Yeah, I know this is coming a few days late

BUT, Rolex is done and over with. And wooo boy what an event!! I just love this sport!

Ok, so Cross Country.

First, I must offer my deepest condolences to Mike Winters and all those associated with him. Early on in the morning, Kingpin, his gorgeous chestnut gelding, took a fall at fence 10 and died instantly. Last I heard the horse suffered some sort of ruptured artery and the fall was due to that. I was watching the live feed (well, not live... I watched it that evening after work so I had already known about what happened) and one could see it coming, he started bucking and zig-zagging in front of the fence, but gamely tried it anyway. I had hoped that Rolex would go off this year without any horse deaths, especially after last year, so this is a little tough to swallow RIP Kingpin

Moving on...

The course was... SWEET to say the least!! A TON of new fences and some really REALLY tough questions asked. Of course there were still some of the many signature fences of Rolex such as the Ducks, the tricky Double Diamonds, the Keepers Brush, and the Sunken Road. The Head of the Lake has totally been transformed, it looks NOTHING like it used to (I didn't even recognize it at first!), the fun little mound in the middle with the signature red and white house is gone, so that kinda made me sad. Towards the end of the course we had a fence called the "Hong Kong Brushes" which was a tribute to a fence late in the course at the Olympics last year. To put it simply, it's a VERY steeply angled 2 stride line over two brush fences that encourages runouts. Interestingly enough though, it didn't cause NEAR the trouble here at Rolex than it did in Beijing.

The standings definitely shuffled up a bit. Bettina Hoy dropped to second after encountered some time faults. Lucinda Fredericks though, jumped a marvelous double clear round on Brittania to be the overnight leader. The rest of the top ten shuffled a little bit, but not too much to be of great concern. "Buck" Davidson on My Boy Bobby were able to hang onto their third place. Phillip Dutton on Connaught put in a double clear to move up one place to 9th. Tim Lips on Concrex Oncarlos also put in a MARVELOUS trip to hang onto their 4th place.

Then... onto STADIUM!! I haven't really watched any video from the dressage tests, but I have for the stadium... holy moly those bleachers are HUGE That new stadium is something else, just... my goodness. It's nothing like I remember it (FYI, I competed there back in '07, in that very same area). It looks amazing!!

Annyway, the top 10 really didn't change much! A little shuffling occured when Tim Lips had 8 jumping faults, and Stephen Bradley on Brandenburg's Joshua (this horse is amazing btw, such an experienced eventer!) incurred 4 faults. They dropped to 9th and 8th respectively.

And the winner is?

LUCINDA FREDERICKS AND HEADLEY BRITTANIA "LITTLE BRIT"

OMG I couldn't be happier for them!! I absolutely love the Aussies and felt like they got cheated out of a gold medal at the Olympics, so this makes me INCREDIBLY happy!! :dances:

Bettina Hoy and Ringwood Cockatoo placed second, and our very own Bruce "Buck" Davidson and My Boy Bobby placed third. Both put in absolutely beautiful double clear rounds.

Sooo yeah, that's pretty much my take on Rolex Now, onto 2010 and the WEG!!

Gosh I love eventing *happy sigh*

Ok... so I said racing stuffs. Not much in racing stuffs. Post positions were drawn today, I'm pretty happy with where all the favorites ended up, pretty much everybody of consequence is starting from the middle.

Was talking with someone today online whose stepson is the assistant trainer for Hal Wiggins, and said person mentioned something about not being surprised if Rachael heads for the Belmont after the Oaks. Now wouldn't that be sweet!!

Anyway... quote of the day:
"I will take Chocolate Candy and then head straight to Jenny Craig!"
lolz