well, in Central time zone it appeared at 9:15 so I don’t know how or why that happened but I did get to see it.
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New Question: What was the surface material for the Olympic dressage arena? It seemed to me to be unusually firm but, perhaps, also yielding or springy? Seemed to trigger zero dust and no “footprints.” I wonder if the competitors liked it. Is this the same arena where show jumping will take place?
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There is a link to the interview in a thread in the Dressage forum.
I looked it up. Apparently, since 1958, the Eastern time zone is the only one to get The Today Show live, it is delayed everywhere else, to still run in the 7-10 am slots. (Obviously, I don’t watch it!)
If there is breaking news or something, they break in, but otherwise it’s all a recording.
Makes it confusing when for every other show you are used to subtracting an hour to get Central Time!
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Finally caught up late last night, and, damn, what a week of dressage! (I can’t believe I watched all 20 hours lol.) I am not as knowledgeable as quite a few of you guys here, but it is spectacular to watch when executed so well; poetry in motion! 
The pros make it look so easy!
Onto eventing!
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Regarding the Today show interview, I think NBC was just ticking off the boxes. Team won a medal, they had to get an interview. “Oh yeah and we can stick the trap shooter in at the same time, and kill two birds with one stone.” (no pun intended)
That being said, I think Dressage is the most difficult equestrian event for non-horse people to “get”. Most people can grasp the concept that whoever who goes around fastest without knocking anything down wins. Dressage is more complicated.
DH, not a horse person, watched me watch every single ride on my laptop. He said I kept muttering and exclaiming, but when he looked over my shoulder there was only a horse “dancing around”.
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Ex eventer trying to learn dressage to a greater degree, and I have to agree with the other eventers who have posted on this thread. Love Dalera and would absolutely have purchased her off the 7yo video. Those horses and riders all tried so hard despite the heat and humidity. So impressive and inspiring.
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I agree dressage is toughest for non-horse people to get into. People take to show jumping pretty quickly because it’s so easy to understand. When you say eventing is a triathalon, people tend to understand that can enjoy the jumping phases. But dressage has so much nuance.
My husband was also watching and was getting frustrated because he didn’t understand the scoring. He gave a half-hearted attempt at trying to understand, but gave up pretty quickly when horses he thought were “boring” scored well and horses he liked a lot scored lower.
I had one non horsey person tell me they watched the dressage and thought it looked insanely hard, especially considering they could barely train their dog to sit and stay 
which, I mean, they aren’t wrong, but its hard to grasp how athletic it actually is.
I heard people talk about how there should be a “regular person” example of someone trying to do the sport before the athletes compete to show how hard it is. That would be perfect for dressage.
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Dressage could become understandable if we had a Dick Button to lead the way. I think he singlehandedly made ice skating understandable. When you think if it, both sports very much the same
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Funny you should say this- I was going to post something similar. I think that when someone goes splat on the ice, that’s easy to understand. Generally, horses don’t go splat. But, I think that even non-horsey people appreciate the athletic efforts of both, and the beauty of the sports- particularly when set to music.
I volunteer. My OTTB and I will kill it.
And here, they’re supposed to be doing piaffe–looks like he’s just going to come to a halt while she bounces around up there.
And now two tempis—yep, they’re just cantering across the diagonal and did a simple change at the end.
Extended canter–finally something they can basically accomplish.
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A friend came to watch a show during which there were 2’6” rounds going in adjacent rings, one open (baby green? training?) and the other for junior and amateur riders. He looked back and forth between the two rings for all of five minutes and pronounced, “this is a sport that looks easy, but is not.”
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Colbert calls it “competitive horse prancing.”
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I agree. The closest comparison seems to be figure skating, especially back when they had compulsory tests / figures.
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Apologies if this has already been posted.
Isabell has announced that Bella Rose will now be retired.
It is so uncanny - I somehow just knew while watching Isabell’s face during the GPS and Freestyle that this decision had been made.
God love that mare - she so deserves a grand retirement!
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I was thinking about that and so hoping that such would be the case. She is what,18?, and should go out a champion.
Hope they have a great retirement ceremony for her somewhere, and that she has a wonderful rest of her life.
Edited to correct Bella Rose’s age, said to be 17.
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We had that. Steven Colbert tried dressage on the Colbert Report. Only problem was - he was really good at it 
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Yeah – w/the infamous Mr. Barisone.
