The entire Dutch WEG equestrian delegation was honoured yesterday in a special ceremony hosted at the Royal Palace Het Loo in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands. Much acclaim went especially to Edward Gal for winning triple gold at the 2010 World Equestrian Games.
Martien van den Heuvel, chair of the Dutch Equestrian Federation (KNHS), thanked the enormous financial support the federation got from the Dutch Olympic Committee and private companies, such as Rabobank. "It's a tour de force to be able to cover the costs -- more than one million euro -- to send our athletes to Kentucky," said Van den Heuvel. "The past few years we've been saving to realise this, but it wasn't enough. The Netherlands was represented in seven out of eight disciplines and for six disciplines we had a team."
Bert Mertens, member of the board of directors of Rabobank, handed out several cheques which were a "medal bonus" for those riders who finished
on the podium. Gal received a cheque of 15,000 euro for his
achievements.
During the presentation of each disciplines, videos were show with the highlights of the Dutch athletes. At the end of the evening, Edward Gal, Hans Peter Minderhoud, Nicole Werner and Totilas' former owners Cees and Tosca Visser were thanked again for the magic they created with Totilas.
"I want to honour the combination Edward Gal and Moorlands Totilas, as well as the Visser family, who have meant so much to the sport," said KNHS technical director Maarten van der Heijden. "It's a tragedy that we have to miss this combination, but we and world have intensely enjoyed them."
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