I won’t lie. I walked into the pancake-flat showgrounds at the Stadium in Wellington, Fla., and I wanted to be annoyed. Looking out at the cross-country course on manicured footing that looked as though nothing had stepped on it in the past year, I couldn’t help but think, “No. Nooooooooo. This isn’t eventing! This is show jumping over solid obstacles!” I wanted to not like it.
But here’s the thing.
It was awesome and SO much fun to watch.
If someone wanted to get up close and personal with eventing, this is the way to do it.
The Wellington Eventing Showcase is a close-in eventing experience, with spectator-friendly viewing of all phases in a compact show-village normally home to legions of dressage horses. Billed as a showcase with high-stakes, this “eventing lite” experience is perfect for the introduction of the sport to new viewers.
While the weather on dressage day was a bit nippy for the area, breezes and clouds didn’t keep spectators from watching 35 riders here to compete for $75,000 in prize money.
In this digital age, we’ve all come to expect instant information—whether we are looking for the temperature at precisely 3:27 a.m., or when we want a tidbit of information about a horse that caught our eye.
I sell and place a lot of horses, and I meet a wide range of people—most of whom would make their mommas proud in the manners department.
But there are a few of you that need a smacking with a heavy purse, and I think it’s time I let you know who you are, or at least tried to educate the people that turn my typical smile into what I call “Poo Face.”
I’m back in the grand ole U.S. of A, adjusting to the time change, coherent road signs and seasoning on my food. I proudly only outed myself as a loud, impulsive American once where I decided that waiting for the green light to exit my parking area was for sissies and pressed the gas pedal with wild abandon—dressage was starting, darn it! Ten seconds later with my car teetering on a large chunk of metal designed to keep idiots like me from leaving the car park without paying, I realized the green light was there for a reason. I lern reel gud.
Hi everybody, from the Burghley Horse Trials! Apologies for the brevity of this post, as I am typing on my iPad :)
I'm one of those people who really values her sleep. And by values, I mean I will cut you for interrupting it. So I find it surprising that I was able to stay awake for the past 36 hours in order to travel to England for the Burghley Horse Trials.
I have spent the last 24 hours speaking to multiple vets, lay-up farms, volunteers, stall managers and trainers about killing a famous racehorse. It is not the day I had picked out for myself.
A stakes winner and Preakness contender on three legs, with nobody to even spend the money on an X-ray to find out what the problem was, sat unknowing at the other end of my decision. Sometimes the weight of that can knock you flat down, sobbing into your pillow.
I’ve stared at some unpainted, unfinished pine board trim around the windows in an expanded great room in my tiny, horrendously under-decorated house for over a year. I sit and stare at it, begging it to tell me what it wants to be when it grows up. Does it want to be stained? If so, does it want to be stained a natural color? A darker color? A color to match the floor? A color to match the beautiful barn doors displayed in the window behind it?
The Chronicle is pleased to introduce Allie Conrad as our newest blogger! Allie is executive director of CANTER Mid Atlantic, which provides retiring Thoroughbred racehorses with opportunities for new careers. Allie founded the organization in 1999 at Charles Town Racetrack (W.V.) after purchasing her beloved Thoroughbred Phinny, who had more than 60 starts at Charles Town, at the infamous New Holland Auction in Pennsylvania. A resident of Southern Pines, N.C., Allie also works full time as a project manager for a Washington, D.C., consulting firm.
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