Alandra Halem: Arriving at Galway

Thanks to Athletux, we have several exciting guest bloggers lined up to bring all the action from Galway Downs.  Alandra Halem, a former California native, is grooming Copycat Chloe for Allison Springer and just arrived at Galway yesterday.  We’ll enjoy hearing about the West Coast’s premiere three-day event from a groom’s perspective.  Thanks to Alandra for writing, and thank you for reading.

Copycat Chloe

Copycat Chloe settles in at Galway

From Alandra:

Hello from the fabulous Galway Downs in southern California! I am thrilled to return here after having moved out to the east coast almost two years ago. I have always loved coming to this show and I’m looking forward to seeing my house show family and to see what Robert Kellerhouse has been working on while I’ve been gone. It’s a bit of a California homecoming for Copycat Chloe as well and I can’t wait for the crew at Flying Tail Farms (Chloe’s California family) and the rest of the west coasters to see the partnership that she and Allison have been working so hard on.

 

Chloe and The Apprentice share a hay net

Chloe and I arrived Saturday afternoon after a long day of travel. We rolled down down the driveway at 5:00am (not nearly as early as some of our fellow east coast travel buddies!) for a two hour drive to the airport. Then we started the classic airport game of hurry up and wait. By 9:00am we made it into the air and were on our way. A little over an hour later we made a quick stop in Kentucky to pick up some more racehorses and then continued on. Four more hours of flying got us to our final destination. I’d like to give a quick shout out to the Tex Sutton crew on the plane who did a fantastic job handling all of the horses on the way over. Also a big thank you to Mackenna Shea for picking up the east coast horses from the airport and getting us to the feed store.

Chloe was definitely happy to go for a walk and then be tucked in bed for the night. So was I for that matter, though my bedtime was considerably later than the princess. My horribly accurate internal alarm clock reared its ugly head this morning, waking me at 6:00am EST, and despite my attempts to go back to sleep, or at least snooze, I was up for good by 7:30am, aka 4:30am here. I didn’t think Chloe would be pleased to see me so early a second day in a row, so I read for a couple hours before hitting a Starbucks and heading to the barn. Hopefully I can get my brain on board with the time change quickly.

The barn is almost all set up and it’s about time for me to start my repetitive task of cleaning and bathing and otherwise generally fussing over Miss Clo. I believe a full bath is on the list of things to do. I know someone who will have an opinion or two about that. Allison won’t be arriving until Monday afternoon, so I’ll take Chloe and her big ol’ donkey ears on a nice long hack and a bit of a trot Sunday and a long hack before Allison rides her on the flat when she gets here.

It’s a bit quiet in the barns for the time being, but I know soon they will be full of activity as people arrive over the next few days. There’s still plenty for me to do though, so back to work for me!

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