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Sunday, 14 February 2010
Happy Valentine's Day!! This is our 4th one in the UAE! How strange. Today we went to take care of the horses in the morning. They were both doing well. They got to spend the day out in a large paddock together. It seemed relaxing for them and was the least they had to do since they arrived here. We also packed all of our gear up as the horses were to ship out on Monday.
After that we headed to Sheika Madiya's barn. It was a good thing that Jeremy had a hand drawn map in addition to a verbal explanation because we were driving on a highway type road and then had to look for a certain Kilometer marker and then hook a left handed turn, off- roading, as in deep sand, to a road that ran beneath the one we were on. It would have been really cryptic had there not been the verbal instructions.
After an hour plus drive we were there. Madiya showed us around and we got a tour of her horses. After this we had a wonderful lunch with her and her friend and sister. The meal was delicious and had many traditional plates.
When we finished eating we went to her barn and there were horses waiting, saddled and ready for us...
Saturday, 13 February 2010
Well, the USA did another great trip to the President's Cup 160 km race. Sir Smith was the first overseas completion in a ride time of 8:50 (36 place! so fast here), and SA Belshazzar did great as well completing his first 160 km ride in a time of 9:16. It was a great performance from both horses!
The leaders set yet another world record. I do not know the exact time but it was something like 6:20!!!
At the start Ellen and Zar went ahead of Smitty and disappeared into the heavy fog. Smitty had a slow start to settle him into a calm mind set for the day. Jeremy had to actually run a bit on foot to accomplish this. During the first loop we were last for a long while and the police escort and the ambulance trailer were following us. It felt a bit like buzzards circling. The slow pace worked though. After the first loop the pair was moving well and kept it up nicely.
Friday, 12 February 2010
Today was the last day of waiting! Super!! We went out to the camel souk first thing to get fresh Alfalfa and to get a new box of carrots. I was able to take a picture of some of the camel jockey robots, they were even wearing silks!
Jeremy and Ellen rode. Smitty looked perfect and calm. Zar looked wonderful as he cantered effortlessly along. He is a very nice representation of Shagya breeding. I took many pictures and a few video clips of him on his ride today. After the ride we gave him a soap bath and even conditioned his tail. He was super clean when we left for lunch.
We were going to leave for lunch when we discovered that our car had a dead battery. We waited a while and someone with jumper cables arrived to rescue us. We drove back to the hotel and waited for the person to arrive to give us our 4 wheel drive crew trucks. When the guy claimed that the trucks would run "Just as well as your cars" I was scared. My truck that they gave me coughed to a slow turn over start. I quickly refused taking that one and got a new one. I told them that I had already had my fun with my rental car.
Thursday, 11 February 2010
We went to the barn this morning for Jeremy to do a short ride. Ellen and Eryn went for a walk as well as Jeremy Olson's dad, Craig (who arrived last night).
We worked on Smitty taking bottles from his right side as that is the side he liked less and that is the side that is easier to get to while driving and handing off. He only held his breath a few times today, and it is really funny when he does!
After the ride Jeremy ran from the barn out for a 6 mile, give or take, run while I read my book. Then we headed back to the hotel.
Ellen, Eryn and Craig went to the camel souk and there was a lot more going on there than usual. Apparently there were fancy camels wearing sparkley, strappy things and a lot more camels were there than normal. Maybe there had been a race?
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
We woke up and had breakfast as usual and then headed out to the barn. It was another 2 hour walk morning, which is about a 6 mile deal. Every time that Smitty has seen a camel he is convinced that we should go get a better look and tries to drag me towards them. Well, today he had his chance. The camels were right on the road we were on, headed straight at us. When they were approaching he was happy, then at some point in the approaching, I guess he focused on them really well. I think he must have realized that he needs his eyes checked because it went from a cool idea "let's say Hi" to "let's get the hell outta here!" In a split second.
Jeremy ran 12 miles while we walked and he went 10 min faster today then he did two days ago.
After our walk I body clipped Smitty. We tied him to our rental car and even hung his hay bag from the car as well. We did this by unrolling the windows on the left side of the car and then tied him through the solid part of the doors between the two windows. Very professional.
