Author: Amanda C

Saturday in Lexington dawned warm and humid. It had rained a bit overnight (not gonna lie, I was a bit smug in my bed in the RV as a thunderstorm rolled through at 3am and threatened to blow away all the tents. Probably because I’m usually the person in the tent.) although it was really just enough to make the footing pretty perfect yet the air so thick as to be almost unbreathable. I was wondering how those foreign and Canadian horses would handle it, and the thicker ones with less TB.

Hillary and I trudged out of the RV (and trust me, after our 9 mile day on Friday, it was trudging) about an hour before XC started and decided to head down to the ditch brush. In that field you could see 3 fences plus the big screen, so it seemed like the ideal place to park ourselves. Because, ya know… neither of us really felt like wandering around a whole lot.

I have to say though, I was quite happy with our jump choice. The ditch brush always makes for great pictures, and we were able stake our claim right at the ropes. It really could not have been a better view, plus we didn’t have to deal with insane crowds.

Around 10:45 we headed up to the trade show to the Dubarry tent, because there was supposed to be a blogger meetup there at 11. We got there a few minutes early and waited… and waited… and kept checking our phones to see if the time or place had changed. At 11:10 we were irritated and gave up, and wandered over to the trade fair to talk to a couple of vendors. Turns out our timing was super fortuitous, because about 30 seconds after we got into the building, the skies totally opened up and it poured buckets for a few minutes. We just stood in front of the big screen in the trade fair and watched everyone else get wet, then once the rain was done we went back out and parked ourselves in front of the ditch wall again to wait for MJ to come through.

We did manage to meet up with most of the other bloggers briefly after cross country was over, and as we were standing there talking to everyone, I pulled up my Instagram and saw this.

I am not one to get excited about the “celebrity” aspect of riders, and I definitely would not typically stand in line to meet any of them… BUT…

Bobby is obsessed with Maxime Livio. Like, he kept asking me all weekend to go find him and take pictures of him. I am not that dedicated to being creepy, but if I know where Maxime is going to be and when, maaaaaybe I can creep a little bit on Bobby’s behalf.

As soon as he said “Make him write I LOVE YOU BOBBY” I saw this as a challenge, and what else can I say but CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

So off Hillary and I marched back up to the trade fair to stand in line for Maxime Livio with what was, for the most part, a bunch of of 13-16yo girls. Also, it was balls-hot up there, and I had sweat rolling down my back while we stood there for half an hour and waited for him to show up. But we finally worked our way up to the front, and I said to Maxime “Hey this is going to sound really weird but my friend is obsessed with you, can you write ‘I love you Bobby’?”. He kind of grinned and said “Sure!” and asked how to spell Bobby. I said “Oh just like the regular guy’s way, B – O – B – B – Y”. He raised an eyebrow but wrote it anyway. Tim Price was sitting there with him and Hillary says “Yeah Bobby is a 40yo man” and Tim says “4? Well that’s way better than 14, 14 would be a bit weird.”, to which Hillary says “No, FOR-TY.”. This seemed to really tickle Tim, because he snickered then reached over and put three little x’s behind where Maxime had written “I ❤ you, Bobby.”. I have to give Maxime credit here, he did not skip a beat.

I really hope that Tim Price went back to the barns and told everyone about how Maxime wrote I LOVE YOU for a 40yo man named Bobby. I’m sure after the gaggle of women falling all over themselves for Maxime all weekend, surely this was a nice change of pace? Either way, now he knows he has a stalker and that his friends are equally as creepy.

Plus now Bobby owes me forever and ever.

I know Rolex bills itself as #bestweekendallyear, but for real they ain’t lying. I have so much to cover (boy, it was action packed) and a ton of media, so I’m gonna have to break it up into a couple posts. Plus I’m currently sitting in the back of an Uber on the way to the airport, and posting from a phone is annoying, therefore I can’t do this all at once. But alas – here’s a Friday recap!

I left off last week with our arrival on Thursday. Our camping spot was ridiculously amazing (for real like 100′ from the front gates) as was the RV rental that Hillary found on RV Share. 110% the best way to Rolex. We had a few too many ciders at the taco party on Thursday night, so we were able to sleep in a little on Friday and still have plenty of time to hit up the trade fair.

I know several other bloggers got a ton of stuff, but I’ll have to disappoint you right off the bat. My spending money was slim and I didn’t find much that I wanted anyway (aside from the $5700 CWD, of course), so I mostly just got a few shirts and some gifts. Apparently I cannot resist anything that is billed as a fundraising effort for an OTTB organization. 

After the trade fair we dumped our stuff in the RV (so convenient) and headed down to stalk Michael Jung. We opted not to get seats for dressage because I can’t sit there and watch the sandbox for a long enough period of time to make the purchase price worthwhile. Instead we sat by warmup and watched him get ready, which was way more interesting to me anyway. We were able to get right up close and see exactly what he does to prepare. 

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When he went in we just pulled up the live feed on Hillary’s phone and watched his test from our hillside.

