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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