Following Canada's Equestrian Team

It’s definitely been a bit challenging at these Games with our Dressage and Eventing folks both on the ground but a different venues. Club Hipica (Eventing venue) is about 30-40 mins away from the Country Club (Dressage & Eventing)….and with Dressage competition being in full swing the last couple of days, we haven’t spent as much time with our Eventing team as we would like.

So today, Tina and I first made a stop at the Village where we picked up a couple of coolers (for ice) to take up to Club Hipica for our Eventing gang and check in with Eventing Team Manager Fleur Tipton and the Eventing grooms to see how things are going.

Fleur said the team looked great that morning during their jump schooling session, and everyone is in good spirits with the horses settling in well. The barns at Club Hipica were newly built earlier this year, and really are quite nice & airy with large stalls. Canada is sharing an aisle with the USA…as Tim Dutta said “welcome to Paradise Alley” 🙂

While there, we had a chance to touch base with Tim Dutta (who is handling all of our horse flights) and Jim Wolf. It’s hard to believe that we’re already talking exit strategies…but in just a couple of days our Dressage horses will be flying back home. So details need to be worked out with regards to organizing the paperwork for the vet trunks, having trunks packed and horses ready for a 6am departure from the venue, settling the account at the stable office etc. etc. And then getting ready for the Jumpers to arrive the next day!

After grabbing a quick lunch at the venue with Fleur (chef d’equipe Graeme Thom and the riders were off having lunch off site), Tina and I took a quick drive up to Santa Sofia Gold Club to check things out and see the temporary stall setup. The official course walk is tomorrow morning.

I can’t begin to describe how beautiful the setting is at Santa Sofia. It will definitely be an incredible cross-country day.

Then from Santa Sofia it was off to the airport to meet our “El Presidente” Mike Gallagher who is here for a few days. I’ve really been looking forward to having Mike here as I rarely get a chance to see him and it will feel like “old days”…although this time, Mike will be able to chillax and enjoy the games rather than having to run around taking care of all the little things.

Off to bed now as we have a very busy day tomorrow with Santa Sofia in the morning (chef meeting, rider briefing and official course walk) and Freestyle medal round in the afternoon (cheering on Tom, Crystal and Tina to medals!)

The last pic is for my Geordie husband….a British pub in the heart of Guadalajara Mexico.

Kerri.