Photo: Courtesy Alltech Inc./Philippe Millereau/KMSP

A preview of what’s to come when France hosts the 2014 World Equestrian Games.

On June 6, 1944, American, Australian, Canadian, and British forces surprised German troops as they debarked on the English Channel’s French shores, storming the Normandy beaches in one of the bloodiest battles in modern times. 

Seventy years later, America, Australia, England, Germany, France, and dozens of other nations will join together Aug. 23 to Sept. 7 in peaceful sportsmanship along these same beaches as they compete in a sport that epitomizes unity and partnership: equestrianism. The Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games (WEG) will open in the rich and fertile French region of Normandy—celebrated for its fine cheeses, landscapes, and horses—famous for the invasion that marked the beginning of the end of World War II in Europe.

The Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI) event in Caen, France, in the northwestern region of Basse-Normandie—the Games’ seventh edition—promises to bring together many nations to an internationally emotional site, grounded in rich equine heritage