Ten Things Horses Taught Me in 2013

2014 is the “Year of the Horse” but quite a few horses taught me lessons in 2013 that aren’t just useful in the barn. Here are 10 reminders given to me by some of the horses in my life this year.

1. The year will get better – Will Take Charge had a few small victories in the spring, but he proved that even if the first part of your year doesn’t go as planned there’s always another day. This is a very good reminder when you’re having a bad day or month and don’t see an end to it.
   
2. Getting older isn’t all that bad – Wine backs up this statement but both Game On Dude and Wise Dan really brought the point home this year. Two of the oldest horses racing consistently at the top level, they have both gotten much better with age.
3. Sometimes you just need to slow down – This one comes courtesy of Vegas who is good at reminding me that faster isn’t always wanted/needed. It’s nice to get to your next destination fast, but when you’re out for a relaxing afternoon drive, take some time to smell the flowers (or grab some of the knee high grass you’re walking through).
4. Prioritize – Are treats or drama more important? Crystal was good at reminding me that it is okay to step away from more stressful parts of your life for a few hours, especially if there’s something enjoyable away from the drama.
5. Change isn’t always bad – Vegas was a trooper getting into the trailer during our tour of the U.S. and always seemed happy to see what adventure she was going on when we loaded up every morning. Gas stops weren’t just for getting treats and water but also a time to take a second and enjoy the journey you’re on.
   
6. Transitions may seem scary, but really they can be fun– Just like transitioning from a walk to a trot, speeding up or slowing down your life when necessary isn’t as painful as it seems. Sure, it’s different but that’s not always a bad thing. Changes can lead you down paths that have a lifelong effect on your view of life.
7. Changing your attitude can change your life – Thanks to some of the Three Chimneys studs for this one. If you stay standoffish, your life won’t be as enjoyable as it could be, but if you warm up to the person wanting your attention, there may just be a mint at the end of that person’s hand.
   
8. Don’t let life get out of control – Vegas had this lesson for me a lot this fall. Being on the brink of losing control is one thing, but actually losing it isn’t fun. So push yourself to the edge, because it may lead to something you didn’t know you could do, but rein yourself in before you lose all control of the situation.
9. Big things can come from comebacks – Animal Kingdom taught me a few things this year, but this was one that should resonate with quite a few lovers of the big chestnut. He faced more hurdles than many out there but came back to impress the world with a big win. Sure, not everyone is going to have that big win, but don’t give up just because you have a setback.
10. Tomorrow is another day – You may have a crappy day or ride but as soon as you are turned out in the pasture, it’s time to reset. Don’t forget about what happened the day before but don’t dwell on it. Instead, remember the lessons learned from the experience and use them when you face the same challenges the next morning. 

This past year was a tough one for many people but here’s hoping 2014 brings readers everything they wish for (and more)!

Happy New Year!
Mel

Happy New Year (Kind of)

Yes, I know the title is misleading if you look at a calendar but last weekend I declared December 1 my new year. While technically I still have 23 more days until 2014 rolls in, I've never been a stickler for conventional social details. 

With all the drama that happened over the past year, including multiple Thanksgiving week events, I was looking for a way to end the year. Because I'm a horse racing person, I decided to end it the weekend of the last big races of the year (I see some of you rolling your eyes at me), which happen to coincide with the last weekend of November. 

Fittingly, I spent it at the track (big shocker) since Churchill Downs was hosting two major days of racing to close out their year (no really, it was the last two days of the final meet of the year for them).

And after all the photos I've taken this year, it's also fitting that my favorite came from Friday night's Clark Handicap, the last major race I'll shot this year. 

Will Take Charge sealed up his championship (he's out of one of my favorite mares so this was fun) by beating Game On Dude (one of my favorite old warriors) about 15 feet in front of me (yay for photog press passes) and I was extremely glad that my camera didn't decide to act up at that moment (we're having massive issues at the moment). But even though I was sure it didn't act up, I was overjoyed to see this photo when I got back to the press box.

It's definitely not professional photographer quality, but it's better than it would have been a year ago.

The next day, I went back on my day off because I'm kind of crazy and was one of only two photographers on the track for the final race. The emptiness allowed me to get a prime spot to get another good shot. It's safe to say that it was definitely a good way to end my year. (Coincidentally, it's also kind of fitting that this promising 2-year-old won the last race of the meet since it's quite possible he'll be working towards the Kentucky Derby at Churchill next Spring).

