Beginning of Bonheiden

Today is Wednesday and the team is together in Bonheiden, Belgium.  On tuesday at Henks, we packed up all our equipment and moved it into a cargo truck, loaded the horses on the trailer, and headed on our way to Bonheiden, just a two hour drive away.  Once we arrived, the unpacking began.  Everyone helped so everything was in order within a couple hours.  Some of us rode our horses and got a feel for the grounds.  The show is in a very welcoming town with restaurants and shops all around.  I learned that this is actually a young rider event only, so there won't be any other competitors or horses besides those competing in the young and junior rider events, which is very unique compared to the usual shows we go to in the states.  Even though the show is small, everything is taken very seriously, and the grounds are excellent for jumping.  But that won't start until tomorrow.

Tuesday night we had a team dinner, with all the riders, our chef d'equipe Katie Prudent, Lizzie Chesson, Anne Kursinksi, and the team vet Sarah Cohen. Clearly, we are in good company here.  Everyone was pretty tired and definitely hungry after the long day... We talked about what it means to represent your country, and the expectations we have of ourselves.

Now today, Wednesday, was the jog for soundness.  We all had a team breakfast in the morning and went out for a practice jog at 9am.  This was to see how the horses came out of their stalls just cold.  Obviously, some horses are stiffer than others, but all the horses looked pretty good.  We all rode our horses after, and then we had a lot of time to kill before the jog at 2pm.  So we went to lunch, cleaned boots, organized more, etc,.

At 1:30 we took our horses out to hand-walk before the jog to make sure they were nice and loose.  The show vets showed up right at 2, and the jog began, starting with the U.S. Each horse must have a passport to present, then the jog for the vet.  Every horses successfully passed which is always good news.  So now, we get ready for tomorrow, the first day of showing.