Saturday, August 11, 2007

Sat - dressage





well we really got started today. Up at 5:30 to catch the bus over to the arena...oh, by the way we never really got hit by the typhoon. The warning was lifted at midnight and the winds went away. But we have had about 4-5 inches of rain since I got here three days ago! It just never lets up...off and on all day and night long. And sometimes it really comes down in buckets......our rehearsal for cross country yesterday was a nightmare...it poured all day long! If it had not been 80 degrees with the rain, we would have all frozen.

Anyway back to Sat dressage....the day went extremely well considering most people here had never seen it before. the stewards were great as were the ring crew etc. The scoring got going after about the 3rd horse and then was very quick. We have a huge scoreboard and you can see thing very clearly, thru the pouring rain. Did I say that is is wet as hell here and it does nothing but rain? The ring (see attached photos, if I can make it happen) is really super...not a puddle in sight. they have installed a terrific drainage system and I am not kidding there is no water in the main ring at all. the surface is sand, with small felt pieces and some sort of mineral oil as the binder. This will be the new surface all over the planet, cuz it is that good.

The international horses seemed to go OK,,,Buck and Laine put in fairly good tests and are in the middle of the pack. One of the Germans is leading on a 48 and everyone else is in the middle and low 50's. We had the full lights on in the stadium all day long! Giles and I split up the two divisions for announcing and we will both do the cross country tomorrow...yeah! Not just a DQ for me folks.....We also have a super college student doing the Cantonese announcing and she is really good. Never announced before and she is a total pro....must be her co-announcer rubbing off...no, not the British one .......

We hope for a good day tomorrow and we hope that all the radios work properly and don't drift off channels...big problem, especially when we have multiple languages to deal with too. Funniest thing so far: in the rehearsal for cross country, where the "riders" are actually people driving golf carts around the course with specific scenarios on paper that they hand to the judges when something is supposed to go wrong (i.e. golf cart stops by the jump, and says, I have fallen off here after a refusal, etc)...so one of the radio reports comes in from one of the Chinese fence judges: " Fence number 12....rider has fallen...rider broken!" Of course he meant that the rider is hurt and needs the doctor...we all lost it in the control building!! Hopefully we will have a safe and dry day tomorrow.....

If the photos work out they are of the following: main arena (check out the high rise apts right beside us), jump 1 on the cross country course (small panda bears on the side), and our control building and set up....more tomorrow...I hope you are enjoying this reporting. See ya, Brian

2 comments:

Unknown said...

The photos look great! and the reporting is not to shabby either. Hope the rest of your trip goes great. Stay dry and see ya when you get back.

Ethan

Sallyo said...

Good news that you did not get washed out as in a chinese laundry. Great photos. Stay well.I am not sure what animal this is the year of in CHina but may good fortune smilw on you all.
Sallyo