It is Friday morning before 5am and I find myself writing. Yesterday was the first day of dressage at Burghley, but you would know that unless you have been on Mars for the last couple of days as Samantha has had less sleep than me and still has more content to upload from yesterday while I write.
The mercies of wireless Internet and dodgy wifi are the bane of the EN team, you shoot photos or video all day and then cross your fingers you can upload it in less than 18 hours.
I am not going to recap the days events but share a little of my day. As a Technical Delegate (TD) we work hard with long days, but we have some fantastic rewards.
For me, one of the best rewards is to be able to watch from inside the rope-line on the field of play. We can really get close to the action, watch and learn from the best.
Yesterday, I wandered around the trade stands and had a quick look, I got lost, which isn’t hard, there are nearly 600 trade stands, plus a heap of catering vans. It is definitely conceivable you could come here for all four days and not actually see a horse. You would need a heavily reinforced credit card, but it is possible.
As an Aussie I love to see our guys perform and the best performance was first out in dressage Sam Griffiths who remains in the top 10 (6th) after day one.
However, for me the best performance was Boyd and Neville. They may both ride in the red, white and blue, but both horse and rider are Aussies, by all rights Neville shouldn’t even be here let alone sitting just outside the top ten (12th) and the best placed US combination, it is a miracle.
That said, they still have the enormous challenge of an 11 minute 40 second “proper” four star track in front of them. I wish them and every other combination the best of luck and hope everyone finishes safe and well on Saturday.
With William Fox-Pitt in the lead, I am pretty sure the best dressage is yet to come and there will be one or two tests in the low 30s by day’s end. Quite probably the best tests won’t happen until after lunch today.
Last night, I was very lucky to be invited to the cocktail party at Burghley House, we were in the back garden and it was beautiful. A great opportunity to see some of the riders let their hair down, just a touch.
Following the cocktail party I picked up Samantha Clark and we went out for dinner at a local pub with photographer Nico Morgan, his beautiful other half Charlotte and equestrian photographer Jon Stroud. It was a lovely dinner and great to pick the brains of two of the best. It definitely reminded me of the privileged opportunities I get between my dual roles as TD and EN writer.
Today will be fun and as the countdown to cross country gets closer, I know the nerves of the riders will increase. I don’t have a lot of photos from yesterday as I tweeted so hard I killed the battery on my blackberry, there are lots of pics in the twitter feed #LRBHT. Have a great day Eventing Nation.
Yours in Eventing,
ESJ
