Following Canada's Equestrian Team

This is a couple of days late……been difficult for me to hop on the computer and make a proper update. The Jumper horses arrived about 1 hour early at 1pm. Unfortunately 3 of the jumper grooms were still in North America as their plane was delayed due to bad weather. Only Sergio (Jonathan Asselin’s groom) made it ahead of time with Jerome (Eric Lamaze’s groom), Lori (the team’s stable manager) and Sylvie (the team’s vet) travelling on the plane with the horses. Team Canada spirit kicked in and the Eventers made sure that the jumper stalls were bedded and ready. The Dressage team made sure that hay was on order and found some water buckets to fill and hang in the stalls.

When the horses arrived at the venue, the dressage and eventing guys went out to help unload the horses and escort them to their new digs. All 5 horses travelled well and did the obligatory first roll in the fluffy shavings to christen their stalls. So now the barn is full with all Canadian horses here – very exciting!

The remaining 3 grooms (Dominique, Samantha and Kirsten) arrived early the next morning.

One aspect I greatly enjoy about being involved as assistant team leader is getting to meet and know the people from the other disciplines. As much as I love dressage, it’s great to become involved with Eventing and Jumping as well! Because Sergio came in a day before the horses, we took him along to dinner with the RCMP staff sargeant Louis (who flew in to do a security briefing with our Canadian Team). Sergio is from Mexico and seeing how the next Pan Ams are in Guadelajara in 2011, I’m taking FULL advantage in getting Sergio to help me learn Spanish. So far he’s helped me learn “my name is Kerri”, “see you later”, “good morning”, “hi”, “how are you”, “I’m fine”, “are you tired?”, “I’m tired”. 🙂 Every time I see him he throws a new one at me to see how much I’ve picked up.

Now that the jumper grooms, horses, team vet and stable manager have arrived we’re just waiting for chef d’equipe Torchy Millar and the riders who will be coming in on different days over the next few days. The team is almost complete!

Oh….and for those who have emailed me asking me to post smaller thumbnails, your wish is my command. Click on the images if you want to see a larger version. And as per IOC blogging guidelines, I am in every one of these pictures….see that blurry part at the bottom? That’s my arm!

Jerome and Hickstead

Jacquie and Ole

dressage chef Ali and Special Ed

Lori and In Style

Sergio (my new Spanish teacher) and Rayana

second installment to come later today…….