Cowboy1

Following on from the filming help I was asked to do in August, was again asked to do a week in Augsburg for the 5-day massive Western Riding competition known as "Americana" an event held every two years which was started in 1979 as European Championship of Western Riding. This tournament is for all breeds of horses rather than just the Quarter Horse championships that I did last week.

The first few years it was held in Aachen too but was then moved to the 1972 Munich Olympic Riding Centre for several years, then to the indoor halls of the main 1972 Olympic Games stadium directly in Munich but the circumstances were not good and was finally moved to a new show/conference centre in Augsburg.

It had now become a very big deal - 4,000 spectators in 1979, had become 40,000 in 1994. It was now an official event in the USA professional Western Riding circuit with points & big money to be had for horse and rider. So now America's top riders were flying over their horses to take part. Previously some had attended to ride German horses but now it was serious stuff.

It was so big that the TV companies were interested and through all the connections, my friend had been asked by a new Sports TV company to assist in covering the event for them.

What that meant was we were set up with full professional TV studio type  cameras on huge tripods, two arms to control movement. During the day from 9am until about 6am I filmed all the various qualifying rounds which were sold to the participants, horse owners or interested persons. However, for the evening big show events and finals, a director from a professional company moved in with a professional cameraman plus my friend on another camera and the four of us connected by headphones covered the entire goings-on and much of this was then shown on TV.

It was pretty tiring stuff, standing up all day twirling the camera around the ring. My camera position was at the very top of the indoor stadium where the sandy dusty stale warm air collected and on these cameras you don't look through the lens which in my case being high up would have meant downwards, but the opposite, you stare at a small monitor mounted above the camera. Thus, all the dust whirled up by the horses on the sand ring landed in your eyes. That from 9 am till midnight!

At least had been put up in a good hotel in Augsburg which is where I headed straight after lights out.

The Blip is of the pass to get past all the various security checks and most importantly to get to the free very good buffet. To start with one had to get a new photo/pass each day. The event ran from 14th to 18th, we had been there from 13th setting up.