Well, yes, I suppose Red Hills IS over, but wait, there’s more! I managed to catch a few quick words with Course Designer Hugh Lochore’s dad Hamish yesterday, and have only managed to get to it this afternoon.
For me, the best thing about eventing without a doubt has always been the wonderful friendships I’ve made and people I’ve met; the sense of fun and camaraderie, it’s a real family that comes together at competitions during the season, plays together, celebrates together, commiserates together, and helps each other out at all times. I’m delighted now to be forging new friendships within the US eventing community, but also rekindling old ones.
Hamish and I had such fun talking about the “good old days”, but he’s also got his finger on the pulse; he and his wife Polly run the Burgie International Horse Trials, and his other son, Alec is in charge of the eventing at next years Olympics in London. Nonetheless, we both agreed that Red Hills is second to none as an event where the community is involved. The support of the town of Tallahassee makes all the difference, and is astounding in it’s scope. The list of sponsors is a couple of pages long, and the volunteers span several more pages, and everyone I saw was happy and helpful, and dying to talk to me about the event.
The Live Oak Hounds, a private pack founded by C. Martin Wood III and his wife Daphne Flowers Wood, that hunts coyote, fox and bobcat in North Florida, and South Georgia.
They paraded in the main arena before the CIC 3* show-jumping.
I did notice someone filming the show-jumping on a brand new Ipad 2, but didn’t dare tell Eventing Safety John for fear I’d be held responsible for the consequences! Last I heard ESJ arrived safely in LA at 3:30 am EST, and was heading straight to an apple store after breakfast. He has a 24 hour layover there, and will be well-taken care of by one of his twitter friends, that’s all I can say! Hopefully he’ll write more about it for his next post on Eventing nation, under the “insanity” banner!
Anyway, this post was supposed to be about Hamish Lochore, so let’s have a look at that:
Just to clarify: Hugh Lochore most certainly IS an R certified course designer, it just seems that the R keeps being forgotten to be printed after his name, but he’s as qualified as they come. I’d also like to point out that I DO know that Tattersalls is in Ireland (!), and also that it’s one of my cousin’s favourite events and he strives to ride at it every year whether his horses are ready or not. I’m sure that’s all down to Hugh’s courses and nothing to do with the parties. I’d like to thank Hamish for talking to me and the entire Lochore family for their wonderful and generous hospitality. Next time I’ll try and get Hamish to talk about the events he’s been to, he told me some wonderful stories about the Mexico Olympics and others, and stabling at Luhmuhlen in the indoor arena in stalls made out of straw bales and ladders! (They were serving mimosas in the sponsors tent so we’ll blame the confusion on the refreshments. I didn’t have one, and I didn’t see Hamish have one either, but it’s a good excuse!)
I think I was the only person on the plane from Atlanta to Lexington yesterday not wearing Wildcat Blue from top to toe, and of course the stewardess led a cheer before we could leave the gate. That’s the kind of involvement Tallahassee has in Red Hills, and it was a treat to experience it. I promise now to try not to write any more now about it until next year. Thanks for your patience, for reading, and go eventing!
