Giant Robot Store and GR2 News

On August 25th, on the heels of the Miss World competition, the city of Ordos in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, hosted its second Ordos Dalate International Horse Culture Festival. This underachieving coverage of the festival shared some great photos of the performances, but dropped the ball with captions.  Pictured are some of the 60 riders from 15 different countries showing off their equestrian know-how in traditional Mongolian horsemanship, classical dressage (with a Chinese twist), jousting, show jumping, and demonstrations by the Spanish Riding School (of Austria). Also featured were polo, and good old fashioned American barrel racing. Horses of all breeds were on display from the United States, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Netherlands, Italy and Brazil, as well as some homegrown Inner Mongolian horses.  China is trying to make progressive moves in growing its horse culture by bringing in foreign horses and trainers to expand equestrian facilities, breeding programs and training programs. With the dying off of the American Wild West, cowboys and cowgirls can now find work overseas! Maybe they’ve got a silver-haired rider waiting to steal Japanese Olympian, Hiroshi Hoketsu’s, senior prestige.  Maybe China is going to take over the manufacturing of American cowboys like it has American electronics. Maybe the government is secretly preparing for a future invasion of a new Mongol horde. They have been doing a lot of repairs on the Great Wall lately… My working theory: they’re gonna crank out some bootleg Gangnam Style and help their growing affluent class join the East Asian ranks of fancy people. Ordos Dalate International Horse Cultural Festival from NRHA on Vimeo. Property of BrotherFortune Group
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This year’s Miss World contest, 61 years old now, is the longest running international beauty pageant. This year it was held in the apocalyptically modern city of Ordos in China’s “Inner Mongolia” region. The 2013 event will be held in Indonesia. I’m sure the bidding process puts the IOC’s to shame – bribes, girls, nasi goreng, and Swarovski rhinestones flying. International media had/has been incorrectly reporting that the competition was held in Mongolia, but Ordos is China. It’s been an “Autonomous Region” of China since the early 1900′s, but the Chinese tourism bureau will encourage you to come to Ordos to experience Mongolia. Weird, but there it is. Here’s what you missed while you didn’t even realize the Miss World competition was happening: Miss Fiji wore a fancy Princess Mononoke-esque owl costume and danced around in it. Miss Malawi body-checked Miss New Zealand for standing in her spot. Hardcore. Miss Nepal is a perfect multi-culti Barbie doll. Who knew? Suspicions of corruption are afoot with host country’s  Miss China taking home the giant crown.  No way… Miss Philippines beatboxed her way to Ordos.  And her name is Queenierich. You’re totally going to tune in next year now, aren’t you?    
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