Day Fifteen - Change afoot

There is change afoot......strewth, someone commented to me, that horse is carrying far too much condition...how is it going to gallop up and down the Greenwich hills? Yes, the dressage horses are in town so we now have full stables. Most of the dressage horses arrived on Saturday but we sent our kit in on Saturday and the horses arrived yesterday. It is quite an operation to get kit in to the stables....when we have to extract the eventers and bring in the jumping horses, it is going to be challenging. Andy Thomas has been busy mending those of us that unloaded the dressage trunks..... I am sure they are due to leave here on 10th August not 10th September.....

Well whoever wrote the script for the second day of dressage qualifies for an Oscar nomination for imagination. It is a strict rule that anyone accredited at the Olympics is banned from being involved in any betting.....but if I had a sneak preview of the aforementioned script, I would certainly have handed in my accreditation placed a £10 bet and made myself a millionaire. Do not get me wrong, those that head the rankings rode like true Olympians and deserve to be where they are. As if there were not enough challenges in producing a dressage test that scores over 70%, the weather decided it wanted in on the Greenwich action (anyone who is anyone is popping in to this gig - definitely the place to be seen).


Tina Cooks' explanation as to how she coped with the torrential rain, thunder, roof to a Judges' Box flapping was the moment of the day......something along the lines of..."it rains a lot on the South Downs and I don't have an indoor school". What Tina demonstrated was the perfect example of "coping with the unexpected": prior to the Games we worked hard on aspects such as this.... This included work we funded with the assistance of the Lottery funding (UK Sport) and a very useful video produced by the BOA that tracked what happened in the diving in Athens when someone jumped in to the pool wearing a tutu!! Essentially all the favourites choked and performed poorly and the Greeks came from nowhere and won the Gold.


I think I mentioned previously (I am getting a little senile and so the memory is going....) that if you do not like being judged..don't do dressage. It would be easy to make comments about some of the judging but what's the point? The Ground Jury (the judges) give their opinions based on their professional judgement.....as in all walks of life, not all will agree with everyone's opinions!


We were highly delighted with the riders and horse which were either achieving personal bests or were very close in terms of their performance. It is difficult to make scoring comparisons between Championships......the leader here is on 38, at the Europeans last year leader was on 31 / 32. Also the dressage Test that was ridden here is different to say the Europeans or Badminton. We still have a small aversion to flying changes.... With all the professional support we have in place, clearly I have missed a trick...and need to learn from the Japanese....next time we will have a Vicar on the team...work it out... we are placed slightly higher than we thought we might be so all in all a good day at the office.

All will depend on how the Cross Country rides and how tight the time is.........


How to make a farrier happy......Mr Haydn Price had no coat hangars...Mr Haydn Price now has coat hangars. Happy Mr Welsh farrier.

Haydn's wardrobe

One of the main challenges for a Team Leader.....? Stopping vets spreading their kit around the stable office. Solution 1) Buy the a big trunk on wheels then 2) put a big cable and padlock around it then 3) do not give His Lordship McEwen a chair so he has to sit on the other vet trunks, thus preventing him spreading kit.

Tomorrow is cross country day and all are busy......fingers crossed

 

Before in the stables

After in the stables!