Carrie Meehan, one of Eventing Nation’s guest bloggers, is competing in her first CCI* here at Bromont this weekend. Today she gives us an early look at the Bromont scenery and her first impressions from Canada. Click here for Carrie’s entries leading up to this big moment in her eventing career. Thanks for writing this Carrie and thank you for reading.
From Carrie:
Greetings from Canada!!
I feel like I just wrote my last blog post, yet it was two weeks ago… I’ll make this short and sweet because I’ve got a long day ahead of me today. We ended up leaving the barn around 3 a.m Tuesday morning and not making it to the horse park until about 6 Tuesday afternoon. Talk about a long drive, ugh! After being slightly confused where we were stalled and where to unload, we got the horses out and let them stretch their legs. Oh, I can’t forget to mention that Duke and I came with Ashley Kehoe and her wonderful horse Mazetto. They are riding in the CCI***, so Duke and I got the special privilege of being in the barn with all of the ** and *** horses!
The more I walked around the more out of place I felt. Everywhere I looked there were posters of sponsors, multiple coolers from Rolex hanging from racks, and perfectly cleaned and polished tack decorating the stalls. While I was unloading I walked past so many well known riders I look up to and everyone seemed to know everyone else. I’m feeling a bit, or a lot, star-struck and out of my element right now to say the least. I’m just feeling really lucky to have an amazing horse like Duke who’s been there, and done that because at least I know he’s done all this before. I think I’ll just follow his lead, haha!
But besides all of that, I know everyone here has worked extremely hard and deserves to be here. Anything can happen in this sport, so it’s all fair game and you just never know how things will play out. I’m just thrilled to have finally made it here and to be sitting on such an amazing animal that I know is going to take care of me. The first jog starts today at 3 p.m, which means the event will officially be under way!
I wish the best of luck to everyone this week and hope that we all have safe and successful rides! Yay eventing!
—Carrie and Duke
p.s. I apologize for the bad picture, but I took it from my phone when we first pulled into the park and I didn’t really know what I would be getting. But it’s a view of part of the XC course, and you can see the advanced drop towards the left hand side.
