Friday, February 12 2010
Today was the last day of waiting! Super!! We went out to the camel souk first thing to get fresh Alfalfa and to get a new box of carrots. I was able to take a picture of some of the camel jockey robots, they were even wearing silks!
Jeremy and Ellen rode. Smitty looked perfect and calm. Zar looked wonderful as he cantered effortlessly along. He is a very nice representation of Shagya breeding. I took many pictures and a few video clips of him on his ride today. After the ride we gave him a soap bath and even conditioned his tail. He was super clean when we left for lunch. We were going to leave for lunch when we discovered that our car had a dead battery. We waited a while and someone with jumper cables arrived to rescue us. We drove back to the hotel and waited for the person to arrive to give us our 4 wheel drive crew trucks. When the guy claimed that the trucks would run "Just as well as your cars" I was scared. My truck that they gave me coughed to a slow turn over start. I quickly refused taking that one and got a new one. I told them that I had already had my fun with my rental car. After I ate lunch and Jeremy ate a banana we went to the Carrefour one last time. We got a large tube of "Nappy Cream". This is the UAE version of Desetin. We also bought some shoes for ourselves. Ellen and Eryn had told us about the shoes. They were a super deal and very stylish. This is also where I got my Baskin Robbins fix, I had gone the whole day before without and was due. We then went back to the barn. We were supossed to go and vet in at 2 pm. We arrived 5 min late and found the quarantine barn deserted! Go figure, we have been early and waiting for everything else but this time they decided to go early! Oh well, we hurried down the road to vet in and caught up with Zar and Ellen. It was "No Problem" as they love to say here:) Both horses vetted in sound and healthy. The riders weighed in while Eryn and I led the horses back to quarantine. Smitty finally had a number on his butt and it became clear, for the first time what we were really going to do, for sure. He seemed happy to know the waiting would soon end. We went back to the venue for a quick ride briefing. This is when we got the ride program. It had pictures (from our great photo shoot we had a few days ago) of all of the foreign riders with a little blurb about each one. It was pretty cool. It also had all of the loops with the distances and hold times. We will be starting at 6 am and there are 6 loops. We also discovered that there is a team competition. We got set up by a German rider, with a sheik who had two horses. So it will be, the 2 Americans and then two UAE riders. Our riders are numbers: 18, Sir Smith, 118 SA Belshazzar. I do not know our two other team horses numbers. While we were at the venue we got to visit with Martha Mischef (SP, sorry) and Pamela Burton, fellow Americans. It was good to see them again. After setting up our crew area and looking at the UAE horses vetting in we went back to the barn to tuck the horses in. They were fine, time to get back to the hotel to relax. We did stop for gas, actually it was diesel. Our little truck is a quad cab diesel Mitsubishi. It is really a cool little truck. We ate dinner, great beef medallions tonight and then we are headed to bed. Jeremy had another banana meal. He weighed in at 77 KG. He was happy. Tomorrow will be fun and Jeremy will join us at Baskin Robbins afterwards! Heather | |||||||
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