Steph Rhodes-Bosch continues her posts as an Eventing Nation guest blogger today with an update from Team Canada’s first few days at the Kentucky Horse Park. I won’t say that I was certain Steph would be representing Canada at the WEGs when I first asked her to be a guest blogger this spring, but I had a pretty good feeling about it. Steph has been a great friend of Eventing Nation and please visit Steph’s website to learn more about Steph and be sure check out the great fundraising opportunities. Thanks for writing this Steph and thank you for reading.
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Team Canada’s Captain
By Steph:
So, after our ten days of Florida style R&R at Meredyth South, we have been thrown directly into the fire. The horse park is like a three ring freaking circus! There is so much going on here with all of the horses and people from each discipline it is just a constant hum of activity. Its not any sort of bad or hectic energy, just a lot going on, and a big change from our last 10 days.
So, quick overview of our last few days at camp. Monday I had a nice long walk hack and spent about ten minutes doing flat work with Ollie in a very low and deep frame. He was very soft and relaxed by the time we started our lesson, and we brought his frame up after a while and did some very nice work through our movements. We didn’t really try to make it ‘dressage ring perfect’ or anything, just making sure that we could use some of the tools we have been working on building and staying nice and limber. Tuesday we went to Sharn Wordley and Craig Martin’s farm right down the road to do a showjumping school. Their company, Wordley Martin, did the footing in their jump arena and I think it is some of the best footing I have ever ridden on. The horses just pinged right up off the ground, but it still had a lot of cushion for them on landing. Verrryyy cool. Their ring is also pretty big, so we got to string together a course to be ridden fairly forward. It had been a while since Sunday at the AEC’s, so all of us were feeling like this was a very good thing for us to do after so much dressage, and only a quick jump school over exercises at ‘home’.
Wednesday for us was another bit of a playful flat, not drilling the test, but making sure we had all the tricks well established to go out and handle whatever may happen during that all important 5 minute ride in the stadium. He really does feel very good, and I’m feeling pretty confident.
Thursday was the last gallop for the horses. Alot of the horses in our group are Thoroughbreds, so they dont really need to do much as far as fitness at this point, but my horse and Rebecca’s horse are warmblood, and they definitely needed to go and get their heart rates up one last time. We did one of our regular loops at a regular speed which takes about 3 min 45 seconds, and then walked down the big hill to sprint back up the last section, and then walked back down to repeat the sprint a second time. This was a great workout, and Ollie came out of it verrrry well. After a trip in the ice boots and some quality time out in the paddock, Ollie saw Dr. Ann Baskett for his final selection vetting before the games.
It was kind of boring, he just looked like he always does!! Very very good boy. In the middle of all the action on Thursday, my mom arrived in Ocala to help us get on the road. She helped me get the house packed up and cleaned up and cooked me some dinner 🙂 Its nice to have a mommy around.
We left Ocala at 3 am on Friday, which gave us plenty of time to get to the KHP at a reasonable hour. The trip took about twelve hours, and I’m not gonna lie… I slept for almost eight of it. Another reason why its nice to have a mommy (who can drive a truck and trailer) around!! Upon pulling into the KHP in the mid afternoon, you realize right away how different this is from just Rolex. There were SO many horses and temporary stables and people and just activity…. The security coming in in pretty heavy, we had to turn off the truck so a drug/bomb (we’re not sure which) dog could case out the vehicle, then we had to stop at another place and show our horse’s paper work (Piroplasmosis test, deworming certificate, coggins certificate and interstate health certificate, along with the FEI passport).
We eventually pulled up right by the stabling office (if you’re familiar with the KHP in a Rolex Kentucky context, this is the same stabling office) and unloaded the horses. They had rugs to put on the pavement to prevent slipping as the horses came off the ramps, which was great, and then we went straight into a tent where the vets checked the horses out and basically did a regular “In Barn” inspection for ID control and the horse’s well being.
There was a great crew of guys helping everyone with their trunks and stuff from the unloading bay into the stabling. Our guy was James from London, and I’m sure he won’t have time to be reading this post, but he was such a great help. He commented that he enjoyed helping out the Eventers, because all the grooms and a couple of the riders were right up there with James moving around all these big heavy trunks. Apparently, and only according to James from London (not myself) the grooms from the other disciplines just sort of pointed him to the stalls and let him have at it. (GO EVENTING)
We got unpacked and organized really quickly, and then headed off to our very very nice hotel. We are at the Griffin Gate Marriot in Lexington right down the road from the park, and it is super fantastic. I would have been happy to be at the Super 8, but this hotel is the bomb. And apparently the team got a pretty good deal on it too. (Probably at least triple the rate of the Super 8, but I guess you might as well)
Saturday morning, we went on kind of an epic trek around the horse park, trying to figure out where we could hack. Yes, thats right. Hacking is restricted to certain times and certain areas. So after our grand tour, we went down to the warmup areas for our allotted schooling times. 945-10 am we were in the upper warmup across the path from the stadium and final warmup, and from 10 – 1015 am we were allowed in the final warmup arena right next to the stadium. I really didn’t do hardly any schooling, but it was great practice to get into those arenas to just put his head down and do a little bit.
I felt really bad for Ginny, Parker, and Rupert because the only hack to get from the stables to this schooling area is on the steeplechase track outside the xc course, and some of the other countries chose to gallop their horses on Saturday. Ginny had a horse zoom up right behind her, and it was a little much for her to take. The three of them were a little theatrical most of the time we were trying to walk from place to place. Thankfully for me, Ollie couldn’t really care less about any of this activity, he just takes it all in stride. Unless there is a tractor around…. for some reason, that is terrifying.
On Saturday night we had the opening ceremonies! All the riders from all the countries gathered in the old indoor arena at the KHP and ate free pizza and beer in there as we waited to assemble for the parade of athletes. We were in the indoor for about 45 minutes and then people walked in with signs for all the countries and we assembled behind them. We walked in formation all the way to the stadium. As they introduced each country the crowd would road and it was an amazing feeling. I could hear especially large cheers for us from the pockets of Canadian supporters around the stadium. Once we walked around the stadium, we listened to the introduction speeches and watched several demonstrations before heading home. I’ll have my next report for Eventing Nation on Tuesday.
Until then, get that cheer going: C-A N-A D-A…. GOOO CANADA! 🙂
