Following Canada's Equestrian Team

We’re now more than halfway through the Games, and only the Showjumpers left to strut their stuff and go for the Gold.

It was an early morning out at Club Hipica, where the Eventing team was busy packing up and loading the trailers to catch their flight. It’s amazing the number of trunks that fit into that 1 gooseneck trailer! By 8:30am, the convoy of horse trailers was on the road en route to the airport.

Once there, things moved very quickly getting the equipment and horses onto the plane. It still blows my mind how trusting horses really are, as they calmly walked from the horse trailer up the ramp into the plane where the stalls were then built around them.

2 hours later, they were taxiing down the runway and off to Florida.
I got word later in the day from Team Manager Fleur Tipton who said that they landed safely in West Palm Beach.

After leaving the airport, I then rushed to the Country Club just in time for the Jumper horse inspection. All 4 of our horses passed the jog. Tuesday will be a training session where each rider will get 90 seconds in the main arena to jump any jumps they like. Wednesday will be the first phase of both individual and team competition. Thursday will host a two round competition, after which the Team medals will be awarded. The individual medal round will then happen on Saturday.

While I was at the airport seeing the Evening horses and team off, Tina was doing “team clothing” duty and making trips back and forth to the Athletes’ Village in order to exchange some of our Jumper team’s clothing. But the afternoon was a bit calmer, and we were able to enjoy a lovely lunch at the Country Club (overlooking the fairway) with most of the Jumper team, including Mark Laskin (assistant chef d’equipe) who arrived last night.

One of the more humorous moments that happened today was when I first returned to the Country Club and was stopped from entering the stables because I had the wrong colour wristband. Seems I still had the Dressage blue wristband, but the organizers had now changed it to brown. So off to the Stewards’ office I went, but was told they couldn’t give me a wristband because I wasn’t on “the list”. I tried to explain that I’m the Team Leader, so definitely need access to the stables. The answer was “You need to ask your chef d’equipe to put you on the list.”…and pointed to Torchy Millar’s name on the list.

I have to admit, I was chuckling to myself when I replied “You don’t understand….I’m HIS boss!”.
That did the trick, and a brown wristband was immediately put on my wrist.

The Mexican Equestrian Federation is graciously hosting a welcome reception tonight, and just about all of our team members have gone out to attend the festivities.

Tomorrow should be a fairly quiet day as it’s a training day…and I’m very hopeful that Tina and I will be able to finally visit the historic part of Guadalajara…and maybe even go sightseeing on Thursday!