Who waits until they're in their 30s to learn how to properly drive a manual vehicle? And then does it on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road in a foreign country in their friend's slightly "older" model vehicle (sorry Rebecca)?
Every day I wake up, and—unless I forgot to remove eye make-up on the rare occasion it’s ever applied, or have enjoyed an evening with friends and generous pours of wine—I usually look about the same. Depending on the week I may look a little more tired or sun-kissed than the week before, but on a whole I don’t notice much difference.
It’s been exactly a year since one of my favorite horses, Waitangi Notebook, better known as “Mouse,” suffered a serious pasture accident. She slipped and fell in her paddock running from the sound of gunshots in the woods.
When she got up, it was immediately apparent she sustained significant trauma to her left hind pastern, but the damage ended up being worse than we initially thought.
I bought Donner six years ago. He was 5, and I was retiring my previous four-star horse to the lower levels. I initially got Donner as a project.
He was a beautiful stamp of a horse, had a good canter and a good enough jump. He was wild, but the price was right so I figured I'd take the chance. Either he would turn out to be something for me in the future, or I'd put some work into him and sell him on if he didn’t turn out to be an upper level horse.
Playtime is over. We’ve had so much fun over the last week and a half in Chantilly and then in Pau, but now it's time to get down to business.
We even had a chance to go to Paris and see the Eiffel Tower, and unfortunately I also picked up an amazing bout of food poisoning or an awesome stomach virus. Luckily I survived, and many apologies to Hannah Sue Burnett, who had to suffer through the evening as my poor roomie that terrible night.
Well, the event is getting closer. It's been nice to have this bit of down time in our own little world in France, working on some last-minute preparations before we head to Pau for the four-star.
We've been riding through and filming our dressage tests and then watching our rides, and setting up some jump exercises similar to what we think we may run into at Pau...minus the enormous mounds, tight galloping lanes, and atmosphere.
Greetings from France! The Pau CCI****-bound U.S. and Canadian horses are all settled in at the gorgeous Fursan Equestrian facility in Chantilly, France, for the next few days until we ship 10-plus hours to Pau on Monday.
Donner is a bit tight and wild at the moment, but he's relaxing more and more with every ride. While a flight to Europe takes a lot out of some horses, unsurprisingly it seems to have had the opposite effect on mine.
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