Alex Hua Tian has all the potential to be an eventing icon for years to come. Imagine being the first Olympic rider for the largest country on Earth, a country with tremendous equestrian heritage, and all before graduating college. Everything I have heard and read about Alex indicates that he bears the great responsibility of all that potential with humility and grace. Sometimes I feel like one of the hardest things to overcome in eventing is early success, but so far so good for Alex, and I would bet that he will be winning big events soon.
Zena, a premature donkey, is making a great recovery.
If you are going to get drunk and take a gun to church, you might as well ride a horse to get there. The guy was lucky he didn't get shot; in Kentucky, most people take guns to church.
Get to know some eventers in Maryland.
Rolex will also be the WEG dressage and show jumping test events. This will make Rolex a very large operation indeed, and an intentional practice for all of the WEG operations.
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Top 5 signs I have been watching too much of the Olympics:
(1) I am having dreams about curling strategy. Literally, I had a nightmare last night about going into the last end tied when my opponent had the last-rock.
(2) I tried to do a triple-lutz-triple-loop combination on my horse. Now I'm no longer allowed in Bridle Creek.
(3) Since all the cool athletes seem to be doing it, get excited for the upcoming release of my air conditioner commercial, and yes, I will be singing the soundtrack.
(4) While driving yesterday, I tried to disqualify someone for merging into the wrong lane.
(5) I'm working on developing a new sport called eventing-cross, which is like eventing but with 4 people competing at the same time.
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Someone brought it to my attention yesterday that the USET training session calendar has Katie Prudent and Oded Shimoni only scheduled to teach in Aiken. I understand that most of the training list riders are located in Aiken, but Oded and Katie are scheduled to make 5 trips to Aiken and none to either the California or Ocala training sessions. Oded is based in Wellington, so perhaps the thought is that the FL riders can work with Oded at his home base.
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Another issue that a reader raised yesterday was the lack of helmets being worn at the training sessions. All I can say is this: kids do not try this at home. Unless you want to eat out of a straw for the rest of your life, always, always, always wear your hemet.
There is something similar to ski cross in horse sport - it's known as team chasing. Of course all 4 riders are on the same team, they are racing the clock going XC all together, (I believe it's staggered start times similar to eventing), fastest team time wins.
Reading reports in Horse & Hound mag, it looks & sounds incredibly fun.