This week, I enjoyed a four day weekend and finally caught up on some movies in theaters that I was dying to see. Hunger Games: Catching Fire definitely gets my vote as movie of the year with Thor 2 right behind it. I also watched Mortal Instruments: City of Bones at home and am recommending you don't waste your money on it, it was definitely a disappointment. 

To end this post, I also found out how lucky I am to be surrounded by the people in my life. Between a great dinner with two friends on Saturday night and a huge group supporting me as I work towards a goal over the next few months, I have a great support system. I definitely lead a very charmed life!

I head home for six days in a week and a half so there's a ton to do before then but I look forward to the "holiday challenge" that is my to-do list.

Until next time,
Mel

Wow, the last time I wrote to you all it was still summer (it was actually exactly three months ago). I am sorry for the absence. 

The last few months have been hectic to say the least. Soon after writing my last piece, the September sale was upon us. There were lots of photos taken and I went a few times for work so it was much more crazy than September. However, it did reaffirm my love of the sales part of the industry, which is always a fun re-realization. 

Here are just a few of my favorite photos from the September sale.

Hip 134 (a Galileo filly) studies a potential buyer as the buyer studies her.

Soon after that ended, we had our last round of Breeders' Cup preps. It's probably going to be an unpopular opinion but Breeders' Cup season is my favorite American racing time of year. While I spent the first week of the preps in the office, the second week was all about hanging out in the Keeneland press box. 

It rained (making it somewhat miserable at times) but with a group of really fun people also reporting on the races, it was an entertaining day. Especially since some of my favorites ran (and won) throughout the day.

The always happy (and world traveler) Havelock merrily galloping to victory.

Groupie Doll didn't win her race but she is still a favorite (and went on to win the Breeders' Cup).

Judy the Beauty won the race and the skies were showing what was to come in the hours that followed.

Irish invader and one of my favorites, Say, didn't do much in her two starts here but she is a beautiful filly.

The rainstorm that dropped about 4 inches on us in only a matter of 2-3 hours.

By the time Horse of the Year Wise Dan entered the paddock, my camera was on its last leg.  It died before he ran and had to spend two days in rice to dry out.

Two days later, I headed home to bring the horses back to Kentucky. We ran into a bit of trouble on our final day when a wheel bearing broke but overall it was an easy trip. Vegas obviously enjoyed seeing the country as this was her expression at every gas stop.

They've been here a little over a month now and both Crystal and Vegas have settled in well. Crystal is in semi-retirement (basically, she gets ridden when she wants to) and Vegas is trying out a new discipline. This is her new set of tack and I'm hoping that one day we'll progress to jumping and even eventing... maybe.

This weekend I'm planning on heading up to Churchill for the Clark Handicap, which should be a great race. I'm sure that if I get any good photos, I'll report back here. And even if I don't I'll at least try to come back and entertain you with some news about something. I definitely won't wait three months until my next blog so check back soon for more posts!

Until next time,

Mel

A Week of Horses

If you know me, you know that my life pretty much revolves around horses. Without television, I can't really focus on the other sports I follow this time of year and hockey is on a hiatus so it just gives me more time to work on this (possibly unhealthy) obsession.

This was fast tracked last week when my life literally 100% revolved around horses.

It all started when I got my media pass for the Arlington Million but it just grew from there. The day before Aug. 17's Million brought an invite from a friend to go to a show jumping grand prix. 

I've watched show jumping a few time since I've been here and even watched some jumping classes at the North American Junior & Young Riders Championships but I've never been able to really give a grand prix my full attention so I was excited to hit up the show. Of course, I had my camera with me so I tried my hand at photographing the class and to my surprise, I didn't do too badly. I took a ton of photos (most that I haven't edited yet) but to keep my sanity and yours for this post, I'll just post two of them.

My first attempt of the class

Love the fountain in the background in this one

I was a bit stupid going to the Grand Prix from a sleeping standpoint as I had to be up at 4:45 the next morning to head to Chicago. Most people are smart enough to drive six hours (one way) the day before but not my carmate and I. We decided that a 12+ hour trip with eight hours of racing was a great idea. That thought turned out to be true.

I was given a photo pass for the day, so not only did I get to hang out in the cool press box (this door was the entrance, I'm still in love with this photo) but I also got to go right up to the rail on the turf course.

If you know me (or have paid attention to some of my blog posts), I LOVE turf racing. Even more so, I love European racing. One of my big goals in life (one of many) is to find a job that lets me go over and cover the Euros for their big race meets but Arlington Park's International Festival is about as close as I'm going to get for the time being.

