A gorgeous shot of Selena, by Lucas Tingle.
OK, Great Meadows is over, all things being equal, Woody will be getting on his flight to Europe on the eventing of the twelfth of August. Phew.
It seems like it should be easy to blog on the lead up to such events, but in actual fact the process itself is not only tense but it is a time consuming occupation, not just for Selena and Woody but for the twenty or so people that are standing behind her. You know the term “It takes a village”? Well in this case “It takes a barn.”
We are based at Balsam Hall, a boarding and training facility in Kingston. We have staff, and we have long term working students. We have short term working students. We have boarders. We have boarders who are also working students, and we have boarders who are also staff on certain days of the week. We are a very integrated barn!
When Selena and Anne Marie Duarte (who actually runs the place) go away together to one of Woody’s special outings, the ratio of our two top riders to one horse takes its toll. The rest of the barn has to step up to the plate and take over all sorts of extra horses that are normally ridden and cared for by Selena and AM (aka Anne Marie). You never hear a grumble or a complaint from a single person. The whole team kicks smoothly into gear, boarders appear with brooms in the afternoons, my staff try to outdo each other on who can arrive the earliest every morning, and a long day with a late finish is treated like some kind of party with laughing and joking and usually a bit of eating….as I have mentioned before, this is the best barn in the entire universe for ‘food in the tack room.’ This well-oiled response from my wonderful friends has already smoothed its way into fully operational status on the lead up to the WEGs.
The last Canadian training camp, AM stayed home and I went with Selena and Woody. This was because it coincided with Jordan McDonald’s memorial service and both Selena and I wished very much to attend. What can I say about that that has not been said? I sat down and started writing a blog post about it the next day, but I had to stop because I could not see my screen and now as I write this I am once again overwhelmed with sadness that I will never see him again.
The last time I actually spoke more than a “Hi How are you” to Jordan was when his horse was withdrawn from the Pan Ams and Woody was put in in his place. Obviously it was exciting for Selena and I, but we had both known and loved Jordan and Shandiss for many, many years, and we knew that they had worked hard and waited a long time for the chance to have a horse on the team. It was therefore with very torn emotions and feeling very awkward that I went up to Jordan at an event to say how sorry I was that he had been forced to withdraw. He made me feel comfortable immediately with his big smile and a shrug of his shoulders and his excited support of the team that was going to go to Mexico. A gentleman.
The next blow was Graeme Thom’s resignation from the team. It hit hard. The pressures on the team are immense. The riders all have a sense of team responsibility that puts another level of stress onto their performance. You cannot help it, as soon as you are part of a team, there is that added pressure not to let down your team mates/country that goes beyond the stress that individual competition places on the rider.
Graeme Thom had the ability to reduce stress. First of all he took as much of it as was possible upon himself so that it did not land on the team’s shoulders, and he did that quietly and efficiently. Secondly he was always calm and in control without ever losing his wonderful sense of humour, keeping things from getting too intense while still ensuring that everything was dealt with, and the whole show operated like a smooth machine. He is the ultimate ‘go to’ person. It is difficult to gauge just how much of our recent team success has been directly attributable to Graeme, his input and presence has been invaluable, and without him we would most definitely not be where we are. Everyone out there has to realize that his resignation was a HUGE loss to Canada. Because Graeme Thom is a gentleman, we will probably never know what caused him to resign, I doubt very much is EC is going to let us in on what lost us our wonderful chef d’equipe. We were smug in the knowledge that he was our secret weapon. I cannot tell you how much we will miss his calm presence.
Another great photo, courtesy of Lucas Tingle.
Selena sped off to Chesterland the week before Great Meadows, in between showing younger horses here in Canada and a busy clinic schedule. Competing Sunday at Will O Wind, then Monday drive to Chesterland for a week’s training with Bruce Davidson, her valued coach and long-time friend. Drive back up on the Friday to do a clinic at a great boarding and training facility in the Brockville area, Temperance View Farm. Then off to Great Meadows at 5:30 in the morning so as to get there in time to ride the horses before dark. It’s a brutal schedule.
We also had to fit in visits from the federal vets to take Coggins samples (cannot be done by regular vet for this trip) and work out a date when the same federal vets will come back to take a blood sample for Vesicular Stomatitis test that has to be done within ten days of the horse landing in Europe. This means the first day the blood can be taken is Sept. 5th because the federal vets don’t work weekends and they don’t work bank holidays! The only lab that does the testing is in Manitoba. After some initial panic about whether or not we would have the paperwork in our hot sweaty little hands in time to board the plane (the test can take up to five days to perform) we handed the whole mess over to Peden’s transport whom are looking after the travel arrangements for our valuable cargo. Phew! Thank goodness for Pedens. I am not sure what magic they perform, but apparently they can move mountains and are assured that all will be well. It’s little things like these consequences of an outbreak of Vesicular Stomatitis in Colorado that keep you awake at night. I have clear memories of the Mexican eventing team on their way to the three star at Checkmate not making it across the US border…
Great Meadows went well. Woody was in good fettle and the team were pleased with him. He enjoyed his run and is fit and ready to go.
