More Biltmore...

On Friday morning, the already very packed camp was still having trailers coming in, a lot of people to finally get to meet in person (vs facebook).
I'm trying to keep twist barefoot and booted for conditioning/racing so I had planed to meet with jeremy Reynolds (representing easycare) so he could put glue ons on Twist but the ground/grass was still dewy at 8:30, so we waited until 10, in the mean time we went to get the registration papers. After Jeremy glued the boots on Twist it was almost time for The FEI horses to be vetted in , so I went to take some pictures.

I would like to give particular attention to a couple of young riders who were trying to qualify for the youth championships hapenning in July. I managed to get some information on some of them and will report soon.
I'm very pleased to see for the 2nd year the youth championship being a real endurance event, challenging all the young riders, i'm calling myself a baby endurance rider, as i do not have a lot of experience and I admire young persons like Kyle Gibbon, Josie McGhee, Steven Hay that are barely half my age but they all have so much more experience, they are very inspiring to me and I hope to a lot of people and to a lot of juniors.

I do think north america is lacking young riders and junior riders, they are the future of our sport.

Back to Biltmore:

So time to go get vetted, jen and I go together since twist and snicks are SO attached to eachother. I'm happy to get vetted by Art King, I met Art at my 1st ride in 2006 and see him to most of the rides I go to.

Many horses to get vetted but it's well organized and there was no line. Both horses vetted in at 36 and all As :-)

Time to go ride a little bit, Jen wanted to have a solo ride on snickers, so I tacked up Twist and off we went, I wanted to go for a 1 hour easy ride, but when i decided to go back, the trails got a little trickier and I end up doing almost 10 miles in over and hour and a half, a little longer than I wanted but Twist was great, I hosed her off quickly, walked her and put her back in her pen, it was almost time to go to the ride meeting, so I showered and ahead towards the tent.

The ride meeting was a little confusing, going back and forth between 50, 75 and the 100, but all in all, it was quite easy, I marked the order of my loops with their distance on my forearm so i would remember during the ride.

The diner was really good, with some yummy black currant cobbler with REAL whip cream!

Everyone went to bed early, I walked the horses one last time and called it a night too.

Biltmore

We arrived at biltmore Thursday around 11am (we would be Jen, her husband John, their son CJ, Pam a friend coming to crew).

Let me describe what would be my day before arriving at Biltmore, starting Wednesday morning:

7:30AM - Brooklyn: waking up, check up one last time if I packed everything I need for Biltmore
9:30AM - Soho - NYC : work in a retouching studio ("photoshoping" some models and products)
7:00PM - Penn Station - NYC : hoping on the train to get to Hamilton (1+ hour train)
8:20PM - Hamilton NJ : car drive to get to the barn (thanks Shana) 45 min
9:05PM - Stockton NJ : arrived to the barn, Jen and I usaully get everything ready the previous weekend of a ride.
10:00PM - Stockton NJ : leaving for a long trip to Biltmore, I don't drive (I need to get a US license, procrastinating, me???), so Jen and John are the driving gurus, thanks guys!

11:00AM - BILTMORE! Yeah!

Talk about a long day, but it is always worth it, because I always get to ride nice trails with good friends and horses.


So, as you can read, we had a 13 hours drive and did it at night and we all loved it.

There were already a lot of people when we arrived. We got told to park in the 2nd field, we were the 1st in there!
The weather was beautiful and we got set up in no time.

Twist (my new mare) and snickers (jen's horse) are easy campers. So once they were all set, we were able to go say hi to old friends and make new ones.

Jen and I went for a short ride and enjoyed the little bit of trails we did. Nice soft footing on single tracks in the forest, a lot of sneaky roots to watch out for though!

Once the horses were fed and tucked in their pen, we went to town to have diner, we were all so tired we stopped at the 1st place serving food, a TGI's Friday (I know all the way to North Carolina and we picked a chain place), it did the trick, a little food, a little beer and a huge dessert, we then went to get gas and had a good laugh being brain washed because we were all so exhausted.

So back to camp and to bed, a good night of rest to be ready for Friday.

To quote Amigo, we all had a ACN.