The Slower Road

As you know, the CAA offers organized trips to many of the Driving World Championships and to the Royal Windsor Horse Show, and to visit private carriage collections in various parts of the world.

Even though we’re based here in Lexington (so it’s not much of a trip for us) and this one is not terribly difficult to arrange on one’s own, we nonetheless arranged and offered a CAA trip to this year’s World Equestrian Games: hotel (several, as it turns out), tickets to the Driving event, a private party with the drivers, etc.

More than two hundred people signed up! And they’re coming from all over the world.

Jill and Linda Long were locked in our conference room all day yesterday, just divvying up the appropriate number of tickets and shuttle passes into everyone’s packets.

Over the course of the past several months, box after box after box was delivered to our office as a number of people on the trip helped us outfit rather large bags, now full of goodies, for each of the WEG drivers. The bags contain, among many other things: hats, flags, bumper stickers, beer, chocolate, cheese, bandanas, pretzels, more chocolate, etc., etc., etc.

We’ve begun distributing the bags to a few of the drivers as they arrive on the grounds or stop by the office. Without fail, everyone is touched by the thought, amazed at the weight of the bag, and then excited to start digging through to see what’s in it.

Likewise, we here in the office were excited, along with U.S. driver Bill Long, to see everything in his bags full of Team USA gear. He pulled item after item out (from two big paper bags and a garment bag), to a chorus of ooohs and aaaahs from the rest of us.

U.S. driver Bill Long, outside the CAA office, wearing his new Team USA cowboy hat and rain jacket and showing off his new Team USA blazer

In the end, Bill (and all the other U.S. drivers) had amassed quite a collection of Team USA clothing: a cowboy hat, Ariat cowboy boots, blue sneakers with red lining (with smiley faces!), three blue polo shirts, a white button-down shirt, a USA vest, a USA fleece-lined jacket, a USA rain jacket, a baseball cap, a blazer (with the team patch on the pocket), and a backpack. They will all be well outfitted in their team uniform for the next nine days!

A few tidbits for this Thursday (Day 6 at the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games):

I had previously mentioned having heard that about 40,000 school kids were expected to visit the World Equestrian Games this week. Wrong. According to this morning’s edition of the Lexington Herald-Leader (our local newspaper), the actual total is closer to a whopping 52,000! It looks (and sounds) like a great number of them are here at the Games today.

I’m sorry I didn’t have my camera with me a few moments ago, as two Dutch fans (you can always recognize that particular shade of orange in a shirt) walked by the CAA’s front door, toward the Indoor Stadium, which is featuring the individual finals in Reining right now … they were wearing the world’s most enormous, orange (of course) foam cowboy hats!

Some scenes from yesterday evening:

the completed decorative “wrap” on the Main Stadium, glowing a bit in the evening light and reflecting in the lake … remember the Land Rover on the floating platform? it’s been floated closer to this end of the stadium and had its platform decorated

another Jon Carloftis-designed garden in the trade fair / exhibition area; this one is in the center of the Kentucky Experience

a horse sculpture in a corner of the KY Experience garden

this photo is a bit dark, but see all the people?? this was at about 7 p.m.: the official closing time for the trade fair, but many vendors still seemed to be doing brisk business

And, finally, we interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you this news:

(Those of you who are regular followers of this blog will know by now that I do occasionally throw in a few posts, during the appropriate season, regarding our University of Kentucky basketball team. I’m sorry, but I can’t help it … we Lexingtonians are really excited about our Wildcats these days.)

Tickets go on sale Saturday for Big Blue Madness, which is the end-of-October first “official” practice for the basketball teams, and when the new additions to the team for that year are introduced to the Wildcat fans. The event is held in Rupp Arena (where the UK men’s basketball team plays its home games), which holds more than 20,000 people. As I understand it, the tickets for Big Blue Madness are quite inexpensive, but they go verrry quickly and mostly to UK students. The new BBM tradition on UK’s campus is to wait in line to buy tickets. Some people wait in line so long that a tent village springs up, and people camp out for days. I think it was yesterday morning that UK officials permitted the “line” to start forming (tickets don’t go on sale until Saturday, remember), and there were several hundred tents set up by yesterday afternoon. If this year is anything like last year, the “line” will grow to impressive dimensions by the weekend. Last year, the basketball coach and players came out on several occasions to meet the campers, hand out pizza, and generally thank everyone for being there. And, as my husband is fond of saying … all this for a *practice*!  Go Cats!!

And we’ll now return to our regularly scheduled program … the next post will be either WEG- or horse-related. I promise.

I think it’s time to see some competition horses here on the blog, don’t you? I ventured out of the office yesterday afternoon, in search of horsey photo opportunities … and boy did I find a good one!

rider Lillann Jebsen (Norway) being attended to by her grooms and receiving a few last words of instruction from her coach before heading into the final warmup arena

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… and all those people along the fence, facing the other way? They (and hundreds more) were awaiting the arrival of the Dutch superstar horse Moorlands Totilas …

Edward Gal and Moorlands Totilas in the second of three consecutive warmup arenas …

… and being attended to by his Dutch crew (boots and wraps off, hat on, etc.) before entering …

… the third and final warmup arena

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When they left this arena and entered the Main Stadium for their Grand Prix test, the crowd erupted. While Totilas performed his test, this lovely Andalusian stallion was warming up …

Spain’s Juan Manuel Munoz Diaz on Fuego XII

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This pair waited a few minutes past what should’ve been their usual time to enter the Main Stadium to avoid the noise and the huge entourage (crew, teammates, TV camera crew …) following behind Totilas.

Gal and Totilas earned a phenomenal 84.043% and helped secure the team gold medal for the Dutch. The British won their first-ever team medal in a Dressage World Championship: a well-deserved team silver. And the Germans won the team bronze. The U.S. team finished in fourth place.

Just for the record, Fuego XII (above) finished his Grand Prix test in fifth place with a 73.957%. The top four individual placings in the Grand Prix: Gal and Totilas in first (no surprise there), Laura Bechtolsheimer (GBR) in second, Steffen Peters (USA) and Ravel in third, and Isabell Werth (GER) in fourth.

After leaving the Dressage warmup area, I walked back down Nina Bonnie Blvd — past all the golf carts decked out in the flags of various countries — and into the Equine Village area. Where I saw this …

some serious trick riding

about to enter the Clinicians’ Corral for a demo … I think he’s going to have to duck!

When you come through the main spectator entrance at WEG, one of the first things you see (after the program sales and the official-WEG-merchandise tent) is the entrance to the Alltech Experience. Here, you can turn to the right (instead of to the left) and venture into the beautiful trade fair. OR … you can turn to the left and head inside.

a group of school children gathered at the entrance to the Alltech Experience (the man on the right in the orange hat is welcoming them); I hear this is one very small part of the nearly 40,000 school children expected to attend the WEG this week

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after going through a building with several display rooms, you exit onto this promenade, surrounded by gardens, display areas, and beer gardens

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including this beautiful garden shed built with local reclaimed wood …

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… and a vegetable garden by famed garden designer (and local resident) Jon Carloftis

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… who also designed the more formal garden surrounding the stage and the promenade

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Borrowing from Lexington’s Horse Mania theme, this area of the Alltech Experience is also filled with horses:

“Shellshocked”

“Fairytales”

a Kentucky-themed horse

a horse covered in a pink quilt, of sorts

a horse wearing … um … something, on its head

Where the Wild Things Are

… and finally … not your average stick horses