The Fun Has Begun!

Ready for the races!

Hey there, Alexa checking in!  Since our last update, we have settled into a neat little cabin at the Runaway Bay Sports Centre, and our first big trip here near Brisbane was on Saturday.  All of the countries were asked to dress up in formal attire, and we took a bus to the Gold Coast Turf Club, a local racetrack that holds weekly Thoroughbred races.  What a great time!  We had lunch in “The Dome” and were just a short walk through a door from the paddock and racetrack.  We spent our entire afternoon ogling over cute Aussie Thoroughbred and eating delicious foods.  The best part of it all was being taken “behind the scenes”.  We were taken in small groups to either the starting gates, where we were able to see how the officials handled the start of every race, or we were taken to the tower above the racetrack, where officials stood and looked over the course.  On top of the tower, we were able to learn more about how they keep track of the leading horses, and we learned about how they place the horses. 

A pretty amazing view of the city from the track.

Ann handling her green horse’s spook with ease. The ended up having a very respectable test!

 

We left the races around three thirty in the afternoon, and had a few hours to play around in the Sports Centre before preparing for a barn dance that the Southport Pony Club hosted.  The “maxi taxi” was a bit late to pick us all up, but we somehow managed to arrive at their Pony Club grounds.  There was good music, great food, and even better people at the barn dance.  Everyone was so welcoming and they were more than happy to carry on a conversation with us.  All of the riders have been getting tired pretty early, especially those of us from North America, and by 9:45 p.m., we were practically ready to fight people for spots in the car to get a ride back to the Sports Centre.  We were all in bed as early as possible, and to speak for everyone… enjoyed a great night of sleep.

All of the IPE riders at the Kangaroo Cup!

Today, we all rose around 6:50 to get ready before breakfast.  I’m beginning to thoroughly enjoy vegemite, so toast with a little butter and vegemite was a must!  After breakfast all of our teams gathered our equipment, and we made our way to the Southport Pony Club Centre for the Kangaroo Cup.  The Kangaroo Cup is a competition where all of the countries are scrambled.  For example, my team was named the Koalas, and we were assigned the New Zealand coach.  Once we had arrived on the grounds, we met the horses that were drawn for our team, and were given an hour to ride the horses and sort out who was going to ride who.  After our given time, we enjoyed tea and prepared for our dressage test.  All of our US team riders, and actually, all of the riders in general did a wonderful job with the horses they were given.  We were all talking about how lucky we were to have been given the opportunity to ride such a wonderful group of quality horses.  The dressage tests finished up around lunchtime, and we enjoyed our food while waiting to walk our show jumping courses.  Shortly after walking, we hopped on our horses, and began warming up to jump.  Once again, our team really rode to the best of our abilities in the show jump ring.  We came home well placed individually, and we all formed great new friendships with our horse’s owners, Southport pony clubbers and riders from other countries. 

Go Koalas! Showing off our Koala pride at the mounted awards.

We are about to head to bed, but we will wake up tomorrow for our free day.  As of now, our plan is to explore Surfers Paradise and we may even make it to the top of the Q1 tower, the highest tower in the Southern Hemisphere…. Our biggest worry is convincing Ann that the tower won’t fall over on our way up! 

 

            Until tomorrow!  

 

              Alexa & Team USA