Yesterday my dogs started barking at 6:25 a.m. I thought they had seen a rabbit out the window and as I already had my head in the computer I just yelled at them. But no, they were right. There were two people standing at the door, clipboards in hand and a huge rolling suitcase behind them. “Can we please see Selena, we are from dope control,” said the gentleman as soon as I finally listened to the dogs and opened up the door. Gosh, Selena has been dope tested lots of times, as soon as you win a medal (WEG and Pan Ams) it’s automatic and if you win an FEI event you or your horse are often tested but we had never had a ‘home visit’ before. Anyway, they were very nice and at 6:25 a.m. yesterday Selena was up being tested in our living room for illegal substances…you just never ever know what the next day is going to bring you in this business. Every day is a new adventure.
I am not going to rant…suffice it to say, the summer has been a bit cool and wet!
The young horses have been doing great. The two boys that Selena has been riding Training have been winning, and winning ribbons all season. They are moving up to Prelim this weekend. Very exciting. One of our long term students/boarders, Kelly Damp, is also moving up to Prelim this weekend. She has been ‘kicking ass’ at Training all year and is doing her very first Prelim at Steven’s Creek. We have a big outing on Sunday with riders from our barn in every level offered from Entry to Prelim. Lots of fun. We ran a barn practice show on the weekend and the mood is ready and rockin’.
Yesterday we had a visit from our sponsors Purina. Purina have been helping us keep our horses in the condition they need for international competition for many years. They have been absolutely wonderful and this is the first time a group has come to visit us here at Balsam Hall. We enjoyed explaining what the sport of eventing entails and we brought Woody out to show off 🙂 Woody is particularly fond of his Purina Trimax, so he really did his best to please and he did a gymnastic exercise to show how a great big horse can jump in and out of tight spots. It was a lovely visit on a lovely afternoon.
So this Sunday is Steven’s Creek, the following Saturday Selena is riding Woody at a local dressage show then galloping home to get changed and attend a family wedding and the Tuesday after that Woody flies to Holland and spends time in a horse hotel there with AM before going on to the UK by ferry. Woody and AM leave on the Tuesday, Selena on the Thursday to meet up with them at the Canadian training camp at Maizey Manor in England and I trail after them to meet up in France on the 23rd.
Packing is the usual nightmare. There is a MOUNTAIN of Purina Trimax sitting in our hallway, over 15 bags have to go (Woody is taking all his grain with him for training camp in the UK and the WEGS) and a big box of his Omega Alpha supplements, which also have to be shipped and go through customs with his grain. Without these to fuel him, Woody cannot be the machine he is. Boogaloo Boots have just sent Selena a lovely range of boots for Woody to use in Europe, thank you Boogaloo. His new hay nets from Handy Haynets, his special saddle pads from Draper Therapy and his beautiful new saddles that his owner bought him from our great sponsors Voltaire. FITS have provided new whites for WEG, shirt and breeches, they are the most comfortable you can imagine. La Mundial boots who have been sponsoring Selena since the last WEG four years ago are sponsoring the whole Canadian Team for this WEG. The boots have a cute little maple leaf at the top of the zip. House of Angels has Selena’s evening wear tastefully chosen. Charles Owen looks after Selena’s head, JoJo Sox look after her feet and the team is being supplied this year with new Tipperary body protectors and Point Two vests. Rambo Horseware are looking after sheets for the team horses. We are lucky to have such good personal and team sponsors.
This does not mention all who help. I will do that after WEG but just the ones that are presently piling up in the packing pile. We are trying to bring our packing process up to date using a phone app – once it is set up, I think it will work very well, but like everything that includes entering vast amounts of data….setup is taking a while, it won’t be in place for WEG. I love technology so I am always trying to meld it into my barn routines.
Selena and Anne Marie going to Blog during the WEG trip. Between them they feel they can cover the whole thing. Watch here for Selena’s updates as the WEG excitement builds.
The two photos are from Winding Violets studio, the photographer is Lucas Tingle. He came and did a whole photo shoot one evening as a donation for Selena’s fundraising (we want to take Rocky to Galway in California in November). The whole series of photos are quite lovely and we are allowed to use them whenever and wherever we wish. Thank you Lucas Tingle!
