I just got back from a fantastic visit to Lexington KY for the Rolex Three Day Equestrian Championships. This is the creme de la creme of the "eventing" world, a sport that requires riders and horses to compete over three days in dressage, cross country obstacles, and stadium (or "show") jumping. It's amazing how challenging it is, and this event is one of only 5 four-star (top notch) events in the country (or world? I'm not sure, I just started researching this sport). Many Olympic hopefuls were competing (and are competing--today, Sunday, is the third and final event, the stadium jumping, but we only stayed for the dressage and cross country. I have to be somewhere else today, more about that in a later entry ;-) This is the stuff you'll see in the summer olympics later this summer. It was incredible, the speed and stamina and heart these horses possess. Here you see lil' ol 5'5" me standing in the middle of a two part "fence" (they're such huge obstacles, it sounds odd to call them fences. They're mountains!). The horse goes over one brushy fence and immediately over the next. I don't recall if they get to stride in between on this one, it looks close together. Anyway, I have a TON of gorgeous pictures to share, these are just a couple to show you a teaser of the gorgeous horseflesh we saw. And we were so close to them, it was unbelievable! At one point I even had one turn off from a fence and come right at me--all the spectators stay behind a string on sticks; not much protection from a 23-mph horse missile. :-) But they're very much under control by their riders. Oh I could just blab about this all day, but I have to go. So I'll put up these other pictures in a couple more entries, and please be patient with me as I will be away from a computer all week. By week's end I should be able to organize, crop and caption my couple hundred photos from Rolex (I kid you not, and I had hardly any bad ones!) and put them on Flickr. I just wanted to be a little more current and blog about this while it was still so fresh in my mind. As if I could ever forget...

 You can find a lot of details and the results here. I wasn't able to see all of the horses compete, because I was walking all over the course trying to just get a glimpse of each fence as a horse went over it. It's impossible to see the whole thing on foot. But I got around quite a bit and saw most of the competitors. There were some really scary moments when a horse fell right in front of me--as I was taking photos! Ack. But I don't see anything about him, Quiet Man, on the website so I am pretty sure he will be okay. He got up while I was still hanging around. (Everything stops and they hold up the other competitors when there's a loose horse or any kind of accident.)  But unfortunately later that night one horse had to be euthanized as a result of an injury sustained when he hit a fence wrong and flipped over on his rider. I did NOT see this happen, I wasn't even aware what had happened until we saw ambulances and life flight helicopters, etc. The rider is hospitalized. I knew this was a very dangerous sport, but it sure hits home when you are right there as it happens. It's a lot scarier than watching it on tv. Anyway, enough sad stuff!  I'm still basking in the whole event in general. A horsey high...