Fair Hill International Day 1 By Diana Burnett

This weekend I am riding Shigatzi in the 2 star. He is a homebreed, 7 year old Canadian thoroughbred. We had to scratch Wild T'mater due to an abcsess that came up a week ago. Ahhh horses! Today started off with a morning ride and the 10am rider meeting where we got our good luck ponies. That accompanied by my lucky number 13 should bode well for a good weekend! The jog was at 1pm. The jog strip was very long and the ground jury held quite a few in the 2 star. Sandra had Shaggy looking beautiful!

After the jog we were able to familiarize our horses with the main arena. Shigatzi started to feel a bit fresh when we approached the xc jumps in the middle of the ring. After getting over that we had a lovely ride. Half of the 2 star does dressage tomorrow and the rest as well as the 3 star go on Friday.

Now we are off to the first Calcutta party here, where teams of riders are going to be auctioned off to help raise money for the event. Should be a fun night with Jimmy as the mc. I heard there's going to be losts of yummy food too! Looking forward to walking the course tomorrow and going to be dreaming of elegant, precise dressage movements!

Until tomorrow - Diana

Sinead's Boekelo Update

"There can only be one winner of Boekelo, but everyone else is going to have a bloody good time!" has been the quote repeated throughout the stables and common area's at Boekelo CCI ***. I feel like this is the right event with the right group of people/horses and most definitely the right time to be here in Holland. At Bad Boekelo (our hotel) the four of us (Will, Doug,Tiana and I) have very quickly become like family members due to the fact that we are all staying in a 2 bedroom apartment together. Unfortunately when living with two boys being like a "family" means politeness is out the window. Tiana and I have found ourselves speechless and a little grossed out on more than one occasion, but mostly there has been a lot of laughing!

We had our trot up and briefing today which both went well and then we took off to look at the course. I knew that I liked the idea of going on this trip for the experience of travel etc. but when I walked this track I realized that my horse nor I have competed with atmosphere like this. I am feeling like this experience will help in future competitions where hopefully we will be competing in an official team championship. The knowledge on how our horses and how individually we will handle this type of "high profile" event will be invaluable . I'm not kidding you when I'm saying that literal bars( for drinking alcohol) are built into the jumps! There are supposed to be around 40,000 spectators and the galloping lanes at times are only about 5 ft in width. The track is 10min 45 sec and is mostly flat terrain in and out of woods, stadiums, trade fairs, restaurants, lounge areas and occasionally an old fashioned field!

Dressage starts tomorrow and because of the unofficial team competition here we got to decide our order of go. Doug will be starting us off around 9 in the morning. Doug's horse is green and will benefit from less of a crowd also Doug handles being the the first of the the day pressure very well. Will and his mare will go next tomorrow around 1:45 Tiana will go Friday at 11:30 and I will finish off with Tate around 4:00pm. We will go in the same order on cross country day. We are all feeling excited and eager to compete. The horses all traveled well and now it is just a matter of preparing properly to get the best horse we can in the ring. All I want to do is ride 5 times a day and practice every move in the test and then jump 1000 jumps but instead I am trying to keep myself occupied by sitting back and watching the likes of Mary King, William Fox-Pitt, Bettina Hoy, Clayton Fredricks and on and on and on... There are 104 starters and every nation from Australia to Sweden representing so its enough to keep me from annoying Tate and keep my eyes peeled to see who is going to be walking past my stall next. The organizing committee is working on live feed from Boekelo so stay tuned I will email it to john before cross country day. To everyone at Fair Hill good luck! We will be working hard and enjoying this experience here for sure!

xxSinead
Blog Credit: http://eventingnation.com/home/2010/10/sineads-wednesday-boekelo-report.html

Update From Boekelo by Doug Payne

Nothing all that important or exciting happened today. We all had lessons with Mark Phillips, except for Will who continued his work with Sandy Phillips. We then took them all for walks...all good...
We did find out were the 7th nation to go and I'm going to be first in the order which means I'll be going about 7th to go on thursday. Jogs tomorrow and the xc course walk at 8:30!

Reports on it to come soon...

Doug

Hacking Out at Boekelo by Doug Payne

NJ would normally be the location, but today we're straight from Holland. This is the access road behind the trade fair and stadium for dressage and xc fences 3-5. We've had a peak at a few, but were not allowed to walk the xc until Wed.
The weather here has been beautiful. Certainly cold enough in the am (mid 40s) but then mid 60s without a cloud in sight in the afternoon.

Today was spent in search of SIM cards and chargers for everyone's phones.

The horses had leasurly walk this am through what looked exactly like the enchanted forest or maybe the Smirfs backyard. They then went out this afternoon for some long and low/ light work. In barn inspections were also completed. Packets will be ready tomorrow as will most of the competitors.

