{"id":396157,"date":"2025-09-04T02:58:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T02:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/396157\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T02:58:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T02:58:15","slug":"global-equines-athletes-and-duchess-of-edinburgh-gather-for-50th-spruce-meadows-masters-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/396157\/","title":{"rendered":"Global equines, athletes and Duchess of Edinburgh gather for 50th Spruce Meadows Masters this week"},"content":{"rendered":"

A total of 47 equine athletes and 98 horses from around the world will be in Calgary from Wednesday to Sunday for the 50th Spruce Meadows Masters.<\/p>\n

This year, the equestrian facility launched its international stadium, and vice-president of sport and media for Spruce Meadows Ian Allison said the competition is well underway.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had winners from Ireland and Germany in two of our feature events today, the TELUS Cup and the Cardel Homes Cup,\u201d he said. \u201cWe also opened the World Blacksmith Championships here at Spruce Meadows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alongside their annual Equifare and Retail, the competition hosted a variety of entertainment packages, including the RCMP Musical Ride and the introduction and first performances by the Household Cavalry.<\/p>\n

Duchess of Edinburgh to attend Masters<\/p>\n

Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Edinburgh is scheduled to arrive at Spruce Meadows<\/a> Friday morning.<\/p>\n

During her time at the Masters, the Duchess will be involved with the Spruce Meadows Leg Up Foundation. She will also travel off-site to visit Calgary and area charities that align with her and are supported by the Leg Up Foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019ll be at Spruce Meadows again on Saturday for the BMO Nations Cup,\u201d Allison said. \u201cAfter doing a couple of community events in the morning, she\u2019ll make her way out to Spruce Meadows to join an afternoon of sport and the Nation\u2019s Dinner, where we salute the teams that competed in the BMO Nations Cup and the riders that qualified for the $5 million Grand Prix.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allison said Spruce Meadows has a long history with the British, as they were the first international team to travel to the Masters when it first started.<\/p>\n

Prior to this trip, the Duchess visited Spruce Meadows in 2006, alongside her husband Prince Edward.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth has been to Spruce Meadows in the past, so I think it is something that has evolved over the generations,\u201d Allison said. \u201cWe\u2019re honored that the Duchess of Edinburgh has chosen Spruce Meadows for her patronage, and that she\u2019ll be joining us for the Masters tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Mounties perform on horseback in the RCMP Musical Ride during the Spruce Meadows Masters near Calgary on Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025.<\/p>\n

Business class for horses<\/p>\n

Although the sport officially started this week<\/a>, Allison said preparation for the Masters commences over the weekend when chartered Boeing 747s arrive with the European-based horses.<\/p>\n

Two loads flew into Calgary last Saturday and on Monday, which also carried cargo for the tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was four tons of fresh Dutch flowers, all the materials that support the Rolex Grand Slam Pavilion that goes up for the Masters tournament, grooms and veterinarians on board that look after the load when they arrive, so it is a big logistics exercise,\u201d Allison said.<\/p>\n

All of the horses muster in Li\u00e8ge, Belgium, where they are inspected and undergo proper border procedures.<\/p>\n

Compared to regular horses, Allison said they are high-performance sport horses.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve ever gone into an NBA or CFL locker room and noticed how different the athletes look compared to normal people off the street, I would apply the same comparison to these horses,\u201d Allison said.<\/p>\n

Due to their larger size, they are required to fly in roomier containers during their trip to Spruce Meadows.<\/p>\n

\u201cBusiness class, if you will,\u201d he said. \u201cThey travel quite comfortably.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Switzerland\u2019s Martin Fuchs rides Leone Jei in round one of the Telus Cup at the Spruce Meadows Masters near Calgary on Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025. Fuchs is a past champion of the Masters.<\/p>\n

After a nine-and-a-half-hour flight to Calgary, the horses are met by representatives from Spruce Meadows, Canadian Border Services, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey confirm that the horses are the horses they say they are, that they\u2019re all ready and set to compete, and then they settle in here for a couple of days,\u201d he said. \u201cYesterday, we presented 150 horses to the International Veterinary Commission to make sure they\u2019re all fit to compete, and they all came through with flying colours.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo now, they\u2019ve been in Calgary for a couple of days to adjust to the climate, altitude, new water, and that kind of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wildfire smoke poses no issues<\/p>\n

Despite wildfire smoke entering the province<\/a>, Allison said that aside from not seeing the sun, they have been incredibly mindful of the air quality.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have both a veterinary commission and a pretty sophisticated sports science group that\u2019s related to Cavalry FC, so we have both four-legged and two-legged animals at Spruce Meadows, both training and exercising today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

They also measure particulates in the air through a different standard that is more sophisticated than the Air Quality Index.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd 200 would be the level that we would deem unsafe to compete, and today we were tracking between 78 and 82, so well within the realm for both the satisfaction of the sports science and veterinary commission,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s been no feedback from athletes, the horses haven\u2019t struggled at all, and the people in the grandstands didn\u2019t seem to be impacted by it today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s Jordan Coyle rides For Gold in round one of the Telus Cup at the Spruce Meadows Masters near Calgary on Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025.<\/p>\n

50 years of Spruce Meadows Masters<\/p>\n

Looking back to its inception, Allison said the Masters has come a long way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got 50 under my belt, so I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll make the next 50, but what\u2019s really encouraging is seeing the people that have come back in a sense of homecoming,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Over the last five decades, he said that Spruce Meadows has created a presence in Calgary and around the world.<\/p>\n

In terms of the sporting stage, prize money may not be the be-all and end-all, but it shows how much they have grown.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur first Grand Prix in 1976 at Spruce Meadows was $10,000, and on Sunday they\u2019ll be jumping for $5 million,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s the biggest single sporting prize ever awarded in Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople can talk about golf or tennis, but those are all kind of funded globally. This is all Canada, and not through something like the PGA, ATP, or all that, and that\u2019s quite an accomplishment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A total of 47 equine athletes and 98 horses from around the world will be in Calgary from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[136857,748,44198,5106,1102,4884,136858,136855,712,136854,136856,4297,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-396157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-allison","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-calgary","11":"tag-duchess-of-edinburgh","12":"tag-edinburgh","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-household-cavalry","15":"tag-ian-allison","16":"tag-scotland","17":"tag-spruce-meadows","18":"tag-telus-cup","19":"tag-the-masters","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115143790714776880","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}