January 15, 2024 
Ongoing disagreements between Haras du Pin and Normandy’s Council de L’Orne regional government on one side and the event’s Ustica organizers on the other officially reached a head last week.
For more than a decade, the famed estate and stud farm at Haras du Pin in Normandy, France has been the home of the premier continental eventing series, Le Grand Complet.
The event offers not only key CCI2*-S, CCI3*-S, and CCI4*-S classes for developing horses and riders, but also the French leg of the FEI Nations Cup Series. In recent years, Haras du Pin also hosted the 2014 World Equestrian Games, as well as the 2023 FEI European Eventing Championships—which is partially where the trouble began.
According to a statement released in French on January 8 by Ustica President Valérie Moulin, staging the 2023 FEI European Championships required the investment of €24 million, funded in part by regional taxpayers in combination with other French and European contributions. While this money improved Haras du Pin’s equestrian facilities overall (think: new permanent stabling, arenas, outbuildings, and more), according to Moulin, it was also used to increase demands on Ustica for the upcoming Grand Complet.
The coup de grâce: An up-front, €80,000 fee, due in late December 2023, for site rental, personnel and material charges, and tourism mitigation on the estate. Additionally, Haras du Pin and the Council de L’Orne requested the relocation of Le Grand Complet’s Shopping Village to a new area of the property, a site Ustica determined to be incompatible with their needs. Finally, the organization was prohibited from using their previously established storage facilities, created 13 years ago to help mitigate staging costs.
When Ustica attempted to appeal these stipulations in early 2023, according to Moulin, they were threatened with the cancellation of the European Championships. Consequently, Ustica determined that if they were to make the €80,000 deposit by the required deadline, they would be unable to pay their Le Grand Complet contractors, forcing them to cancel in 2024.
The President added that she hoped the event would return again in 2025, at Haras du Pin or elsewhere.
“Today, after €24 million invested from public funds, this tool has become a profit center whose cost of use is simply [incompatible with] industry associations,” Moulin said. “This choice is harmful not only for external organizers, but above all, for the entire sector and the territory. We sincerely hope that our eviction from the site in 2024 will not prevent the evolution of the [eventing] discipline, which is so dear to us in this emblematic place.”