Some of my favorite European jockeys came over for the big races so I did fangirl at times. Especially when I returned to the press box after my day of racing to upload my photos and found this photo.

I didn't know much about Dandino before the American St Ledger other than he was a nice horse. I had watched him online but often you don't get the best of quality so I didn't know exactly how nice looking he was. He is my newest racing horse crush, because this is one hot horse. His jockey Ryan Moore is also one of my favorites and has ridden some of my favorite horses both on American and foreign soil so to be that close to him while he was riding a race was a surreal experience.

But even more cool was to see one of the jockeys that I've watched grow up ride in the Arlington Million. I've watched Joseph O'Brien ride since his first year as a "real" jockey as a 16-year-old in Ireland and he was the jockey that won the Breeders' Cup Turf (one of my favorite Breeders' Cup races) the year I covered the race so his success has a special place in my heart. He was also the regular rider of St. Nicholas Abbey and Camelot, both of them my favorites of this generation so it's safe to say that as far as racing goes, he's an important person to me. In fact, when I was told he was riding in the Million about three weeks before the event, it convinced me that I needed to figure out a way to get there. 

I watch Joey ride at least once a week on TwinSpires because he rides some of the best horses in Europe, but even though he was in the U.S. for BC 2012, I haven't seen him ride in person since 2011. He was on Mull of Killough who is a half-brother to, in my opinion, one of the most underrated turf milers of all time in Excelebration. Excelebration only won three one-mile G1s in his career, but he also had to face a monster in Frankel. He was most definitely born in the wrong year.

Joey and Mull of Killough in the paddock

The pair finished eighth in the race but there was a bunch of excitement when South African invader The Apache and U.S.-bred Real Solution went head-to-head in the stretch. Technically The Apache won but he was disqualified to second when it was shown on the head-on view that he bumped Real Solution multiple times in the stretch.

The Apache led at the wire but Real Solution was awarded the win.

Since I was writing the recap for work, I went to the press tent for the winner's interview as soon as the trophy presentation was done and got this picture of Mr. Ramsey. He won three G1s that day and had the same expression on his face that many of us were feeling after an awesome day.

The Million was the final race of the day that we really paid attention to but we didn't get out of the track until after 9:45 p.m. central time. The track was obviously dead when we left and I got this cool shot as we were headed out to the parking lot.

If you are looking for a track to visit in the midwest, I highly recommend Arlington Park. It is on the top of my favorite tracks list and I didn't think Keeneland could be topped when it comes to North American tracks.

We didn't get home until about 5:30 the next morning and because I was jazzed, I stopped by Keeneland to see if anyone was on the main track. Surprisingly, there wasn't, which was probably good for my sanity because I would have stayed and watched and I had to get some sleep before work.

Keeneland Sunday morning

My no racehorse timeline didn't last long as I had to be up bright and early Monday morning to go to Adena Springs to visit a few stallions. I do a "Catching Up With" series for America's Best Racing and it was time for Awesome Again so I went out and saw him, his son Ghostzapper, and Alphabet Soup, who I did a story on a few weeks ago. If you've never been to Adena Springs, I recommend it because it is beautiful and the safe is amazingly nice!

Thursday was probably my favorite part of the week outside of Arlington. I finally got to visit the famed Calumet Farm, which has been on my Kentucky bucket list for a LONG time. To top it off, my favorite racehorse of all time, and the horse that got me into the sport, Point Given just finished his first season there so I got to visit my old pal. I was lucky to spend a lot of time with him at Three Chimneys and he may not have remembered how much attention I gave him, but he sure remembered our routine of him getting mints every time I'm around. It's always nice when a high profile racehorse remembers you, even if it's just for food, haha.

My obsession inducing week continued on Friday and Saturday when I again went to the Horse Park, this time for polo. Seeing a polo game has been on my bucket list for a long time so when we saw that there was a game being played after the jumping classes we were watching were done, we stopped by to watch the end of the game. Let me just say that I am hooked, I can't wait until we find another game to go to.

We hit up The Red Mile on Saturday night for my first live harness racing experience, which was interesting to say the least. It was a lot different than a Thoroughbred track so that took some getting used to but it is an entertaining thing to watch once you sit down and pay attention for a bit.

And finally, to end my horse crazy week, I received these photos from my dad today. He's currently prepping my horses for our road trip in a month and a half and started working on getting them to go in and out of the trailer again today.

