Team Canada Trunks
Hey Eventing Nation!
I’m writing from day 7 at Camp Canada down here in Ocala, Florida. We have been having a great time down here, having many very useful and educational rides over this past week. All the horses are doing well, even the few that have had to be rehydrated because of the heat and travelling on top of their stressful jobs. Dr. Ober has kept a close eye on everyone, doing several jogs throughout the week and even taking urine samples from each horse for a baseline of their hydration levels. Everyone is enjoying as much turnout as they want, as well as the ideal training facility that we are lucky enough to be able to use.
Our schedule over the past week has been something like this:
Monday–after dropping my boyfriend off at the very busy Atlanta airport WITH the truck and trailer, travel from Atlanta to Ocala with me, my horse and everything I own covered in red clay and dust.
Tuesday–attempt to remove the Georgia red clay and dust from me, my horse and everything I own with the help of my wonderful groom for these few weeks, Rachel Goff. Ollie got to have Tuesday off as an extra treat. 5 hours of turnout was exactly what he wanted to do.
Wednesday–“light” flat with DOC. This was probably a reasonable workout for Ollie. I felt a little stressed out about it. David is on a bit of a dressage warpath, and is really pushing to get every ounce of dressage wonder out of everyone!!
Thursday was my favorite–we had Gunner Ostergaard come to the farm to play with us on the 4 * test. It was really interesting to have someone else’s input on our work, and very educational to spend the morning out there watching everyone else have their lessons too! He put a little more focus on my inexperience than David has been lately, which may have been a good thing, but generally I like to be pushed within my education, instead of given any leeway whatsoever.
Friday–gallop day! This was probably Ollie’s favorite day. He felt great, powerwalked all the way back to the barn…
Saturday–dressage schooling show!! Jen Holling, who is a Canadian selector, is one of the behind the scenes forces at the Florida Horse park, and she set us up with 2 tests each at her show on Saturday morning…. The day after our gallop…. Fun times. Actually, aside from being a little tired in his canterwork of the second test, Ollie was great. I botched one movement per test, which seems to be my M.O. right now. As a wise man named Kyle Carter once told me: “One would hate to peak at the Ocala Schooling Show” I repeat this often. I have not yet said this to David (mostly out of fear of being smacked) but I am forgiving myself of my sins at the dressage show.
Sunday–each of the horses did some work over jumping exercises here at the farm. All I can say, is that Canada has some freakin awesome jumping horses… so watch out world!!
This week, Randy is here to shoe the horses, and we are going Sharn Wordley’s place right down the road to practice jumping more of a course scenario, as well as one final gallop, one final selection vetting, and some bootcamp in the 20×60 (of course)
I am so excited to be a part of this process. On a day to day basis, we are all just kind of putting our heads down and doing our jobs, but every so often the hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I remember what it is we are actually doing here. Like, when I think that 5 days from now, we will be pulling into the Kentucky Horse Park, and 12 days from now we will have all done our dressage at the FREAKING WORLD GAMES. Now, I know that I’m one of the few eventers going to the WEG for their first major games, and all the veterans probably just take it all in stride, but I’m going to let myself be very excited and very proud of this opportunity, because who knows?? I might not ever get to do something like this again. (I might not even get to do it in the first place, 12 days is plenty of time for things to go ka-boom in the world of horses)
Every person involved with the CET has been a lot of fun to be around and I really feel like it is a very supportive group to be part of. I am looking forward to our last few days of camp, and for everything that is to come over the next 2 weeks!
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned…. And don’t forget to go to www.stephanie-rhodes-bosch.com for a chance to win a really cool all inclusive vacation. (The tickets are only 10 bucks, all proceeds DIRECTLY to the riders) It’s a shameless plug, really… but theres ony 10 days left to support CET athletes with this fundraiser.
🙂 Steph and Ollie
