October 20
Today was a fun filled day. 7:00 a.m. we headed to Hipca. Anne Marie had already done all of Woody’s morning treatments, such as Omega Alpha supplements with breakfast, magnetic blanket, magnetic foot pad, ice, lazer the whole “shebang”. His braids looked amazing and so did he. I hopped on for a 10 minute ride to stretch him before we got all dolled up.
We were all so excited about our outfits, it was hard not to get dressed early. Jessica and Rebecca straightened my hair for me 🙂 We had nice black and white dresses with red ribbon in our hair, black flats and a red and gold bracelet each. Notice the theme…red and GOLD! Hawley supplied the red lip stick and gloss. She is our fashion advisor.
The jog area was chaos in the early stages, I’m glad we didn’t jog ‘til later. Horses were rearing, kicking, bucking and getting loose. There are quite a few stallions here as well so all very exciting. Woody jogged really well, nice a forward no spooking I was very pleased and so was Dr. Ober.
After the team finished we took a few pictures of all of us in our jog outfits together. Then we hung out together in the barn and chatted for a while. At 11:30 a.m., after Dr. Ober’s meeting was finished, we went to lunch at Chillies in the mall. We had to eat fast because we had a 1:20 p.m. ring time for lessons with David.
Dressage today felt great after Woody had some acupuncture done the day before. I have been playing back and forth with the happy mouth straightbar and the Boucher, both of which I have competed Woody in. Today, I decided on the Boucher and David agrees. 2:20 p.m. we got the chance to ride around the outside of the show ring. Everything all set up ring, judges’ booths, flowers etc… Each team gets 20 minutes today for “ring familiarization.”
John and Judy Rumble had arrived in time to watch the team school together and ride in the main arena. They own Woody. He was very calm and felt like he was showing off some of that fancy movement he has. Looking forward to tomorrow. It was very nice to show John and Judy Woody and all his friends. They got the chance to meet the people that make the team a team like Randy our farrier, Dr. Ober our vet, Fleur who works at Equine Canada, Graeme our chef d’equipe and Debbie our fabulous stable manager.
We went out to Santa Sofia for another course walk. It looks better and better each time. They have made some small adjustments to the course. The “rake” #7 has had trees added to the back of it as there is the handle of the rake and it presents a danger (I think, anyways) At the bounce drop to the corner they put in a black flag option to the corner (a narrow) very time consuming route though. Also “c” of the coffin has had brush added to it. They were just starting to brush it when I walked so I’m not sure what the finished product will be. I think they are going to water the track again, which is good because it feels very hard today, mostly where the high ground is.
At 7:00 p.m. I had dinner generously bought for me by Don Good, who owns Pavarotti. Jessica, Rebecca and her parents, plus me, all had great meals at…wait for it…yes Tintoretto!! Why mess with a good thing?
Alright team Canada lets show’em what we got!
http://www.youtube.com/eventer6
