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2007 Young Riders President's Cup
2006 Young Riders President's Cup
Race Day
Images by John Teeter
Thursday afternoon in Abu Dhabi
we have been to the stables to see the horses. Horses look good - eating tons of hay. we have no oats, although the OC had told us that there would be plenty available...our driver took us to a camel souka and found oats to buy, so one problem solved. Our stable steward is very nice - very concerned that he is doing everything alright. We have just one large turnout area - so we asked to have it split in half, which they immediately did. Theatric is in one of the turnouts, with Savvy and Sonny in the other. We left the horses out for just 1/2 hour - very windy and sand is blowing everywhere. There are 8 stalls in our portable stables, so we each have a tack stall, 3 horses, one feed stall and one wash area. Seems small compared to the stables we had in Malaysia!
We took temps, and Savvy and Sonny are normal, but Tee is running much higher than I'm used to...he was up to 102. He seems ok, and is eating and drinking, so we will watch to see if he has some effects from shipping - Becky said the shippers would not let her untie the horses enroute and they stood the whole time in containers with their heads up...They never unloaded in Amsterdam, as they were only there 3 hours. At any rate, we'll keep our eye on him. I took him for a walk and he was alert and free-moving. There are camels everywhere...the camel race track is just "down the road" from our portable stables. The camel jockeys take 4-5 camels out at a time, ponying them.
The event vet is coming by later this afternoon to take blood on the horses.
We are waiting for our rental cars, so we can go back out to the stables. The ride secretary took us out there this morning, but she has left for the afternoon. Our cars should have come an hour ago, but.....we have been invited to attend a festival this evening at the Equestrian Club, so we will probably try to catch some of that before hitting the sack. Everyone is tired.
Hotel is much smaller than I expected - there are two pools, but it is so cold out (only in the low 70s) with wind and sand blowing, so no chance to go out there an lay around. Have seen the Italians and French - seems we are the last country to arrived -everyone else has been here for a few days.
That's about it for now. All our luggage and horse gear came - nothing lost. I unpacked some stuff already, but am anxious to get back out to the stables to finish putting things away. We are a good 20 minutes from the stables - if you drive like a local. It is all highway driving.
Catch you all tomorrow....
Kathy