Tuesday, 09 February 2010
I failed to tell you about the crazy motorcycle drivers last night. We were coming back from town and needed gas really badly. We were on a failing search for gas and we had given up and were heading back to the hotel when we just barely noticed in time two motorcycles, in the dark, without headlights, driving at us head on. I don't know if this is some psychotic type of training or what but they kept almost getting killed! The worst part was that when we went around a few more roundabouts they were once again in front of us heading at us from out of the darkness head on! Crazy. This is when Ellen said half way jokingly that they were after their families blood money. She went on to explain that if you kill a person in an accident you then owe that person's family $250,000 for their loss!
Any how, we had breakfast early to make it for our 8 am photo shoot. This morning there were amazing chocolate croissants that I now knew were fresh which made them even more amazing!
When we got to the barn we got the horses dolled up and saddled and went to exit the quarantine compound when our guard told us we couldn't leave until 9 am.
Monday, 08 February 2010
I forgot to mention that we went to the camel souk (market) yesterday to get carrots for Smitty. On the way there you can literally see 100's of camels that are in race training being ponied all over the place. We also went to a nearby stand that sells fresh cut Lucerne (alfalfa). It is super fresh, as in looking like fresh cut grass. Smitty likes it, he gets a handful each day.
At some point late in the night, like 12 am, we got a delivery at our room from the OC. It was a hat and jacket that had the race logo on it. I saw them when I woke up as I slept through the delivery! The jackets and hats were the right size and looked really cool. We also had a dinner party invite attached to this package. The party will be on Thursday night at he Endurance Village.
This morning we woke up and had the buffet as usual. I did hear the main Chef coaching one of his guys on how the pastries could be rounder, etc. I then realized that all of the beautiful pasteries we made fresh, right here. This inspired me to try an almond and powdered sugar covered croissant. Awesome!
Then we drove to the barn...
Sunday, 07 February 2010
Well let's see here, my flight was absurdly long. I started out flying from San Jose to Denver. This really doesn't get you closer to the UAE. I made the mistake of mentioning the San Jose airport and I think that organizer thought they were doing me a favor by flying me from there versus San Francisco. So instead of me driving 45 min to San Fran, I flew 2 1/2 hours to Denver and then had a 3 hour lay over to fly to Europe. I walked around Denver switched my watch by an hour and had a salad. This added 5 hours to my lovely trip. Then I got on my flight to Frankfurt. This was a 10:35 flight. I switched my watch by 8 hours and walked around all of the Duty Free shopping there was to see and waited out my 3 hour lay over. Then I boarded my final leg to Dubai. This was a 5:55 flight. I changed my watch by 3 more hours and was there. I landed at 11:55 pm. I took off on the 5th of Feb at 11 am and landed the 6th at 11:55 pm. Very cool time warp.
Once I was through passport control, which took about an hour, I went to baggage. After finding my bags, which were the last two to appear (at least they appeared though, right?) I went out to look for a person holding my name on a sign. I looked and then looked and then realized there wasn't a sign...shit. I had emailed the person in charge of our travel arrangements 5 times leading up to this trip to get the hotel info and never had gotten any data. Luckily at one point Jeremy had mentioned the hotel name to me and I was familiar with the hotel from a previous trip. I called the hotel to see what was happening and they informed me that I should take a cab and that it would be paid by the hotel. Cool. I quickly got into a cab.
Friday, 05 February 2010
So it is, that we are once again on our way to the President's Cup. Jeremy and Sir Smith left on Jan 28th. I drove them and the other USA horse SA Belshazaar (SP?) aka Zar as well.
We left at 1 am Thursday morning to get to LAX by 8 am. Zar had been with us for a couple of days so he made the trip down with us as his owners, Jeremy Olson and Ellen Rapp, are currently living in Qatar training endurance horses.
The horses both traveled well and made it, with a very tired Jeremy, to Amsterdam. The horses stayed at the horse hotel on the out skirts of Amsterdam. They had a 3 day wait there before they would ship to another airport some where in the NL to get on to a private charter with the other foreign horses to continue on to the UAE. It was snowing in Amsterdam so Jeremy could only ride them in the indoor arena. Poor Jeremy was all alone there with out any other US rider for company.