Diana and Cealy from Rio

The Journey Continues at the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio

U.S. Rider Lauren Sammis Takes the Early Lead in Dressage

If you haven’t already heard the news than take some time to read the other Pan American Games releases on horsesdaily.com to find out the standings after the first day of Dressage competition (July 14). If you have, than you know that U.S. rider Lauren Sammis has taken the early lead riding Sagacious HF. No need for me to repeat that story. I’d rather focus on giving you an overview of the venue and how things are going (or not!).

My night ended at 3:45 a.m. and started less than two hours later at 5:30 a.m. Our plan was to catch a cab to the Main Press Center (MPC) and then a shuttle to the venue. Once in the shuttle I took out my camera and captured some of the sites. The scenery was ever changing with a view of some of the homes with the laundry hung out to dry. There was also lots of graffiti, but not too much traffic. One of the things I found interesting were the tunnels through the mountains of rock. It reminded me of so many times I’d seen that in a movie. We build overpasses and bridges – they cut through the mountain rock to get to the other side.

The first half of the Prix St. Georges Dressage competition started at 9:00. Since we wanted to be sure we would get one of the few lockers (so that we could leave our equipment safely locked up) we opted to get there early. We arrived by 8:00 and did end up with lockers.

While that was great it was the entrance that threw me this time. The security belt (like those at an airport) wasn’t working and so they searched our bags by hand. Similar to an airport we were not allowed to bring in any liquids and so we emptied our water bottles. But in addition they confiscated my food. I had prepared some snacks for throughout the day since we end up spending hours photographing. This was the first time I’d not been allowed to take food into the venue.

But what made it worse was because we were working we didn’t have the ability to go and get something to eat and there was no food in the Press Room. In fact by the time we left at 3:30 we hadn’t had anything to eat. We suffered through it and at the end of the night a few of us enjoyed a very welcome dinner just around the corner from where we are staying. So, in the end it all worked out.