Carrie's Rolex Experience - Oh, So Dubarry's Are Cool...?

1-75 South is the longest, straightest, most boring highway I have ever driven on...except when trying to navigate through Dayton and its 137 lanes of construction at 2:30 in the morning. We arrived to our location of choice - located off of Exit 110 - to find that - well, we didn't really have a reservation to come to...there was no person in my name with a reservation at our location of choice...good thing my credit card had already been charged for it...

I can not believe just how GREEN Kentucky is...it is amazing. 

As we pulled into the Horse Park for the first time, I was a little bit taken aback by the size of it.  The volunteers directing traffic were fantastic and we ended up a good hike away from everything...but were made to feel very welcome by the other Ontario license plated people who were drinking mimosas...at 8:30 in the morning...I liked the place even better instantly.

There was a strange and eerie feeling as the morning progressed.  Something wasn't, right.  It took me about an hour to figure it out. EVERYONE was wearing Dubarry's....everyone except us Canucks who thought that flip flops were much better suited for walking around the Horse Park for the entire day.  Honestly, I have never seen so many Dubarry's in one place, at one time. 

This being my first time here, it was very much the sensory overload that I expected it to be...amazing people, incredible horses, the trade fair is to die for!  And the Daiquiris at 10:30 a.m. were pretty great too! 

After a quick stop in to the Ecogold booth, we stuck to our plan of watching the riders in the dressage warm up...one of the Ecogold riders, Hannah Burnett - was warming up with DOC and St. Barths....There was a point in the warm up, where her pony was having a quick walk break and he started to get a little tense and we could see the white of his eyes...Hannah simply gave him a couple soothing pats, murmured to him and calmly carried on.  It was very sweet.

Hannah warming up with St. Barths

She ended up having a really nice test...Especially for the first horse of the morning.

I met Peter Atkins today. Told him he was my hero and he hugged me and said: "I like being people's hero's."...I might as well have been a 13 year old teenager meeting Justin Bieber. (I am a loser.)

Unbeknown to me at the time, our wonderful host Patricia roped asked me to host a Q & A with one of their sponsored riders, Boyd Martin.  Ummmm, okay?!  Actually, it was pretty fun.  Patrica has already posted the video to this blog and if I do say so myself, I think I did a pretty good job.

I was even MORE excited about going on a course walk with Diana Burnett.  She hails from my neck of the woods, has a machine of an xc horse and I was really looking forward to meeting her and getting her take on the course...annnnnd then total chaos happened.  There were about 4 or 5 (no joke) OTHER course walks all going on at the same time with groups of people EVERYWHERE...long story made really short - I couldn't find Diana and didn't get to walk the course with her. I am completely totally bummed about that.  Honestly - I really thought that was going to be my highlight of the entire weekend.... I did get to walk around the course though and there are a couple REALLY cool questions and jumps that we are going to be scoping out tomorrow. 

I will never, ever, EVER complain about the
height and width of a Training Table with brush again
(Ps - I'm almost 5'9)

After reporting back to Patricia that I wasn't able to hook up with Diana, and sobbing uncontrollably about it for a solid 10 minutes she told me to get it together and once again cornered asked me to host another Q&A...this one with Jessica Phoenix, Jessica Hampf...they were great...AND we talked about Fashion...what better? Oh - how about Rebecca Howard showing up half way through!  You can tell from the Q&A, that all three ladies really truly enjoy what they do, love their horses and more importantly, have a wonderful support crew around them that enables them to come out and perform at their best...and I am sure the Ecogold products help too!

So after the disappointment of not being the cool kids with the Dubarry's and not going on a course walk with Diana - WHICH IS NO ONE'S FAULT BUT MINE - I, and the rest of my entourage will be cheering on all the Ecogold riders - and well, okay, all the others too - tomorrow on what looks to be a super xc track. I can not wait to hear the thundering squishing hooves on the waterlogged ground!