever transmitted pictures of the whole course to a movie screen in the
middle of the vet check so that everyone could watch the race?  What other
country had the entire race and closing ceremony on all the local TV
channels--not to mention the newpaper and magazine coverage leading up to
the race.  I was not aware of any censorship.  I had a digital camera and
software to send you pictures, but there was no time (until now).

Yes there were some problems--not the least of which was the computer
failure that affected the times of many of the top 20 riders.  For your
information, the "official" results are not really official as there is at
least one appeal.  From fourth place to about 16th place, the riders' times
were messed up and it appears that some were not properly credited with the
time they were held waiting for the computer to restart them.  The impact of
all of that affected some and not others in more ways than just time.  For
example, the young Japanese brother and sister who were riding Austrialian
horses were both doing very well until the computer problem.  The brother
was allowed to leave the vet check and he ended up third (I think) but the
sister was not allowed to leave with him.  She then fell behind.  Who knows
what she could have done if they had not been separated.  

But all in all, it was an amazing experience and not bad considering that no
one else has ever tried a WEC of this size before.  

Joane and the Herd
Price, Utah