I have a wee bit of time this morning to catch up. I’m hoping I can get online to post this. I don’t know.
Some of the highlights so far here in the Equine Village have been just hanging with some amazing people and horses.
On the way down to warm up on Sunday (the day I swear I saw snow flurries!) I passed a really gorgeous Paint. Horse in western tack, rider in english clothing. Just warming up or excercising like the rest of us… He moves really, really nicely, tracking up behind with some nice sit, uphill build and movement (at least under saddle) and the kind of stallion I’d love to cross on a good Sporthorse mare. I complimented the rider on him, just saying “what a lovely Paint.” She nodded and graciously said thank you and not another word. About an hour later, I saw them both in their ‘full’ getup, and damned if it wasn’t Rugged Painted Lark.! 
That same day, the big Irish stallion Steeped in Luck (YUM!) was warming up for his musical freestyle. This little western horse & rider start following him around, shadowing him and mimicing the movements. Half pass… then extended trot along the diagonal… the Irish rider is starting to get really pissed at this point… he goes to do 2 tempis across the diagonal—and the western horse follows, and does twos. Finally, Irish rider is exasperated and stops to turn around and say something… It’s John Lyons. John has a HUGE sh*t eating grin on his face. The Irish rider completely cracked up then. I don’t think another soul on the place saw it. John wasn’t doing it for an audience—just an audience of one. I felt like it was my own personal little show. I laughed. It was wonderful.
I have met and been caring for Fetichin, an imported PRE stallion who I’ve had my eye on since he was imported as a 2yo. What a gentleman. I LOVE his temperament and movement. He is a real dressage horse, and I think we’ll see him being very competitive in a couple of years at FEI. He’s showing third now, and doing very well.
Tori has come around QUITE a bit. She’s just to big to be a pig, and I won’t allow it. If I get hurt, there’s no one to feed and water and work to pay for it.
We wore the Spanish outfit on Sunday when it was so cold, and got some good pictures, but it was SOOOO windy that my hat blew off, and my riding skirt blew up showing my funky boot socks. (better than my hairy white legs, I suppose… but…) She was very good for that demo, and even in the cold and at the end of the day, got lots of visitors at the ‘meet and greet’ pen.
Yesterday we were first to go in the morning. It was the western side-saddle day. You cannot but feel elegant in that outfit. I didn’t have an apron, the chap skirt didn’t fit, sadly. My ankle showed, (but I wore black breeks underneath this time ) which is incorrect, but there were only a handful of people there. We got many, many complements, but the nicest was when the coach of the US Vaulting team came over to tell me how lovely I looked and how nicely the horse went. Her complement meant a lot, seeing as they are all about balance!!
So in the afternoon we took the bus downtown. Vicky bought tickets for a tour for us. She wanted me to see Rood & Riddle. There was also a tour of a big TB farm on the ticket… you couldn’t do JUST the Vet center. Rood & Riddle was AMAZING. Everything from an MRI (it’s a people MRI they bought from a hospital—you can only do legs, and literally they STUFF them in the back end—the people bed is still there… they have put foals all the way in before… ) to a treadmill for throat/respiratory diagnostics, to of course surgical suites and repro facilities. 45 VETS on staff, which they had a total of 43 STAFF when they first started. We saw five barns—I think there were more. Just an amazing, amazing place. In the Podiatry section we got to hold and look at some cadaver hooves and legs and such… sounds gross, but it isn’t really. No more gross than a real skeleton, and SO educational. Saw a founder hoof that had sunk through the sole. Very sad.
But then the farm tour was just ASTOUNDING. We went to Domino-Dixiana, which are two big farms that were one, had been separated, and recently have been re-combined. This is the farm where “Dreamer” was filmed. The owner has restored much of it, and also the two new barns he built are in the style of the originals—the woodwork and brass and such are beyond belief.
It didn’t hurt that Dermot, the trainer from the farm who took us around, was from Ireland and just charming. We got to see weanlings that are going to sale soon, whose stud fees were in the hundreds of thousands. Of course, because of the economy, they also got some good ‘deals’ a few were only around $75k. We saw some absoltely ASTOUNDING mares. Two of them took my breath away. They don’t look like anything you see at Suffolk or CANTER or anything… these girls were HUGE in the chest, girth and haunch, stunning bone, gorgeous necks. The one I really loved wasn’t injured, just wasn’t running all that well, and was only $300k or so for a reserve. If the mares don’t sell, they keep them, and they always buy back horses they breed if they need to come home. They have a retirement herd of mares that aren’t breed-worthy. What an absolutely amazing, amazing farm. I got some good pictures I’ll try to post.
We did get one long night’s sleep Saturday night into Sunday morning, but still, it is exhausting. It’s really cold here in the mornings. Supposed to warm up some during the day today—the sun is out so that is good. It’s hard being ‘trapped’ here at the park from 0800 or so until 19 or 2000. There is a LOT of walking. Thank God my feet are doing better. There is a LOT of walking. Someone on the bus this morning said they wore a pedometer yesterday, and walked a total of 8 miles.
I’m going to try to head downtown now, the bus is only $1 each way, and the trade show is awesome down there. I don’t have to be back until afternoon. Horses are all fed and watered and stalls cleaned (I did Feti this morning for his owner—he COMPLETELY sells himself as a sire, this boy is just wonderful to work with. He had a mild colic last night, and I was getting pretty intimate with him—from capillary refill to temperature to listening to pulse and gut sounds… he was a pure gentleman.
Anyway, every time you get tired or cranky, you just have to walk around and look at all the amazing stuff here. What an incredible experience. I’ll be eating oodles of noodles for months, but I am so inspired. (and I cannot wait to get home to my own ponies. I take for granted how easy they are to work with.) I’ve had mini-dog and kitty fixes along the way. I bribed the shy torbi barn kitty with cheddar cheese, and now she comes to say hi in the tack stall a couple times a day… and Dermot had a 13yo labbie mix named Abbie that I was as much enamoured with as I was Dermot—and a really nice, silly blonde yellow lab. OH—at Dixiana they keep regular riding horses to trail ride or go jump in the evenings… <blissfulsigh>
It’s going by terribly fast. The days are long, but we only have two more rides, today and tomorrow. I don’t know where it’s gone.
