Posted on Mon, Aug. 27, 2007

Games, host city 'must be one team'

GERMANS SAY WORKING TOGETHER CRUCIAL

By Linda B. Blackford

LBLACKFORD@HERALD-LEADER.COM

AACHEN, Germany --

The crowd started gathering at 5 p.m., huddling around Charlemagne's statue as rain blew down. By 6, several hundred people stood on the wet cobblestones in front of City Hall, waiting.

By 6:30 p.m., the mournful notes of a trumpet sounded over the square, then the clip of horseshoes on stone. Trumpeters and drummers seated on gray horses -- the Portuguese Music Corps -- began the parade into the square for the opening of Aachen's 2007 World Equestrian Festival last month.

That the opening ceremony took place at the square, not at the show grounds 2 miles away, was, like everything associated with the horse show, carefully orchestrated. It highlighted the historic connection between Aachen and the annual World Equestrian Festival. It also recalled Aachen's recent triumph in holding the 2006 World Equestrian Games, which funneled hordes of international visitors from the show grounds to the city center's restaurants and stores.

Now, as Lexington leaders look to the World Equestrian Games in 2010, their counterparts in Aachen say a successful event depends on many things, but nothing more important than this: "The city and the organization must be one team," said Klaus Pavel, president of the private club that runs the annual horse show and held the World Games. "We had all the sport, then we had happenings in the city that made it one unit.

"You must unite them as much as possible."

In Aachen, the attachment between the show grounds and the city is greatly helped by distance -- they're separated by just a few miles -- and a seamless public transportation system. Most of all, Aachen's equine events are boosted by an avid group of spectators who follow equestrian sports like Americans follow the NFL.

Some of those same elements were also a bonus for Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, which held the Games in 2002.

But they could prove formidable hurdles for the Bluegrass state when it hosts the Games. The distance between downtown Lexington and the Kentucky Horse Park is triple that between Aachen and its show grounds; Lexington's public transportation system is little-used and rebuilding from years of budget problems; and the American fan base for events such as dressage and show jumping is considerably weaker.

"I can't say that you can duplicate it anywhere because the crowds here are really unique," said American rider Beezie Madden, who on July 8 won the Rolex Grand Prix of Aachen in front of 50,000 people. "So enthusiastic, and so informed about the sport and all the riders. It's like a dream for us here."

Connecting with the city

Aachen bubbles with fountains, symbols of its past as a hot springs spa town. It bustles with young people, 40,000 of whom attend one of Germany's major technical universities here or work at as many as 1,000 spinoff companies.

Most tourism surrounds Charlemagne's Cathedral, where 33 other German kings were crowned, or the Gothic City Hall that stands where his former palace once stood. Aachen holds a huge bike race every year, and its monthlong Christmas Market attracts 1.5 million visitors to the city center.

Horse statues appear throughout. But for a 2,000-year-old city, their prominence is relatively recent.

Aachen's horse history didn't really start until 1898, when a group of local horsemen and business people founded what became the Aachen-Laurensburger Rennverein as a recreational club.

By 1924, the 500-member ALRV held its first riding and driving event, including some races, on the grassy expanse outside of town known as the Soers. By 1927, eight other nations participated, and despite a hiatus during World War II, in which many of the show facilities were bombed, it started again in 1946.

Aachen soon became one of the major stops of the European horse show circuit, as well as internationally, and hosted several World Championships in jumping and dressage. By 1975, the enterprise, also known as CHIO (Concours Hippique International Officiel) had become so big that the club created a separate marketing company just to work on sponsorship and advertising.