Stephanie Rhodes-Bosch: The Early Week

Once again, a huge thanks to Steph for keeping us updated on all things WEG from a competitor’s perspective.  Be sure to check out Steph’s site and to give an especially loud cheer for Steph and Ollie throughout the weekend.  The XC photos were taken by another EN friend who shall remain nameless but we appreciate their services nonetheless.  We will of course have more photos of the XC soon.  Thanks for writing this Steph and thank you for reading.
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From Steph:

Monday was a wet and rainy day in Lexington. I think that this is the first time I have been legitimately cold in a really long time!! You know how when its the dead of summer and you’re on your third tshirt, sweat is rolling out from under your helmet, and its nowhere near noon? In that moment, you really wish you were cold. And then it gets cold, and you forget about that hot humid Virginia summer day and you wish more than anything that you were warm. Or hot. Just anything but cold and wet. I reached that point yesterday, and then I remembered that it was Monday, and in after two more days I will be jogging at the World Equestrian Games. Then I didn’t really care what temperature I was. 
 
In order to warm myself up during the times that I wasn’t on my horse, I walked around the park to see what was going on in all the different schooling arenas. There were three or four different languages being spoken outside one arena as big fancy horses did tempi changes and piaffes like it was just a regular walk in the park, and just down the hill the Germans were doing a jump school with their horses in another arena. The medals ceremony was being held for the endurance competition not very far up the road from there, and on the steeplechase track you could spot a handful of different team jackets doing trot sets and light gallops. I have always loved being at big three day competitions, watching all the lovely horses and great riders in the same ring as me, but this is like ten levels of awesome better than that. Not only are the eventing legends on this same piece of Kentucky earth as I am, but the Showjumping and Dressage ones as well!! I’m not familiar with any of the big names in the other disciplines, but its still inspiring to think of the caliber of horse and rider all here at once. Its insane… but anyways… You could hear the same story from almost anyone else who is here in Lexington right now, but as far as your in to whats going on in the Canadian event barn, I’m your girl. So here goes. 

 
JoAnn Wilson, our very fortunate team’s equine physical therapist, worked on the horses again today. I know that Ollie will benefit in a huge way from this, not only during his work, but in all the recovery that must have to go on after the serious work he has been doing. I wish he could have  this kind of treatment on a regular basis!! She saw Ollie today after his jump school, which he was very happy to participate in. There has been an awful lot of dressage going on in that poor boy’s life lately, so Monday morning we hacked around the steeplechase track, and then went for the afternoon jump school instead of more stinkin dressage. He drug his feet a little on the way out of the barn for our second ride, but as soon as we went in to the arena with the jumps in it, I’m not kidding you he put his head up and started this awesome neck pumping walk around the arena. He was so excited. 

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Tuesday, though, more dressage ensued. In the morning, I tried to finesse my way into it by going for a good long hack around the same area where we were yesterday and then somehow magically ending up at the arena that was booked for the team. Lets just say that I didn’t get the same reaction that I got on Monday afternoon. He did actually go to work very well. We got to practice going from a big open ring into a separate 20×60 arena, just to sort of replicate the show day scenario. I can sometimes forget to keep Ollie’s body moving in the transition from one ring to the other, so by the time I get half way down centerline I’m riding an on the forehand 2×4. If I remember to keep him supple and do some mini lateral work and transitions as we are going in between, he stays very rideable. Hm. Ride horse properly…. horse go properly…. Weird. 🙂 This went very well and I got some very nice work in the 20×60.
Around lunchtime Tuesday, they opened the main arena for an open school for all the event horses. So basically, 75 or 80 or however many event horses were careening around in the stadium at the same time. This was a bit of a gong show, but no harm was done (as far as i know) and all the Canadian horses behaved really well. Tucker and Rupert were the only ones that hadn’t been in that ring before, and they both looked great! Its a little difficult to do very much in a scene like that, but we just tried to get up close to the arena (we weren’t allowed in it) and around all the judges booths, and right up agains the boards where all the spooky cameras were. Once we had covered all the areas where boogie men hang out, we did as much as we could without getting into head on collisions, practiced trotting down the chute from the warm up area and going to work, and then got the heck out of there!! 

Once Ollie was taken care of and put away, we hustled back to where we came from where the real dressage was back underway for the afternoon session. The talk of the day was (of course) Moorlands Totilas and Edward Gal. I have been obsessed with this horse since the youtube videos went viral a while back. He is a-freaking-mazing. I went up there very early and stood at the first of four warmup arenas that they cycle through before ending up in the competition arena. I got right up close to the fence, whipped out my camera, and had at it like a paparazzi. After a minute or two though, I put down the camera and just watched this incredible animal. There were an inordinate amount of people around for the warmup, and rightly so. His trot work is so fantastic, I could barely pull my eyes off him to go take my seat in the grandstands. IHe did not disappoint. But I’m sure there are many more educated articles being written about Totilas and Edward’s performance today, so I will finish that by saying I don’t think I have ever been that inspired by anything, ever. I’m not that educated about this kind of dressage, and its not my great passion in life, but I had chills watching that display of just freak of nature athletecism maximized by great training and riding. It was cool. 

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So, Team Canada had our Eve of Competition dinner tonight at a great place in Lexington… I of course forget the name… but if you’re in Lexington for the games, go check out downtown. It looked like a lot of fun, and there are signs outside of all the places welcoming the athletes and fans, so go get it!! I am so happy to be part of such an awesome group of people, and thats not just the riders, its everyone involved. So supportive and talented and…… fun. We have a ridiculous amount of fun, and it starts at 630 am around the breakfast table at our hotel. I know the mood is probably going to get more serious starting tomorrow, but the last few weeks have been a lot of ….  well I can’t really say good, clean fun, because honestly… certain 6’4″ ish members of this group ( and 5’2″ members as well) can take the sense of humor in a bit of a different direction. We have a good time, and after all, isn’t that why we’re here?? It starts tomorrow.
 
Go Eventing
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