Live! From the USPC National Office!

So this is really cool...I'm sitting in the Board Room of the USPC National Office, the walls are covered with the cool banners created for the World Equestrian Games, pictures of former USPC Presidents, walls of trophy cases containing the very fancy perpetual trophies, and a collection of commemorative posters from past Festivals eating pizza with the 4 teams who will be contesting the Prince Philip Cup for Juni or Games. Pretty cool! I made a point of showing a few of the kids my name on the Cavalry Trophy (located right next to my Pony Club BFF - Michele Sult's - nameplate and pointing to me on my Haflinger pony in the 1992 Festival Poster...It is still really cool to know that little old me has a presence in this room when USPC has so many famous alumni!
(Left: Grady the Gnome posing with the Prince Philip Cup!)





Team Hollywood had a busy, but satisfying, afternoon. At 2 pm, Kelly took Reggie out for a gallop before her 3:17 pm dressage ride. We knew we would have a very short time to get Reggie cleaned up and ready for his dressage test, but geeez...Kelly brought him back to the barns at 2:27 pm and wanted to be on and ready for dressage warm up at 2:40!!!! ACK! Somehow, we did it. Definitely good teamwork!

Reggie and Kelly had a wonderful, relaxed warm-up (not normal for this old fireball), and it carried over into the cavernous Rolex Arena for her test. Although the scores were not those to rival the leaders in the first phase, Kelly was definitely very happy to have her most relaxed test ever at Rolex. Back at the barns, we hosed Reggie off, took him and Kelly's other two horses out to stretch their legs and graze, and then did the evening ritual of icing and wrapping. The old guy looks content and quite pleased with himself!


Tomorrow, Team Hollywood will have a chance to enjoy the Trade Fair and vendors (I need to buy a new dressage coat! And we need leg grease for Saturday!) and watch some of the horses in the second half of the split. More importantly, Kelly and a couple other riders - Laine Ashker, Gina Miles, and Cathy Weischoff - will face off in the USPC Celebrity Games challenge! Rumor has it (and I have pretty good sources!) that the four games that will be played are:

• Mug Shuffle
  


• Two Flag



• Ball and Bucket



• Bending Race

Do be sure to stop by the WALNUT ARENA at 12:30 pm to cheer on the celebrities and watch our very talented Junior Games teams face off! I'll be there to make sure Kelly behaves herself! :)

If you see me walking around in my red wellies and carrying my garden gnome, do say hi!