Until then...

D

We Are Here by Sinead Halpin

Sorry about not posting for the last day, but it has taken me a little bit to make sure that I have a the right charger for my computer, my american phone, my new dutch phone, to find internet access and to find who's car I left what phone, computer, charger and converters in!

So with that out of the way.. The horses and all of us are doing GREAT! Will, Doug, Sara, Chrissy and I arrived into Amsterdam yesterday morning and after losing my wallet (fortunately I had my passport and credit card) and headed over to the horse hotel to meet Tiana and wait for the horses to arrive. Five hours later the horses and Nat arrived. The horses looked great when they arrived. We unloaded them and walked them around while Tiana loaded her gear and then we put the ponies on the lorry and headed to Boekelo, which was another two hours down the road. We arrived to more than five people to help us unload, offer tea, coffee and cookies and after the horses got settled a few rounds of beer at the bar on the grounds!

We have all decided this is our new favorite event and it has not even started! We went for a hack this am and all the horses were a bit fresh, but we all are a bit fresh and excited!! The other competitors should arrive tomorrow and things should get crackin so ill let ya know the schedule when I know it!

xxSinead

Settling In at Boekelo by Doug Payne

Since the last update, we flew over the atlantic landing in Amsterdam. Customs etc went smoothly. We did however have a few delays before leaving the airport.

First of which involved Chrissy. After the baggage carousel stopped she was missing her bag. Or so she thought, so we had to walk around, find someone who could speak english and help us file a missing bag claim. After finding this person, he was very helpful. Seems the blue bag Chrissy was looking for during the last 40mins was actually green, and conveniently sitting waiting for her in the baggage claim.

So on we went to grab some coffee...Sinead was next, unfortunately with less stellar results. Seems she left her wallet on the plane, or it fell out somewhere in transit. So we stopped at the lost and found and reported her claim.

So off we go in the rental cars to the horse hotel, where we'd meet up with Tiana and Fin. We arrived at around 11am, and had to kill 4 hrs until our horses and Nat arrived. This time was occupied by about every childhood game you've ever played. Anything from rock paper scissors to Will hiding in the bushes.

Our horses finally arrived, we took them on a short walk then back on the truck for the 2 hr drive on to Boekelo. I was impressed how well all of the horses looked after the journey. We got lost once in the process, but arrived to what might be the best event I've ever seen. At least in hospitality. We had a bunch of help unloading everything, and by the time we took them all for a walk tea, coffee and cookies were handed out! Then more organizing and off to the bar on site. They are expecting 40,000 people this weekend, and with 3 acres of tents I'm sure there will be tons to do. Incidentally the tent stabling is basically a temporary structure with 108 stalls under 1 roof with 6m aisles.

After a few drinks with the organizers we headed off to dinner, and now bed.

Tomorrow we'll take them for a hack, serious work waiting until Tuesday.

Until then...

-D

WEG Wrap Up by Stephanie Rhodes-Bosch

Hey Everybody,

I’m finally back in The Plains, VA getting settled into normal life after what has been a very exciting competition for Canada!

We are all just one big bundle of emotions. First of all, there is the sense of relief that the Team is now qualified for London with plenty of time to spare. Secondly, there is the huge amount of pride and excitement that we all have in our horses and their performances over three of the biggest days of our lives. Third, we really feel like we have something to look forward to, now! I feel like this is really the debut year for the new and revamped Canadian program. David has been with the Canadians since 2006, and his from the ground up restructuring of the way things work has brought us all to this point of a Silver medal at the World Championships. The exciting thing about it is that this isn’t it. There are many up and coming young horses and developing riders for future championships, and none of the pairs that participated in this games were maxed out with their results. There is wayyyyy more up our sleeves, we just have to keep it all coming together!!

I’d really like to say on behalf of the team a huge thank you to all of our sponsors and supporters. The CET was lucky enough to be outfitted with breeches by FITS, gloves by SSG, protective wear by Phoenix and Point Two, as well as helmets by GPA. The horses enjoyed Omega Alpha supplements, a Niagara Equissage system (which we had for a very generous 4 weeks) and Horseware Ireland sheets and blankets. We also have to give another huge thanks to Mrs. Mars for providing us with a great facility for training camp. Then of course there’s Randy, and Dr. Ober, Deb Furnas and Graeme Thom for all that they do, and also to the owners of our horses. I own Ollie with my mother, and I know that it is a huge expense to compete and maintain a horse at this level, so thanks for giving us the opportunity to do this.

As a rider who is new to the international game, I have to say how incredibly lucky I feel to have had the opportunity to be a part of this. Not only was it a huge personal success for myself and my competitive goals, but to contribute to something that meant so much to my team was an experience that I hope to repeat in the future.

Thanks a lot for reading!



Stephanie