Going to Mont St Michael in suitable style
Competition wise, things have been a bit quiet around here since WEG. We only did one more local show, where our two Prelim horses excelled. Leo and Thunder just upgraded to Prelim halfway through this year but they have shown themselves ready to be competitive from the beginning.
Selena has been giving quite a lot of clinics. She goes to Vermont once a month and in the past few weeks she has also fitted into her schedule, a Pony Club clinic and a local clinic at a friend’s barn. I think there has only been one free weekend.
This upcoming weekend is the Royal Winter Fair. Selena is taking Solo again. She has taken Solo once before. He coped better than we had expected with the lights and all the razzmatazz but he didn’t focus well enough on the first night. On the second night he did really well, perhaps having an idea of what was coming. It always amazes me that when the show jumper and the hunters are jumping their safe, fall down jumps, the commentator asks for quiet and nobody is allowed to move in their seats. When the eventers are in there jumping FIXED jumps, the lights are flashing, the music is blaring and the commentator is whipping the audience into a frenzy….go figure!
Dressage in front of the National Stud in Normandy
I personally have been doing absolutely nothing useful. I had a knee replacement and it is keeping me away from the barn. I have had my knee worked on before (20 years ago) so I had a good idea of what I was in for. I am fine about the op and the pain and all that stuff. It’s the WEEKS of doing almost nothing that drive me absolutely insane! However it was very nice to have the time to watch the live streaming of Pau and Galway.
I won’t be going to the Royal either. Feeling very sorry for myself missing the one show where I can be guaranteed to meet up with almost everyone I know. The Royal really is the end of the year social occasion where you randomly bump into horse people from your past and present and then of course there is the shopping! I am looking forward to the live streaming.
Burghley House.
Talking of shopping…the WEG having been an absolute nightmare (on many fronts) for shopping. The vendors that were there has little or no stock, especially the vendors of WEG clothing etc. I bought the last three t-shirts at 5pm on the Saturday! At the eventing venue, the vendors had to park their trucks at the top of a ridiculously steep muddy grass hill and hand bomb everything downhill to the site. No wonder they had little or no stock there. The vendor village at the main site in Caen was a 25 minute walk from the actual venue. Supposedly there were shuttles to take you from venue to venue, or venue to vendors’ village – I never saw one of these magical conveyances throughout the whole week I was there.
Burghley on the other hand was a shopaholic’s dream with a huge array of shops, and several lanes of fantastic food. The plethora of choices was so splendid that it was really hard to know where to eat and how to see as many of the shops as possible. The traffic at Burghley was ushered in and out of a well thought out one way system so that you really never pulled up anywhere to a full stop but were kept quietly moving until you were out of the Burghley competition zone. it was SO well run and organized after the catastrophe that was the WEG. Take notice Bromont!!!!
Blenheim Palace.
I also went on to Blenheim Palace. The WEG, Burghley and Blenheim Palace all run back to back. Blenheim Palace was another beautifully organized event, although on a smaller scale. The Cotswolds in England, where Blenheim Palace is situated, really is a stunning part of the World and well worth a visit.
So this weekend is the RWF, Selena will come home on the Sunday. On the Monday, she and Woody and a couple of the sale horses are going to spend a few days training with Bruce Davidson in Pennsylvania. She is back from there on Thursday so that she can leave for a clinic in Vermont on the Friday. We call this our ‘down time’ in eventing, but really and truly, it’s only the horses that get to take it a little easier, for the rest of us it’s life as usual on the roller coaster that is an evener’s life.
One last thing. WEG was the worst event I have ever been to in my life. Food, mud, traffic, toilets – I am sure you have read about it all over the internet. To make up for it, the French crowd on XC and SJ days were probably the best and most enthusiastic crowd I have ever heard Selena said that out on the XC the roar of the crowd lifted her spirits and made her try harder. That is a country that really likes the sport of eventing. The Canadian team made it into seventh place. Beating the USA dream team that cost millions and the New Zealand dream team that frankly looked unbeatable. They worked hard to get that seventh spot. As most of you know, sixth spot would have given them an automatic qualification for Rio.
One of the French horses was tested positive for a banned/controlled substance. Both the A and B tests were positive. Now it seems to me that the new rule as of 2012 states quite clearly that if one member of a team proves positive then the whole team is automatically eliminated. Assuming then that the French team should be eliminated, our Canadian team would move up into sixth and have our Rio qualification. So…..why does it take an FEI tribunal? If the rule is that the team is eliminated, and if both tests have proved positive…..why has the French team not been disqualified? It seems straightforward to me.
