Sweatin' to the Standards!

Grady posing at the KHP Gate

Phew!  Can't believe we've made it through Day 1 of the competition!  I'm a bit behind on blogging because I've been busy, so I'll give you a quick update from Tuesday's activities and today...
If you haven't heard, it's hotter than you could even imagine here in Lexington.  It's even hot when I leave my hotel at 5 am.  Yes, THAT hot.  But all of the competitors have been wonderful sports and the Operations Team (OPS, not OOPS!) has been awesome making sure that all of our water jugs are filled with nice, cool ice water.  They have a lot of practice working in this kind of heat, as most of them are from the very steamy Deep South Region, but even they are hot!  If you see members of the OPS team (you'll know them by their red suspenders) - please thank them for their hard work!

Grady and Tampa Bay Ray - the Voice of Championships!

Tuesday was busy with briefings - I went to Show Jumping and Dressage, while other members of the Ground Jury covered Eventing, Tetrathlon, Games and Polocrosse.  I also attended the Show Jumping and Dressage jogs.  Can I just say WOW!  Those Show Jumping competitors can put on a show for their jogs - they did AWESOME!  Good thing, as they are jogging again tomorrow morning at 6 am so that they can get a 7 am start to try and beat some of the heat. 

NJ Region Teamwork!

Today is what we Chiefs call "Paperwork Day."  Lots of HM judging - Turnout (formal) inspections, daily sheets (safety checks and turnbacks, along with general work in the barn), and required equipment checks.  To make the Required Equipment judging go faster, we employed the "abbreviated check," in which every team was checked for their Equine First Aid kit, Extra Equipment kit and Feeding Equipment, as well as 2 other kits of each Chief's choosing.  Turnouts took up most of the day for Dressage, Eventing, and Show Jumping, but I have to say that the first day of Champs competition is always my favorite just because the competitors and horses always look so darned nice!  They look great on subsequent days, but man, something about shiny boots, well-oiled tack, and a horse groomed to the nines just makes me a happy girl!

Grady makes a very special delivery to competitors!

Grady and I spent most of the day speeding around the Horse Park in our "Gnome Mobile" (my very fancy golf cart), running errands to make lives easier for HM staff and help wherever needed.  As you can see by the picture, some of our errands were a bit unusual, but very necessary for the comfort of our competitors!

OH!  And yesterday Grady and I were lucky enough to be interviewed about Festival Fashion by Glenn the Geek at Horse Radio Network.  You can listen to our interview here.  Grady got a little shy and didn't say much, but he did look pretty awesome in his pink sunglasses.  We also went to the Opening Ceremony.  We loved watching the parade of teams, but especially enjoyed the joie de vivre of the Deep South float (Grady caught some cool green beads!)

Tomorrow should be less hectic for the HM staff, but still very hot.  Eventing will have a looooong day with 9.5 hours of cross country, but after a great vet box briefing, I know everyone will kick butt!

Okay, off to help with night checks!!!

Grady visits with Aidyn, his youngest fan!  (His mom, Krista, is an AHMJ in Eventing)