HorsesDaily Behind the Scenes for the 2006 FEI World Equestrian Games

Follow the US Eventing WEG Shortlist Updates with Torri Nahorniak from USEF

July 29 - Things here continue to go well. Most of the horses had a jump school with Mark this morning and looked good. Some looked a bit fresh just having come off of the break from shipping and they haven't done much but hack until today. Things are now starting to get rolling and we have a busy week coming up. We will have a farrier from England that works quite a bit with Steve Teichman here on Monday to check all the horses, tighten nails, add glue, etc to get the horses ready for a jump lesson with Laura Kraut on Monday, a gallop on Thursday and then Gatcombe over the weekend. Karen, Stephen, and Sara Mittleider will run the full Advanced division on Saturday and the rest will do the CIC*** dressage and show jumping on Sunday. We are going to have a lorry to take the horses back and forth, but if riders prefer it is within hacking distance. It will be nice to have such a short distance to ship the horses. The weather has also been cooperating and has continued to be cool with sun and a breeze. We are supposed to be in for showers today and tonight, but overall we have been lucky that the heat has dissapeared.

Because yesterday was once again a relatively quiet day for the horses we took the opportunity to go to Hickstead and watch our Show Jumping Team compete in the Nations Cup/Samsung Superleague competition. We took three seperate cars down and I was thanking my lucky stars that I didn't have to drive. However, later on I wasn't sure how much of a blessing that was. It was about a 2 hour drive from Mark's to the show grounds. We all made it in plenty of time and got a chance to tour the show grounds before the event started. The riders then walked the course with Mark and also watched some of the warm-up to learn from the show jumpers. The competition itself was wonderful. The format of the event is as follows: There are four riders per team with 8 countries competing and two rounds of jumping. The countries draw for the order of go for the first round so a rider from each country jumps and then the next rider from each country and so on. The Chef d'Equipe for each team chooses what order his riders will go in. In the next round the order of country is determined by pentalites accumulated in the first round, but the order of the riders stays the same and they jump the same course again. The US didn't have such a great first round and finished on 16 penalties. However they were great in the second round and did not add any penalties to finish on a score of 16 and tied for third place. The British won so everyone in the stands was excited for the home team. We still maintained our second place standing in the overall league. All of us that were there had a great time cheering for the home team and with this group were none to subtle about it. We then met up with the team afterwards to say well done and discuss the day with them.

So then it was off to home and back to the British highways. I was in the car with Karen, Jan, Max, and Sandy. Karen lived in the UK for 5 years so felt VERY comfortable driving like the British. We were cruising along, and I do mean cruising, anxious to get back for dinner and catch up with everyone who had stayed home with the horses, when all of a sudden Karen says "I think we have a problem." We had no power and had run out of gas on the motorway. Oops. Karen eased the car to the shoulder and Jan spotted a gas station at the very next exit that was in view. It continued to be our lucky day as most of the way to the station was downhill. We did however encounter a bit of stretch where help was needed and Max, Sandy, Jan and I did a brilliant job of pushing the car and Karen Andretti to the gas pump. When Karen and I are done on the PGA tour we are headed to NASCAR with Karen driving and the rest of us as the pit crew. We did make it to dinner and had a great time reliving our day.

So now it is back to work with an exciting week coming up.