Thursday, February 11 2010
We went to the barn this morning for Jeremy to do a short ride. Ellen and Eryn went for a walk as well as Jeremy Olson's dad, Craig (who arrived last night).
We worked on Smitty taking bottles from his right side as that is the side he liked less and that is the side that is easier to get to while driving and handing off. He only held his breath a few times today, and it is really funny when he does! After the ride Jeremy ran from the barn out for a 6 mile, give or take, run while I read my book. Then we headed back to the hotel. Ellen, Eryn and Craig went to the camel souk and there was a lot more going on there than usual. Apparently there were fancy camels wearing sparkley, strappy things and a lot more camels were there than normal. Maybe there had been a race? Also, now that the law was passed to outlaw the child jockey riders there are now remote controlled, robot jockies. The robots even twirl a whip in the home stretch! The robots were out on tailgates being offered for sale. They are very small and even have a head. A bit odd. At 1 pm I met Craig, Ellen and Eryn for lunch. Jeremy stayed in the room as he gave his buffet to Ellen and he just wanted me to bring him back a banana. On a side note, the other night there was an interesting soup. If you thought the idea of child camel jockies was cruel you would love this soup. It was called "Cream of Baby Marrow". Where did those jockies go? After lunch we all headed back out to the barn. We walked Smitty and then prepared his feet for his Easyboot glue ons. It was more difficult than at home as the sand and dust particles are very fine and there is always a breeze. Jeremy opted to do one foot at a time. After all four were on the vet arrived that we had requested. We ran fluids once more to be fully hydrated for the race. Both horses didn't mind too much. Knowing we would be tight on time we all packed our change of clothes for the dinner party. The party was withing walking distance from our quarantine barn. We did drive however. We got there around 6 pm. We knew better than to be on time but oh well. Around 8 pm we started to eat. Before the meal there was all sorts of entertainment. There were the Soluki (I know that I just butchered the spelling on that) hounds, henna tattoo painting (which Ellen and Eryn got on their hands), camel rides, hooka, falcons and cooking of some local type pasteries. It was pretty cool. There were two types of camel there. One type was a white camel that we were told were dairy camels. They were extremely pretty and had two adorable calves with them. The calves coat looked like a fancy white poodle. Super cute! Then there were a yellow/dun colored camel. We were told that these were race camels. They were giving rides on the race type camel. All of this was going on and the funny part was that there was VERY loud American music blaring in the background, Michael Jackson included! It was surreal. This was all outdoors at the race venue. I did end up getting pretty cold. Like I have said before, it is actually chilly here. During the day it was warm but it was chilly tonight for sure. This venue is by far the most spectacular one I have seen in the world. It is so beautiful. The arrival gate is all on manicured grass as well as the transition area and trot out lanes. The entire area is lined with perfect trees and the whole thing is park-like. Magnificent really. Anyhow, tomorrow we will get our 4x4 crew vehicles at noon and we vet in at 2 pm. With the Quarantine opening at 9 am and taking care of Smitty, getting back to the hotel with the 35 min drive, getting the car, having lunch, driving 35 min back then vetting in at 2pm and setting up the crew bay we should finally be busy. I need to sleep. I' ll let you know how it goes tomorrow. Heather | |||||||
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