It started as a chilly day and got chillier! Our first day at the WEG competition was cold and showery - consequently the stadium spectator numbers seemed very low. There was a large contingent of Aussie supporters however at one end of the arena who were keeping warm by doing the YMCA and Macarena in the rain to the music during the intervals! Go, the Aussie supporters! They had plenty to be pleased about with Lyndal Oatley on Potifar scoring 65.57 in 21st place with a very solid test in the morning and Rachel Sanna on Jaybee Alabaster in 9th place on 68.80. Rachel showed all of her experience and nerve when a mistake at the start of the half pass caused Alabaster to break into canter but she recovered well to go on to perform a very polished test. This leaves the Australian team in 7th place after the first day on 134.38 with the Netherlands in the lead on 145.70. A great result! The good thing about the rain was that it was a good excuse to buy some warm clothes in the merchandise tent! It is essential at these events to get stuck into the merchandise early before all of the good stuff goes so we raided the hats, fleecy jackets (wonderfully warm!), lanyards, tops, pins and anything else we could lay our hands on except the rain ponchos which had already sold out! We certainly needed them! Having been nearly 40 degrees last week the temperature has dropped dramatically today to about 18 degrees.
I caught up with Stuart and Sonja at the Alltech Experience pavilion this afternoon for them to record an interview with the Alltech WEG TV daily magazine show – Here and Now (www.alltech.com/games )and, of course, to get a mention in about the new book An Eventful Life! Having been at the WEG facility for nearly two weeks now they are both ready to get on with the competition. The trot up is on Wednesday when the team will also be announced. They both say ‘hi’ to everyone at home! Here are some more wonderful photos from our great photographer Toni-anne Collins! Lots more to come on the Facebook page as soon as we can get them up there ( after doing the blog , dinner and wine we never seem to get around to it but we will!)
