Lindsay + Oslo at NAJYRC 2010: Homeward Bound!

We left the Kentucky Horse park last night (Sunday) just after closing ceremonies around 6:30 pm. We only travelled for just over three hours to Indianapolis to get the horses warmed up for the trip back and get Oslo into a pen for the night. As soon as Oslo saw his pen last night he went straight to the dirt and rolled until his heart was content. He then proceed to jump straight up in the air after getting up from his most amazing roll, and took off bucking across the pen! It was nice to see him so happy and free again.

I forgot to mention in my last post that I had the wonderful priviledge of meeting Willy Arts before I rode my Freestyle. I was even more lucky to have dinner with him and a bunch of other Canadians Saturday night after the freestyles. He told me that I have a pretty darn nice horse and I couldn't agree with him more! And for those of you who don't know who Willy Arts is, he is one of, or perhaps, THE best Warmblood breeder in North America. He is also a fan of Contangos!!! It was very exciting to meet him!

At closing ceremonies we got to hear how the rest of the Canadians faired in the different disciplines. Perhaps the most proud moment for us Canadians was when they presented the Individual medals to the reining competitors - Bronze, Silver, and Gold went to ALL CANADIANS!!! Go reiners! It was pretty exciting to see that all three flags being raised were red and white. We also won show jumping Junior Individual Gold medal and Jaimie Holland won Gold in the Freestyle. Megan Lane won Bronze, and Esmee Ingham also won Bronze.

We have stopped for the night now on the west side of Minneapolis and will proceed back to good old Canada tomorrow!!! Yippee! We are all very excited to get away from the classic "y'all" talk of the Americans and the humidity! The humidity really adds a different element to the heat and makes everything sticky! We will then stop in southern Saskatchewan for the night and make the final leg of the trip home on Wednesday.

Here are a few more pictures from the trip:

The view of the stadium from the south - where we had to walk by to get to the warm-up ring

The stadium

Santana and I warming up in our "team practice time" in the ring on Tuesday before the competition started. Tom Dvorak is the coach standing at the gate and my mother and Albrecht are in the background. Our time in the ring was at 2:00pm, so mom spent most of her time in the judges tent so she didn't "melt"!