Hurricane Florence ran a lot of ink these days and we wanted to give you a detailed update of what happened and what to expect.

First as a hurricane, then as a tropical storm and eventually as a tropical depression, heavy rain and winds arrived this weekend in the area of the Tryon International Equestrian Center, where the FEI World Equestrian Games are happening now.

The area around Tryon is under advisory for heavy flooding and mudslides, and the venue is currently flooded but lesser in importance. Other disciplines suffered from this bad weather condition such as Dressage: The Helgstrand Freestyle was cancelled on Saturday. Here is the official statement of the Organizing Committee:

“We know this is desperately disappointing for the 15 athletes who had qualified their horses for the Freestyle, and of course for all the spectators who had bought tickets, but the weather has simply left us with no choice. Horse welfare has to be the top priority and flying the horses out on the same day as competition doesn’t work, so sadly the decision to cancel the Freestyle had to be taken.”

Read the full press release here.

The whole Endurance competition also got cancelled before on Wednesday, “due to a potentially dangerously high combination of heat and humidity, and the conditions out on the trail following heavy rain this afternoon”, but it was not a direct consequence of the storm as the hurricane was not in this area yet last Wednesday.

Read the full press release here.

Sharon Decker, COO of the Tryon International Equestrian Center, spoke a few days ago about the weather conditions, explaining that the venue has always been “a safe harbor” for horses when the area has been impacted by tropical storms in the past. She said: “We are kind of a safe zone in a lot of ways, it doesn’t mean we wouldn’t get some wind and some rain, but typically storms like this do not impact us in a significant way.”

National Weather Service forecasters are giving weather updates every six hours. In case of an emergency, several places can protect horses and people: 300.000 square feet of covered arena, and 1.300 permanent stables.

> What about vaulting?

At the moment and fortunately, there is nothing to declare regarding the vaulting competition.

According to the latest weather forecasts, the conditions are not supposed to worsen. Heavy rains should stop on Monday. So the vaulting competitions won’t be affected.

The main arena is ready and the schedule remains unchanged and people are excited for the competition to start.

The horse inspection will be at 10:30am this morning.

We will keep you updated in this article in case of any change.

The current situation on site is under control and not too bad. Only the way between the stables to the arena is flooded, but the horses are dry in the barn:

Most people take the situation easy, joking around such as Devon Maitozo:

“Best of luck to my fellow sea horse lovers. The World Aquastrian Games is about to begin!”

Or the Dutch Team: