The Slower Road

The event’s first vet inspection was this afternoon. With all the construction going on here at the park, the lane was bordered by a row of empty stalls on one side, and a wide swath of mud on the other. At the far end was the earth-moving machinery that had no doubt just recently finished digging up all the mud … needless to say, several of the horses gave the earth mover a good careful look as they trotted toward it, while some others didn’t seem to care a bit.

Only the FEI-level horses were required to participate in the inspection, so the preliminary and intermediate competitors were able to watch or do other things. They had set up two lanes at a bit of distance from each other — all the FEI-level single and pair horses and ponies went down one lane, and all the four-in-hand teams went down the other. Since I (unfortunately) couldn’t be in two places at the same time, I was only able to see the four-in-hand horses. Of these, one horse of Gary Stover’s was not accepted, and one of the Canadian teams was instructed to re-present nearly all of their horses tomorrow.

Chester Weber and his horse Jamaica, the 2008 USEF Horse of the Year

Josh Rector brought his team all the way from Arizona

one of Jimmy Fairclough’s very fit-looking horses … several of his looked like they would much rather run and buck than trot quietly

Sterling Graburn presented Wendy Ying’s team of horses

one of Mike McLennan’s Friesian/QH crosses … Mike is one of the drivers we’re following in the “Road to the WEG” series in The Carriage Journal

one of Tucker Johnson’s horses

 And, finally, one very grainy (cell-phone) photo of Michael Freund presenting a driving demonstration using James Miller’s team of coach horses …

Michael Freund gave a crowd-pleasing demonstration of combined driving (with a team of coaching horses) at this evening’s Lexington Combined Driving Classic Kick-Off Party

I’ve just looked at the weather forecast for the rest of the week and, thankfully, it looks lovely. Today, though, turned out to be much cooler and cloudier (which makes it feel even colder than the 55 degrees on the thermometer) than expected.

So while everyone was starting to arrive, settle horses in, and (for the FEI-level four-in-hand teams) taking lessons or warming up / practicing, it’s been really cold. While in the barns, I heard lots of “wow, I wish I’d brought my … ” extra fleece / long underwear / warm hats / etc. I was dressed for the office and not really for a day in the barn, and several people very kindly offered me jackets / horse blankets / warm chili. But enough of my woes (and the kindness of both friends and strangers).

Here are a couple of pictures from today:

the decorated entrance to the VIP / sponsors tent

the fancy new electronic scoreboard being set up by the dressage / cones arena

 Tomorrow (Wednesday) at 2 p.m. is the FEI jog. I’ll be posting some photos after that. Then all the FEI-level competitors do their dressage tests on Thursday, and the Prelim and Intermediate competitors go on Friday. Stay tuned!

Final preparations are underway for this week’s Lexington Combined Driving Classic / WEG Test Event.

Observed on a walk around the KY Horse Park this afternoon:

1) Brilliant autumnal blue skies, bright sunshine, and a nice strong wind, which we’re all hoping will help to dry out all the mud from the rain (rain, rain!) we got over the past week.

2) A shiny dressage arena in the polo field, and a big tent for the VIPs/sponsors … this is being decorated as I type.

3) Marked gates at the “hill” obstacle, and more water in the creek than there ought to be (see “rain” above). Again, the wind should help with that. I’ve also learned that there are now nearly 200 tons of gravel in the creekbed (the three dumptruck-loads I saw being delivered only amounted to 70 tons).

4) Marked gates at the “wishing well” obstacle.

5) Across the road from the “wishing well” … in a neighboring Walnut Hall field … two yearlings chasing each other in circles, at a full gallop. Standing in the center of their racetrack, calmly watching port-o-potties being placed on the marathon course, were five more yearlings and a “babysitter” draft horse.

6) Horses, ponies, carriages, harness, and equipment being settled in to the barns.

There will be more getting ready tomorrow, the FEI jog on Wednesday, and then the fun begins! Stay tuned here, as we’ll be keeping you up to date throughout the week.