The World Cup Is Leaving Las Vegas… For Now

The week before the Rolex FEI World Cup Finals in Las Vegas, Nev., the Fédération Equestre International announced the locations for the next four show jumping World Cup Finals, and Las Vegas wasn’t on the schedule.

Then the question was, why? The 2000, ’03, ’05, and ’07 World Cup Finals in Las Vegas had been big hits with spectators and riders. For the first two years, just the show jumping Final was held, but dressage joined the schedule in 2005 and ’07, and the crowds sold out the Thomas & Mack Arena.

Las Vegas Events, the organizers of the World Cup Finals in Las Vegas, decided before this year’s event to change their bid for the 2011 and 2013 Finals. Instead of a special bid, which volunteered extra prize money and contribution to the FEI effort to support the sport in small countries, they put forth a normal bid, given the tenuous economic environment.

With 2010 having been assigned to Geneva, Switzerland, last year, the FEI subsequently awarded the 2011 Show Jumping Final to Leipzig, Germany, and 2013 to Gothenburg, Sweden. A general sense of disappointment met the news.

“What a phenomenal production this is. For us as riders, and especially the U.S. riders, it’s wonderful to have this competition on our home turf. I think all the federations and the FEI should really find a way to have this here in the future again,” said McLain Ward.

Sven Holmberg, the executive vice-president of the FEI, gave some hope for the future. “On behalf of the FEI, we were slightly disappointed when Las Vegas withdrew their bids for the 2011 and 2013,” Holmberg said.

“We had already placed Las Vegas in the first slot for 2011. We had an FEI board meeting in the beginning of April in which we allocated the Finals. I got the task from the board to start a discussion with the American federation [the U.S. Equestrian Federation], trying to find solutions to either get back to Las Vegas or find another solution in the U.S. It is really not good for a world event to be too often in Europe.”

Robert Ridland, who has been involved with the Las Vegas Finals from the beginning and served as the manager of the show jumping event this year, had good news for U.S. fans. “We are definitely going to be making a bid for the 2014 World Cup Finals here in Las Vegas,” he said. “Blenheim Equisports will be putting in a bid, and we are supported by Las Vegas Events. The details will be worked out at a later time. But it’s an absolute that this is too good of an event to give up. With Godspeed, we hope to see everybody again in five years.”

Holmberg seemed pleased with the announcement and said that the FEI would welcome the bid.