Mother and Daughter Horse Extravaganza

Get prepared for a really, really long blog post.

My mom has come and gone and it's sad she's left but we had such a wonderful time together. We've never taken a trip just the two of us, so going to Lexington, KY for the Rolex Kentucky 3-Day Event was just amazing. Having her in Albany would have been great, too, but going to an international horse competition just put the icing on the cake.

For those of you who don't know what a 3-day event is, it's basically a horse triathalon. The first day, all the horses and riders compete in dressage. The second day, everyone competes in cross country jumping (4 miles of jumping 28 solid obstacles--it's very difficult and dangerous). The third day, everyone competes in stadium jumping (that's just regular timed arena jumping where you don't want to knock fences). The horses are really, really tired by then though. Whoever has the lowest score for the 3 days wins. 55 international riders competed this year at the Rolex. There's a $150,000 prize and they split it between the top three.

I spent a few days before Mom got here clearing out our guest room and blowing up the air mattress. I was excited because I got to pull out the gorgeous quilt Jordan's Grandma Cline gave us for our wedding. I can't wait until we have a permanant guest bed and can have it out all the time!

Here's the guest bathroom--I even put out hotel shampoo and conditioner because we have soooo much of it from all of Jordan's hotel stays!

I picked Mom up from the Valdosta airport at 10 PM Tuesday night, and we left the next morning on a 9 hour drive for Lexington. They were having crazy weather but we missed the worst of it. However, about 20 minutes from the hotel the rain got so bad I couldn't see. We had to put our hazard lights on and pull over. But it cleared up and we made it there safely. The weather was beautiful the rest of the time we were there!

We stayed at a Hilton Garden Inn about ten minutes from the horse park. The whole hotel was covered in horse wall art and everyone staying there was there for the Rolex. It was awesome.

I loved the picture above our toilet.

We got a yummy breakfast every morning 'cause Jordan is a vip member or something. It was awesome. We got omlets and french toast and stuff.

Here we are at the horse park on Thursday. I bought a Rolex raincoat 'cause I don't even own a coat with a hood...isn't that silly? Mom got a visor but you can't see it. It's really cute though.

Everyone spends a ton of money at the trade fair at the Rolex. They've got some great deals--if I had Scout anywhere near me I probably would have spent a ton of money. Phew! But I did get this cute "I love my ex...racehorse" shirt 'cause it's just so true!

Here I am outside the Rolex Stadium.

On Thursday we saw the most darling Pony Club Quadrille (when four horses perform a dressage test at the same time).

On Friday we watched the dressage competition. I loved that the men would tip their hats to the crowd after they were done.

I gave Mom a hard time about watching every.single.dressage.ride. It was very repetitive. But beautiful. I really didn't mind too much. And I guess we watched every single horse during XC so what can you do...

I took this picture from the Rolex facebook page, I hope they don't mind. My pictures weren't great.

Here's Mom next to the half-pass statue at the dressage museum.

Okay, Saturday, cross country day, was the most awesome thing ever. These jumps were enormous. It was crazy. Again, I'm borrowing pictures because mine were just not awesome enough.

This was my favorite pair that competed. Her name is Oliva and the horse's name is Subway. He reminded me soooo much of Scout (you should have seen him buck through his lead changes). Even though his dressage test was not good and they were dead last (44th place), she still patted him and loved him up after it was done. He went clean in XC and finished 15th. Pretty good for starting out 44th!

This horse was also super cute.

Unfortunately, there were 5 or 6 falls. We didn't seen any, although we saw a really, really close call. No horses were hurt but one rider has a broken arm. All the other riders were fine.

These were our purchases by the end of the trip. I got a jacket, light sweatshirt, t-shirt, show gloves, and a horseshoe necklace. Mom got a shirt, visor, show gloves, spurs, and the same necklace.

We debated and debated but decided not to stay for stadium jumping on Sunday. It almost killed us but we wanted to get back so Mom could see Jordan. Here I am in front of the arena all set up for stadium.

It was like leaving the Super Bowl during the last quarter. Ugh.

But we went to the Ariat Reining Freestyle Saturday night and had a blast. It was western riding and they did spins and stops to music and they could have fun costumes.

Jennifer Sauls was nice enough to text me the results of the Rolex while we were driving (thanks!). Mary King, who has been in eventing forever, won first and second place with both the horses she was riding, which has never been done before. She was very cute in the interview we saw with her later.

During stadium jumping on Kings Temptress.

With her two winners.

If you want to see some of the action live, here are some short clips I put together. Sorry the dressage isn't longer; I guess I just forgot to pull out my camera!

On Monday, we were suffering post-Rolex Kentucky depression, so we didn't do much. We just hung out around the house and took Lexi to the park and normal stuff. Tuesday we were sad it was our last day together. We did go to the Albany Turtle park and see the Ray Charles statue.

She loves her grandpup!

And Mom got to have some yummy southern barbeque. And we made her eat boiled peanuts and fried okra. The peanuts were not very good, but the okra was great. Yum!

I was super sad to drop her off at the airport Wednesday morning but I only cried a little bit. I went to McDonalds to drown my sorrows in a Big Mac and their new frozen strawberry lemonades, which are quite good. Today I'm back to my happy, cheerful self.

I love you, Mom! Come back again soon!