Sara Cavanagh Schwartz is the Editor of
The Horse of Delaware Valley

Just the last jog (for Individual Show Jumpinmg) today and all of ours passed.

While waiting for George (Morris) to pick me up (George, who is credentialed, goes to the stables, where someone has a walkie-talkie connected to the drivers, so he gets a USET van to pick him up and then comes to get me at the Press Entrance at the other end of the venue.) I'm sitting waiting after the jog - there's no competition today so the place is pretty empty. There's me on one side of the road sitting on a barrier of stanchions and across the street are two men sitting in chairs waiting.

A police car drives by, goes around the corner, then pauses and backs up. Two policemen get out and walk up to one of the men sitting in a chair. He stands, takes off his hat, apparently very polite (He is dark skinned - slightly Arabic looking). Then one policeman walks over to me and asks if I speak French - they can't understand what this man is saying. So I say I speak a little French and go over with them. The one policeman, who speaks a little English, says ask him how he got here and what he's doing here. The policemen, from their car, had noticed he had no credentials on. He had shown them a ticket; but, of course, it was for the jumping tomorrow as (there is)no competition today.

The man said he had gotten to the venue on a bus from the airport and was waiting for a friend. The police said "You can not be here. We're taking you to the police station." I said - wait a minute, lets find out who his friend is - it turned out the friend he was waiting for is a rider on the Brazilian team. I said, can he telephone his friend and ask him to come here to meet him now. The police said - no, but we will take him to the North Gate and leave him there, so stumbling through my mostly forgotten French, I got that across to him and he said "Fine" So they put him in the police car - started off and then backed up to the Press Entrance. He had a good sized back pack with him, and I'm guessing they took him to the Press Entrance to put him and his back pack through the security check there - eventually all three reappeared and drove off towards the North Gate.

I was amazed at how sharp those police were to spot someone sitting in a chair OUTSIDE the venue with no credentials. Pretty super security. The police were VERY nice and polite but VERY firm - he was NOT going to stay sitting by the fence around the venue for one second more.

Interesting.

S