Palexpo rose out of the ground next to the airport in the late 1970s. The new exhibition centre opened on 18 December 1981, but it took hall 5, in 1987, before it could host a show on the grand scale. The CHI organisers had been dreaming of it for years.
After the 1989 edition, Yves G. Piaget summoned his whole committee at 7 a.m.: the World Cup now demanded a yearly rhythm, and Les Vernets had to be left behind. Pierre E. Genecand raised his hand and asked for forty-eight hours. Barely forty years old, he took on both challenges at once.
“That first year, we laid our peat mix straight over the earth left by the Supercross.”
Pierre E. GenecandPresident of the CHI-W of Geneva from 1991 to 2003 — Photo Aldag
It is one of my earliest memories, and certainly a very strong memory of Palexpo: the 1996 World Cup final. I remember being able to meet my idols up close for the first time. Rodrigo, still very young back then, and above all Ludger. Telling myself that one day we too would like to be part of that world.Testimonial from the film — Steve Guerdat
107 metres by 52 in the first year, 107 by 57 the next: a record. The stands, which once again have to be built and taken down as in the old days, are at first a little too large.
They fill up fast. 18,000 spectators in 1991, 19,000 in 1992, 23,000 in 1993. To share the cost of the stands, Pierre E. Genecand teamed up with his cousin Didier and with Daniel Perroud, the organisers of the motorcycle Supercross.
“Palexpo is a wonderful venue and so easy to reach, right by the airport, along the motorway.”
Palexpo is vast, but empty. For every edition a horse show has to be built from scratch, then taken down again. These are the figures of the very first build.
The volunteers would prove, more and more, to be the soul of the show — and one of the main reasons for its success.
The bank returns, as at the old Palais, and a lake is dug — as far as anyone knows, a first indoors. The arena is still a little cold, but the show grows richer and the stands begin to hum.
For the hunt class, a shepherd and six sheep are set up right beside the lake: enough to add a little more anxiety for some horses, and for their riders. A fine exercise in courage, which Ludger Beerbaum wins with Almox Rasman.
“The largest indoor arena in the world allowed us to put a hunt class on the programme, an event more usually held outdoors, often as a derby. For that we built a lake and a big bank inside Palexpo.”
A huge Lufthansa Jumbo freighter touches down on the Cointrin runway. On board, twenty-three American and Canadian horses that boarded in Miami. They will reach Palexpo on foot, with their grooms, through a tunnel running under the motorway.
Ernest Scherz's stables do the rest: a five-star hotel for the horses, and grooms looked after day and night, raclette and ham on the bone included. When the grooms are happy, it shows in the riders' morale.
10,400 people in the hall, pictures relayed by nearly forty television channels, and a closing act worthy of high drama. Rodrigo Pessoa, 23 years old and 9.5 points clear, comes undone on the final line devised by Paul Weier. Two men are left.
He is 53 and the veteran of this final. His E. T. stands 1.60 m at the withers. In the jump-off the Austrian cuts inside the lake, on sheer nerve, and denies Willi Melliger and the whole of Switzerland a first World Cup title.
“The finest day of my life,” said Simon, in tears of joy.
The big grey is a giant, and all of Switzerland believes him untouchable. Melliger would never take his revenge in the World Cup.
Yet his two Olympic silver medals with Calvaro V and his four European titles make him a giant of the sport in his own right.
Not remotely partisan, the crowd rises as one to salute the winner's daring. Rodrigo Pessoa would turn that defeat into a springboard, winning the 1998, 1999 and 2000 finals with Baloubet du Rouet.
Twenty years of Palexpo, and three riders who entered the show's legend.
The very first World Cup Grand Prix held at Palexpo goes to the Frenchman. He produces a wild jump-off to push Markus Fuchs and his brilliant little Shandor off the top spot.
And to think that his good Waïti Oscar had been eliminated on a refusal only a week earlier, in Bordeaux.
In 1993, thirty years after his father Nelson's luminous arrival, a 21-year-old Brazilian wins the Grand Prix with Special Envoy. He would become an icon for the Geneva crowd.
World champion at 25, Olympic champion in 2004, three consecutive World Cups from 1998 to 2000, and two Rolex IJRC Top 10 finals won in Geneva with his phenomenal Baloubet du Rouet.
On 18 April 2010, in a Palexpo heated to boiling point, the German wins his third Rolex FEI World Cup. He joins Hugo Simon, Rodrigo Pessoa and Meredith Michaels Beerbaum on the roll of honour.
No rider had ever won a final riding two horses: he does it with Noltes Küchengirl and Plot Blue, on the eve of his 36th birthday.
Fourteen years on, Geneva welcomes the world again. Five days, 54,300 spectators, and cows back in the arena. Steve Guerdat, the local favourite, takes the second leg of the final and then the Grand Prix; Pius Schwizer shares second place with Ludger Beerbaum.
1991 saw the 31st CHI held at Palexpo. There would be thirty-five in a row up to the centenary, with a single interruption, at the end of 2020.
Staging a final is what gives you the wings to imagine something bigger still.
