July 29, 2016 
When news broke last week that Bromont will no longer stage the 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games, it sparked strong speculation that the games would return to the Kentucky Horse Park. But that will not be the case, according to officials in the Commonwealth. The Kentucky Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet refuted the rumors in a statement released on Friday:
After learning Bromont was unable to host the World Equestrian Games in 2018, the Kentucky Horse Park and the Cabinet of Tourism, Arts and Heritage immediately reached out to event sponsors and analyzed the benefits and disadvantages of hosting the World Equestrian Games in 2018.
The consensus of Kentucky Horse Park and the Cabinet of Tourism, Arts and Heritage professional staff was that hosting the World Equestrian Games in 2018, with such a short timeline, would put the Commonwealth and taxpayers at enormous financial risk. It was also determined that the timeline of two years was too short for the horse park to host the best event possible.
The Kentucky Horse Park is preparing a strong proposal for the World Equestrian Games in 2022. We hope that we can bring people from all over the world back to experience all that Kentucky has to offer.
It’s understandable why the Kentucky Horse Park would prefer to go all-in on a 2022 bid instead of scrambling to cover every detail in a tight 2 year window. But few places on the planet have the infrastructure in place to pull off such an affair in an abbreviated amount of time like the Kentucky Horse Park. Certainly no where else in North America.
So, the question rages on: where in the world will the 2018 World Equestrian Games be held?
The FEI clearly wanted to bring the WEG back to North America in 2018, considering the top two finalists were Bromont and Kentucky (which hosted the first WEG outside of Europe in 2010). But at this point you have to figure the Federation will be content to take the best possible offer no matter the location. And if it really hopes to pull it off in this short window, surely it will offer added concessions and incentives.
Aachen (GER), which hosted in 2006 and stages the multi-discipline, international CHIO Aachen every year, would seem to be a logical front runner, but I have a better idea: what about Rio?
Too soon?