Crystal wouldn't get in for a trip to the vet a few weeks ago and refused to get in until my dad stepped out for a second to grab something. When he got out, she got in.

Vegas decided to take an hour to load (her last trailing experience was the trip back from Texas so I don't blame her too much) but Dad reported that once she was in, she wouldn't get out. She's blonde like that.

I hope you enjoyed my very long, photo heavy blog. It was an exciting week with some experiences that made me start to plot out a new path for my goals so we'll see how that goes. I'll keep you updated on that side of my life as well, as soon as there are any updates.

Until next time,
Mel

The American Diet Obsession

A few weeks ago, I posted a picture of my healthy dinner with a caption about trying to eat healthier, little did I know that a comment that was posted on the picture would get my brain rolling.

The dinner was a run of the meal healthy dinner, a smaller type that would probably be considered normal size in many parts of the world. I was proud of myself for starting to eat healthier and mentioned nothing about a diet yet it was an eye opener to me that one of the first comments on the photo was that the person also felt the need to go on a "diet" ... a word that hadn't been uttered anywhere near the photo in my caption.

Let me preface this by saying that I have been the person that believed healthier eating always meant diet in the past. If someone wasn't eating junk food semi-regularly (a habit that has always been hard for me to break), I figured they were just trying to lose weight and never considered that they were trying to be healthy.

So when I read the comment on my picture and thought about it, I somewhat understood where the person was coming from. 

Everywhere Americans look, there are ads for the new fad diets and pills that we can take to make us skinnier. Add that to pictures in every magazine with skinny, airbrushed models and you can see where the pressure to diet comes from. This is somewhat amusing (in a sad way) when you consider that even with all these ads, America was the most obese country in the world until we were overtaken by Mexico earlier this year. 

The loss of the "world's most obese" title wasn't celebrated by all if some headlines were correct as one of the top articles to come up when you Google "most obese country in the world 2013" has a headline that reads "Disappointment: America Displaced as World's Most Obese Country".

For as long as I can remember, America has been obsessed with skinnier people without actually really trying to obtain the results. I remember seeing kids in school put on a diet and I have dieted off and on throughout my life. Like many people, some of my diets have been unsuccessful while others have had moderate success but I always end up looping back to gaining back all the weight I lost or sometimes even more than I had in the first place.

This came to a massive head this Spring when I decided to change my approach after putting some thought into many different areas of my life. 

After talking to a friend soon after the beginning of the new year, I went on yet another diet. She had lost over 40 lbs in about five months and I had to know what she had done.I had gained a ton of weight since graduating high school and was tired of it. My problem was that once I adopted her method, I turned into an extreme dieter. 

I lost 15 pounds in about a month and a half between eating way less than I should have and exercising like a demon, but that soon came to a halt when my finger accident happened. Because I was eating a lot more while sitting on the couch and not exercising, I gained eight of those pounds back. Thankfully I realized I was gaining it all back before I went too far down the rabbit hole and at least stopped the train from returning to the station, if not backing it up to the old one.

This time I decided to try something different. I did a little research and decided that instead of going on a hardcore diet, I was just going to eat healthy. Many researchers and other people pointed out that if you want to be healthy in the long run, you need to change the way you are living.

One article had the good advice to eat a salad a day (its thought process was that if you ate three meals a day and ate a salad a day for one of those meals, you couldn't screw up life too much), a theory that I've adopted in addition to the old adage that we need to eat breakfast every morning. 

I have been eating like crap the past few weeks so dinner is still a work in progress but I'm already feeling better than I did on any diet or any other "meal plan" I followed. I'm also becoming one of those people that avoids the fast food restaurants (minus Subway, it is my weakness) because 1) it makes me feel like I weight 5,000lbs after I eat there 2) after adding up how much money I spent at fast food places per month, I realized there was much more I could put my money towards. I won't lie though, there is one day a week that I go out with the girls for dinner and don't worry about healthiness (cheese fries and margaritas are the Devil's meal but they taste so good!), but I also don't worry too much about that one weakness, we all have them.

I definitely get that eating/living healthy is hard when there are so many other ways to go with food & exercise. We are pressured into trying to look as skinny as possible so diets are the way to go in our minds. 

However, when people believe that just because you are eating healthy means you are on a diet, something needs to change. Instead of picking up Dr. Phil's newest diet book, we should look at picking up the Healthy Cooking book right next to it. If previous generations would have done that, maybe our thought process would be different today.

