Aw rats. Rats, rats, rats. It must suck to be Eric tonight. Although maybe not quite so much as it sucks to be Rodrigo. I know I should be happy for Abdullah. I know I should. I’m trying to find it in my heart. Is it just sour grapes that I feel this way? Or is it legitimate to think that he hasn’t really earned his stripes yet? He just got the horse six weeks ago, and judging by the way it cruised around (except for Eric’s rail) with all the other riders it’s not quite the difficult creature he made it out to be last night in the press conf. At least Hickstead was the leading horse. At least there was that. But Eric, you are still Captain L’Amazing to me. And you know you are just about the best when a bronze medal is a disappointment.
What does please me is that Phillippe Le Jeune won gold. That makes two Belgian world champions in a row – as long as we accept Jos Lansink as Belgian, which I guess is close enough since Holland is right next door and they all speak the same bizarro sounding language. When Phillippe came out of the ring on Hickstead – the last round of the last rotation of horse swapping – he leaned down and gave Sticks a big hug and kiss. He then got off and gave Eric’s groom Delfine a hug – then Rodrigo, then his own horse, it was just hugs all around. Can’t not love that, right? I really want to go on about Saudi Boy but I’ll let it go and hope I have an overnight attitude adjustment. Ok I will go on just a bit. We all cringed when he was warming up on Sticks. The announcer, a fellow by the name of Brian Lookabill, actually said that he was “attempting to warm up”, which was exactly what it looked like. We wondered at what point Sticks would just decide to run away with him, and fortunately for Abdullah it was only at the end of his clear round. If this young man goes on to further greatness, I will make up for all my negativity. I promise. 
Horse Sport’s editor Susan Stafford-Pooley enjoyed my fun-with-names post last night. It got her to thinking that while so many horses’ names are too long, the Canadian horses’ names are too short. Here is what she came up with as a new name for Sticks:
A&W Home Depot Hickstead Cargo van d’River 69. 

And on the subject of names, I received a complaint from GoLightly about not including Piggy French in my name game. I was focusing on show jumpers, GoLightly. But since you asked, here is what I can do with Piggy French. First of all, her real name is Georgina, so why she ended up Piggy and not George is a mystery. But to have fun all you have to do is put her last name first and you get a French Piggy. That’s the Gallic version of pig-in-a-blanket, I think. This little French piggy went to market, this little French piggy stayed home…

I have some more goodies to share about discovering that the hillbilly love shack is in a dry county and other odds and ends, but I’m feeling grumpy and in need of a soothing glass of wine to recover from Eric’s bad day at the office. So I’ll save them for when I wake up – I hope – on the right side of the bed.

Tomorrow I think I’ll take another swing at the gaited horse people. I miss them and their clever quips. I’m sure they’ll be back, racking around the stadium in the closing ceremonies. And by the way, my new nick name according to all my friends is Sour Old Patch. It’s even my bbm status.