Another week, another big announcement (that makes me sound so important so I love to say it).
As my USEF internship comes to a close, I've had to start wondering about my future once again. My ultimate goal is to stay in Lexington because I 100% love it here. So in came typical Melissa.
If you know me, you know that I get pretty crazy ideas and most of the time, I don't give them a second thought after looking over the "reality" of them. That's probably a good thing.
But last week, I got a crazy thought and when I couldn't find many cons for it, I stuck with it and let it build. I contacted Jen, laid out my plan and got her approval. Then I went to the Paulick Report and asked for their approval just in case it would be a conflict of interest. After a few nerve-racking hours, I received approval from that side. I then e-mailed Jen back and told her that I had the necessary approval to go on with my plan. (If you're still with me here, congrats!) So as of January, I will be working at the Paulick Report during the weekends and a marketing intern at Three Chimneys two afternoons a week. My internship with the USEF ends December 7, although I may try to change that, and I'm planning on going home for a month to recharge my batteries as the few weeks I had between graduation and moving here were mostly spent running around. I may also try to find a new apartment to move into as living in the dining room of a friend's isn't the best situation for long term. However, that one is still up in the air at this point. So there you have it. As of January, I will be fully involved in the horse racing industry. I will also be taking more steps towards moving to Lexington permanently. Oh boy!
And just as an extra for those that know my joke about taking over the world...
I'm sneaking this post in a little late this week due to how busy I was with the second week of the Keeneland September Sale.
First off, last weekend in celebration of my big news (below), Jen Roytz invited me to Three Chimneys to "celebrate" with the horse that started it all, Point Given. While two bags of carrots were distributed among all the Three Chimney stallions currently present on the farm (some are vacationing in Australia), a whole bag (plus one) went to my main man.
Jen got pictures of me spending time with multiple stallions, but this one is definitely my favorite. I really can't describe how much I love this horse.
This week at the internship, I finally got a "big" project. The network is going through some changes so I get to go through all the videos on the server and put values in the metadata so searchers can find the riders, horses, events, etc that they want. I'm guessing it will be my final hurrah since it will take months to go through and I only have about 2 1/2 months left. There aren't really any big shows coming that we'll be working either so metadata will probably take over my life until December. That brings me to my next piece of news. Almost two weeks ago, I was hired on as weekend editor at the Paulick Report. This weekend was my first weekend and I loved doing all the work. While being put in charge of the website with no one to hold my hand in person (phone and e-mail were my friends) was a little scary, I feel like I got it down for the most part with just a few "what am I supposed to do now" moments. Ray Paulick also gave me some tips on my writing and headlines so I'll be making a "cheat sheet" to refer to for years to come and I'm sure I'll be adding to it. Next weekend is a pretty big stakes weekend with, I believe, 14 stakes in two days. Even more crazily, about 11 of those are on Saturday. This weekend was a little light on stakes races and news, which I'm thankful for since it was my first weekend, but I'm worried that next weekend I'll be a little overwhelmed.
However, at lunch with Jen after she dragged me away from the farm, she told me that she had breakfast with Brad Cummings of the Paulick Report earlier that week. While at first I was a little suspicious of them talking about me, he told her that I remind him of him when I was younger and she said that she thinks the same. That's a huge compliment to me and inspires me even more. It does add some pressure but I thrive under pressure so I'm okay with that. On top of that pressure, when Brad and I met for my pre-work training, he told me that he's going to push me pretty hard because he knows that I'm not just here for a temporary job and that's 100% true. I want to make the racing industry my long term career (even more now that I have a weekend of racing journalism under my belt) so that was welcome music to my ears.
As I told Ray when he was putting me through a soft edition of writing boot camp yesterday as I posted articles, I'm learning every time he says something (it's all going on the cheat sheet) and I want be educated as much as I possibly can both about my mistakes and things to look out for in the future. I feel like PR is the perfect place for that because if this weekend is any indication, they are as eager to teach me as I am to learn.
I definitely feel like there are big things coming down the pike in coming months and can't wait to see what the future brings.
Welcome to the crazy first week of Fall for me. I started off the week in a yoga class and ended it at Keeneland. I told you it was crazy.
Last weekend, I went to my first yoga class in probably about three years. Unlucky for me, it was an "all levels" class so by the end of the warm up, I was exhausted. However, I went to the class two more times last week and it got a little better each time. After Thursday's class, I even added some extra activities in after class. Sadly, I probably won't be able to make it to the classes this week (however, I'm going to try) due to being super busy, which leads me to my next topic... Keeneland.
The two weeks I've been waiting for are here. Over the last two days, I've spent about 18 hours looking at all sorts of yearlings. From beauties to those that are "unfortunate", I've seen all different types. I've also gotten some good tips by hanging out with more "professional" types of photographers during the two days.
The highlights of the weekend were getting to shake Carl Nafzger's hand and have him tease me about my age; meet awesome people working the consignments, including my new "favorites" Mike at Mill Ridge and Charles at Lane's End of Zenyatta fame; chilling out within five feet of Bob Baffert as he looked at horses; and meeting the yearling half sister to the awesome Point Given (picture below).
I will be going back tomorrow for the first night of the sale and my first ever "live" thoroughbred auction, so I'm sure there will be some more highlights.
I took over 5,000 pictures during the weekend and am having to do a little shifting around on hard drives to get them to fit on my computer but I expect even more over the coming days. I am thinking about doing an "opinion" blog about my thoughts of who I find impressive and such but that has to wait until I get to actually look at all my pictures since I can't remember who is who right now other than a few big standouts (Hip No. 111 for one).
On the sad side of things, after a week long battle with trying to fix the effects that Lexington water had on my fish, he has traveled his last mile. "Eddie" was literally the traveling fish. I got him right before I moved to Moscow, Idaho in 2008 and he was the only "survivor" of their water (I went there with 3, I came back with one). He then went to Texas with me where he wintered with my friend in Houston while I went home for Christmas and did the Washington to Texas trip back and forth four times. His journey ended with Lexington so all in all, he may be the most traveled fish ever with over 10,000 miles. Pretty good for a fish that's only supposed to live a year or two. While other people live with cats and dogs, I lived with a fish... so I guess you could consider him my cat. RIP Eddie.
Last but not least, I *may* have a big announcement coming up but it's not confirmed and I don't want to jinx it so I'm just going to leave you with that. So stay tuned!