To end the blog, I'm going to put a quote that wasn't meant for this rant but that seems to fit anyway:

“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. ... We need not wait to see what others do.” -Mahatma Gandhi 

Aka, the real quote that has turned into "Be the change you wish to see in the world".

Gandhi is one of those people that was so influential he is still impacting the world 65 years after his death so I figure he is someone we should listen to. If not for wisdom, then at least for a good quote.

Until next time,
Mel

Gearing Up for the Second Half

It's amazing what a day of rest can do for the brain.

After a marathon work week, I was basically brain dead yesterday. I took a much needed day to just chill on the couch and watch movies, which was just what the doctor ordered. Between the extremely long work "week" (actually equal to over two normal work weeks) and an up-and-down past few days (more on that later), my body quit and refused to move except to pick up junk food for dinner.

But the good thing is that the lazy day re-energized me for the year's "second half". I took a second day of sleeping without the alarm today (one of my favorite things) so I got up a bit later than I thought I would but accomplished a lot more than I expected during the day. After cleaning my mess of an apartment, a task that I needed to do if I didn't want to look like I lived in the city dump, I sat down with a notepad and evaluated some things.

Over the past few months, I've been getting more and more burned out. My writing has massively suffered because of it so it was time to figure out what to do to get back on track. I realized that I've fallen into the "comfort" trap, especially due to the thought that not many people read my work on ABR (I monitor the numbers each week as part of my job so I'm even more aware of this fact). Since I'm extremely goal driven, I wrote out some goals that I want to accomplish both this year and in the near future to hopefully combat the writing funk and give myself a path to my long term goal. I also had a small chat last night with one of the people that got me started in the industry, which was extremely helpful and gave me a needed boost and an option that may be talked about down the road.

I have a big break coming up in October when I go back to Washington so I'm hoping that my recharging plan works until then. As I'll be driving cross-country for at least a few of the days of that break I'll really be able to step away from work, which will be a much needed few days to refresh and come back strong for the rest of the year. 

In other, off-topic news: Because people haven't heard enough about the Royal Baby... let me warn you that I am obsessed with the Royal Family. One of the things I was most sad about when I turned down the Fulbright is that I wouldn't be in the U.K. to see the aftermath of the royal birth, so I was even more intense with my baby birth watch (followed by baby name watch and discussions about how old the name George Alexander Louis sounds). 

Of course when I heard the news on Monday, I did a bit of a jig in my desk chair (don't judge, it had been a long week) and I even tuned in to a live webcast when they stepped out of the hospital for the first time. Because of the birth, I figured it would be a good week. I mean, the future King of England had been born, even in this day and age, that's pretty cool. However, I quickly learned that I was wrong ...

Twitter has an option where you can get tweets from certain profiles sent straight to your phone and I take advantage of it. I have mobile alerts of my favorite sports teams and drivers and even some of the higher profile horse racing operations such as Darley and Coolmore since they are such a driving force in the industry. So when I woke up on Tuesday to text messages from the Coolmore account saying St Nicholas Abbey had broken down, it immediately ruined my day (and week).

To back up a bit and give a little background on "Nic" ... he was an awesome 2-year-old in Europe back in 2009. He jumped on the scene about a year after I really started following European racing so I was immediately drawn to him as he showed flashes of brilliance (a word I don't use for many horses, I'm hard to impress). He only made one (bad) start the next year due to injury but came back at 4 and 5 to prove that his 2-year-old year wasn't a fluke. 

Nic (#1 in purple and white silks) in the 2011 Breeders' Cup Turf before he took over the lead. Ironically another friend of this blog, Brilliant Speed, is the 8. Speedy finished 3rd in the race that year.

He won the Breeders' Cup Turf (my second favorite race on the card after the Mile) in 2011, my first year covering a big horse racing event from the press box so that pretty much sealed his fate as one of my favorites. 

Nic's connections (minus trainer Aidan O'Brien) after the victory. Joseph O'Brien became the youngest jockey to win a Breeders' Cup race with the victory.

To put my love for Nic in perspective, if you know how much I love Point Given, dial that back by about one. There are only two modern day stallion photos I have on my apartment walls, one is Point Given at Three Chimneys and the other is Nic winning at Breeders' Cup. If anything happens to either of those horses, I automatically go into bad mood mode.

