Photo: Libby Law
This show is on the road.
North America’s biggest show in the sport of eventing entered at “A” this morning. On the first day of dressage at the 2012 Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event, presented by Bridgestone, no one was talking about the Kentucky Derby. The Thoroughbreds everyone had their eyes on today were the off-track second-career eventers entered in the Western Hemisphere’s only 4* event. “Kentucky” means eventing this week, not Churchill Downs.
We’re front and center, the spotlight is on.
“We” are your AEL team of reporters over here, stateside. Here at the keyboard you’ll find me, Fran Jurga. I'm normally writing The Jurga Report and The Hoof Blog. I’m warming up for the launch of my Olympic blog, and happy to stretch my legs for a few days at An Eventful Life.
Out there with the microphone and camera is eventing journo, National Public Radio on-air talent and multimedia pro Samantha Clark; you’ll find her blog on Eventing Nation.
As always, we’ll try to bring in comments and experiences from other people we meet along the way.
If Australia needs a reason to cheer at this very early stage, it is at the very top of the leaderboard, where Aussie ex-pat Boyd Martin with his long-time horse Remington lead on a score of 45.3. Maybe he doesn’t ride for Australia any more, but after the experience he’s had in the past year, it’s easy to cheer for him no matter what flag you wave.
Kentucky sunshine is predicted to continue through tomorrow’s dressage, which wraps up at 4 p.m.; the wind that made things lively earlier on Thursday has died down now. For Saturday’s cross-country, riders will keep an eye to the sky when they select their studs, as thunderstorms with rain are predicted later in the day.
Tomorrow the dressage scores will begin to mean more, as more riders collect their scores. Today 28 horses made their way to the dressage ring; tomorrow the second half will start.
Samantha Clark had an opportunity to interview Australia’s Kadi Eycamp (LINK: http://www.kadieykamp.com/) yesterday before the trot-up. Kadi is one of the Australian riders we’ll be keeping an eye one for AEL. She’s been in the USA since 2006 and Americans are taking notice. She’s currently based in Texas.
Over to you, Samantha...
Kadi wasn’t kidding about the footing being slick at the trot-up; ex-pat Aussie Philip Dutton’s horse actually had his hooves come right out from under him during his inspection. He was fine, but there were a few minutes before everyone dared breathe.
(Photographer Nancy Jaffer caught an amazing shot of Mighty Nice.)
By the way, Kadi's horse passed the vet no problem and has been looking great working on the flat. She was out jogging the course earlier and passed by us looking super impressive (probably when she lost her phone, though).
In the dressage, Kadi scored 58.3, putting her in 15th place at the end of the first day.
Samantha spent a few minutes with triple Olympic team gold medallist Andrew Hoy, who will ride his dressage on Friday. He probably deserves some sort of a prize--he competed here in 1978 at the World Championships, which formed the roots for what would become the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event.
Andrew and Rutherglen Photo: Libby Law
And here he is, back again.
Andrew has been working his horse pretty intensely since arriving here on Monday. Samantha’s take on Rutherglen: “Very very nice horse.”
I think she approves.
A few snippets from Samantha’s interview with Andrew:
On returning to Kentucky: "Kentucky's very special to me because I came here in 1978, and it was my first four star competition and my first Advanced competition in those days, so to be back here 34 years later is really special. I've got a young horse now, a horse called Rutherglen and this is his first four star competition.
He continued: “I've had a quick look around the cross country course and there's a lot of jumping out there to be done, but I've got a lot of faith in this horse; he's only nine years old so it's step by step and it's day by day. We've just had the horse inspection and so it's now up to the dressage phase, then the cross country and then the show-jumping!
"I've been back twice since the first time, and I won it in 2006 with a horse called Master Monarch which was great, so it's a very special event to me, and it's absolutely wonderful to be back here."
If Rolex went well, does Andrew harbour hopes that he might be considered for the Olympic team for London?
"One always has Olympic dreams. It's really going to be performance based, and if I have a good result then it's up to the selectors. If they want me in the team with a good result, well, sure!"
This year's field doesn't include the 2011 winner (Mary King from Great Britain) or the 2011 National Champion (Sinead Halpin) but it does include former winners (and Olympic medalists), Phillip Dutton and Karen O'Connor of the USA and Andrew Hoy of Australia. Dutton has contested every single running of the CCI4* in Kentucky.
If you’ve been to the Kentucky Horse Park, you know it is a vast location for horse events. The arenas are scattered around the park, which has two centers: one is a theme-park style open horse farm setting where the public can learn about horses, see them in action and visit educational exhibits and the International Museum of the Horse.
The second is a campus-like setting known as the National Horse Center, where major organizations like the US Equestrian Federation and US Dressage Association have their national headquarter buildings. Dozens of other breed and sport organizations do their business in large and small, shared and standalone buildings.
It makes sense when you’re there on a weekday in March. But the coming of Rolex changes all that and the map of the Horse Park becomes something you want on your iPhone just as badly as the map of the cross-country course: will you ever find your car again?
Photo: Libby Law
Thursday was the first day that the trade show area was open. Like everything else, this is spread out--there is an area for sponsors and an area for vendors--and gives the impression that there is always more that you haven’t seen yet.
That’s easy when there are 175 vendors to visit. That challenge didn’t stop the scores of shoppers today; they know that arriving early in the weekend assures the best selection from the vendors. And yet the shopping fever reaches a frenzy that makes the observer wonder if there will be anything at all left by Saturday.
Tomorrow all eyes will be on William Fox-Pitt of Great Britain: William won Rolex Kentucky in 2010 but since he won Burghley in the fall, he has the chance to win the Rolex Grand Slam, should be also win Rolex Kentucky and then Badminton next week. Only one rider--Great Britain's Pippa Funnell--has ever won the Grand Slam.
Of course, all eyes would be on Fox-Pitt anyway; he is the world’s top rider, after all, and his mere presence here has people arranging their schedules for Saturday so they’ll be sure to be on course when he gallops by.You can sense that this year Rolex Kentucky is not about the here-and-now. It’s about the then-and-there. Then is July. There is London. But this is now and these horses haven’t seen a calendar and don’t watch FEI TV.
It may be quiet in the barns tonight at the Horse Park but in a few hours all the bustle begins again. We'll share with you what's going on so check back soon and often!
