Chronicle Staff Blog

April 24—Lexington, Ky. 

The 46 horses presented today for the initial horse inspection at the Rolex Kentucky CCI**** were all accepted by the ground jury, but a last-minute injury forced the withdrawal of Emily Beshear’s Here’s To You. Beshear, of Somerset, Va., did not present.

Kiwi rider Andrew Nicholson’s mount Quimbo was the only horse sent to the hold box, but he passed upon re-inspection. 

I wish I could be one of those super-chic travelers I always see in photos on Pinterest.

I try. I pack light. I wear black. I bring a scarf that I endeavor to wrap in an effortless-looking (but in fact highly labor intensive) way. I avoid velour sweatpants with slogans plastered across the bum at all costs. I try not to loll about in the seats at the gate, limbs akimbo and feet propped on tables that are meant for people’s food.

I’d gotten a lot of beyond-belief emails in my tenure at the Chronicle, but this was a first.

The craziest emails always seem to come on Monday mornings. Most of us try to stay up-to-date with our work correspondence over the weekends, so it’s not a matter of weird messages piling up over a few days off. By a strange twist of fate, they all just seem to flood in on Monday mornings of their own accord.

As an amateur rider with a terrible mental game—just ask any poor friend who’s had to help me get ready for cross-country—I jumped at the chance to attend a sports psychology workshop with Kip Rosenthal at Virginia Intermont College, Oct. 25-26. 

The mental game is obviously one crucial aspect of competition, and it’s one I think many people neglect entirely or have a difficult time mastering. Almost everyone takes lessons in jumping or flatwork, but studying the art of staying calm and focused? Not so common.

As I researched and wrote the article “Lottery Funding Was Just The Start Of British Success In London” for the Sept. 10 issue of the Chronicle, I found myself both excited and wistful. That issue, which should be in your mailbox imminently, has multiple articles dissecting the U.S. teams’ poor performances across the board at the London Olympic Games. I was excited because I found it fascinating how the British support their riders and horses, at mulitple levels. And wistful, because they have funding sources for those efforts that the United States doesn't. 

Rolex Kentucky has been a fixture on my calendar since I was a teenager. I attended annually as a spectator, and when I started working at the Chronicle as an intern, I begged for press credentials and promised to use vacation time to go. Not only did I get into the press tent that year, but I also got to stand in the NBC trailer and watch cross-country with Jimmy Wofford and Capt. Mark Phillips. Talk about an exciting weekend!

I’ve dreamed of it more than once: a clean, quiet hotel room with a well-made bed, fresh sheets, flatscreen TV, all to myself. No cell phone, responsibilities to husband, child or work, just the hum of the air conditioner and the pitch dark that leads to the best sleep.

It was all mine the weekend of Rolex Kentucky. A dream come true? Not at all!

There are a lot of perks to my job—front row seats at some of the world’s top equestrian competitions, getting to know the best and brightest in the sport, sharing an office with a group of other horse-crazy females—but my recent trip to Iceland for the Icelandic Horse Festival undoubtedly holds the No. 1 spot.

Looking back at a year at the Chronicle, I was happy to notice some positive changes in my life. As I’ve written about before, the beginning of my days at the magazine were plagued by unlucky encounters.

So while I didn’t think that January 2012 would necessarily be the best month of my entire existence, it had certainly started out much easier than the previous year.

Then Friday the 13th snuck up on me.