Then we headed up to pick up our packets for the RK5K. Hillary might never forgive me for this but somehow I totally tricked her into running it with me. And although she is not a runner, she certainly is not a quitter either, because she dug in and got it done like a champ. Granted, I’m pretty sure she wanted to punch me for at least 60% of it, but we finished it together and hey… we got cool shirts and a few good stories out of it. There are certainly worse places to run than KHP!

Our total mileage on Friday between all the walking and the 5k was over 9 miles. We earned our pizza and early bedtime, especially since the next day was XC…

Basic summary of the day, if you’d rather just do a quick one-and-done, this video of Hillary opening our ciders with her Simko belt pretty much sums it up:

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But before all that, we started out the day in Nashville. 

First we headed to Hillary’s barn so I could meet Annie and Houston and Luna (all cute, of course) and see her barn owner’s super adorable new colt. He’s very handsome, and a total little wild hellion. Loved him, naturally. Not as cute as Presto 😉 but a close second.

Then we headed out to Lexington, with a quick stop along the way to pick up our accommodations for the weekend. 

Hillary drove it, I parked it (I’m used to a bumper pull) and we had everything set up and ready to go within 30 minutes. Our camping spot is literally like 100′ from the entrance gates, we have our own beds, a shower, a kitchen… this is absolutely, 100%, the best way to do Rolex. This must always happen.

Then we went to a blogger meet-up taco party where we possibly drank a wee bit too much before walking back over to our RV (and only getting slightly lost along the way, go us) and falling asleep. 

This morning we’re headed inside to hit up the trade fair and stalk Michael Jung in dressage warmup. I’ve definitely had worse Fridays. 

Oh hey there, guess what, today is ROLEX DAY!

I flew into Nashville last night to meet up with Hillary, and in a little bit we’re going to head down to Lexington, grab an RV, and set ourselves up in the campground for the weekend.

Not gonna lie, pretty excited about the RV. Beds, shower, toilet, kitchen, and we don’t have to ever leave KHP? Yes please. And considering the constantly changing forecast I think it’s a good idea that we didn’t try to tent camp.

We have a few things planned already, plus a blogger meet-up or two, but if you’re there and want to say hello, hit me up! Or if you aren’t going and there’s anything in particular you want pictures of, I can try to do that too.

I recently spent a couple weeks riding exclusively in my dressage saddle, letting my jump tack just sit on it’s rack collecting dust. I’ve tried to do a bit of a flatwork crackdown this year, asking a bit more of myself and my horse. But then when I put my jump saddle back on, everything felt weird. My legs had gotten used to being longer, my body more upright, and riding more with my seat. Suddenly I felt like a jockey on a racehorse. Granted, I have the opposite problem when I spend too many consecutive rides in my jump saddle and then try to dressage – I feel like my stirrups are 1000 miles away and none of my body parts will go where they’re supposed to. That’s when I realized that it’s really not that easy of a thing, at least for me personally, to constantly go back and forth between saddles and riding styles.

I obviously grew up as an h/j rider. The first time my butt ever even encountered a dressage saddle (a hard as rock, ancient brown Kieffer with no blocks to speak of) I was 19 years old, dipping my toe into eventing when I was fresh off a working student position. I had not a damn clue what I was doing (spoiler alert: still don’t). But back then I sure THOUGHT I did. I mean… I grew up in a barn where I sat on a lot of horses; green ones, made ones, rank ones, easy ones. I did a whole lot of flatwork on a whole lot of horses. Same thing, right? Ah, the naivete of youth. All I really knew was how to hold draw reins.

Yet that first foray into eventing still really didn’t hammer the point home to me, despite my bad dressage scores. I ventured back to my h/j roots, still thinking I was pretty awesome at flatwork. Maybe even more awesome now that I’d had some actual dressage lessons. I mean, my ragtag crew of various hunter and jumper project horses could all do shoulder in and leg yield and walk-canter transitions by the time I was done with them. I did serpentines, I spiraled in and out, I bent and counterbent. That was definitely more than most of the other horses in the barn did, therefore wasn’t I pretty great?

Yeah.

No.

Switching back to eventing in 2014 was a real kick in the pants. I was mature enough by then to have a healthy respect for dressage, but really the first thing I learned was that I know nothing. The flatwork I was doing was not dressage. It wasn’t even all that correct, now that I know what correct actually looks like. “Real” dressage is hard, it doesn’t come naturally to me, my position isn’t good, and I have to really focus on every single step to even be semi-passably decent at it. Add to that the complication of discipline where dressage isn’t sole focus, and constantly going back and forth between saddles. It’s not as easy as I want it to be.

It’s funny, because when I switched disciplines I thought the XC would be the hard part. I was wrong. But for as much as I’ve struggled with the dressage (and as much as I still sometimes dread it), the more I learn, the more I actually like it, and the more I find in it that applies to and compliments my jump training. I’m glad that I didn’t go running and screaming back to the jumper ring on any of those thousand occasions that I contemplated it. It’s not fun feeling like you’re shit at something, but it does make me try harder to be less shitty.

Has anyone else switched disciplines in their riding career? What was the hardest part for you?