Anyway ... the injury he suffered sounded bad as part of the tweet read "We hope to save him for a career at stud," something you never want to hear as usually that means the horse's odds are not great. He came out of surgery okay and looked to be doing as well as possible until I again woke up to text messages this morning saying the horse had colicked during the night (Coolmore had a rough week as another one of their stallions colicked this week too but is doing okay) and his condition is guarded. Talk about a week that started so well going down the tubes as fast as possible.

Add that to the fact that one of the top stallions in the industry died today hours after we first learned he was going through tests at Rood and Riddle due to showing neurological signs yesterday and it has been a tough week (and we can't forget the outcry over Grade 1 winner Monzante's death last Sunday, it really has been a tough week).

The good thing about bad weeks is that they only last for seven days. I have my fingers crossed that once Sunday hits, the news will only be good. If not we'll roll with the punches, something I've gotten extremely good at this year.

Until next time,
Mel

Back to our regularly scheduled program

After 16 weeks and four days, I can finally return to my regularly scheduled life ... well sort of. 

I was discharged from physical therapy today when my therapist decided that I am as good as he can get me. My ring finger is, in his words, "excellent" after two surgeries. I have full function in it and it can go nearly straight (I still have a brace that I wear part of the day that will help it straighten all the way when the tendons get stronger) but I still can't move the tip of my index finger very much so more surgery may be involved. However, that's up to my doctor and depends on how much it affects me so we'll find out more about that later on, possibly at my next doctor's appointment but that's not for a while.

With the dismissal from PT, I was also cleared to ride again. I'm toying with the idea of taking riding lessons so I can get back into riding shape before the girls get here in October. I may try and pick up some catch rides on friends horses as well but I'm not sure about any of that yet. I'm currently jogging and spending 30 minutes to an hour at the gym daily to train for my first 5k post injury so I'm using that to get somewhat back in shape at the moment. We'll see if/when I'll pick up riding again (before October). I haven't been on a horse since last August when I got to ride Boomer with J.R. so getting back in the saddle is definitely long overdue.

But before I can plan any of that, I have to survive the next two weeks. I have tomorrow and Thursday off then start the marathon of working for nearly two straight weeks while my boss is out of town. In that time is also the first yearling sale of the year so I'll be spending this Saturday and Sunday morning at the sale before work looking at horses and possibly Monday night as well depending on where they are in the hip numbers when I get off work. I love, love, love sale season, it is my favorite part of the industry after the breeding side so I'm willing to sacrifice sleep and gym time in order to spend time on the other side of town looking at yearlings and racehorses that are selling as well.

I expect July to fly by with my schedule this month and one of my best friends is flying in for a few days next month so it looks like it will be a good summer. Between all of that and the September Sale at Keeneland, Breeders' Cup prep races and bringing the horses over from Washington in October, it really looks like the second half of my year is going to go much better than the first part. Hopefully that holds true as we get to the new year!

Until next time,
Mel

Long Time, No Blog

Hi all,

Sorry it has been a few weeks since I last blogged, between Belmont and a few other things it has been crazy. I am slowly getting life organized for my first real 5k in the Fall and just made an arrangement with a friend that just bought a barn to work there this summer in order to get money off my board when the mares come south. I just bought my plane ticket on Wednesday night to fly back to Washington on October 8 to bring the girl back here. I'm not quite sure how long I will be there before we head this way but I can't wait to have both of them in the same place as me.

Back in 2009, the last time we were all together.

I'm also headed to Florida for a friend's wedding in two weeks so I'm getting caught up on all my work stuff now. We had a meeting the week I'm gone but I've been given permission to skip it (the benefit of asking for the time off back in February) so I'm finishing the reports I've been asked to put together early this week. I also have a few writing things to put together and it's Royal Ascot week (aka the best race meet ever) so it looks to be a busy time.

I just passed my six month anniversary with work and my one year anniversary in Lexington so I'm kind of in shock over how time has flown by. My hand is (somewhat) getting better every day and I'm free of bulky braces other than the one I wear a few hours a day to straighten out my fingers. 

My next update will probably come after Royal Ascot if I don't die of excitement first. 

For you that don't know what Royal Ascot is, it is a five day meet in England that has some of the best horses in the world entered in its races. The race below was won by arguably one of the greatest horses horses to ever run and this year the race will have 2011 Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom in it (the last time a Kentucky Derby winner ran at Royal Ascot was 1936). It will also have two of my favorite horses in training over in Europe with Camelot and George Vancouver making runs over the week (sadly, my favorite horse in training is skipping the meet this year) and some strong international talent from all over the world. As much as I love U.S. racing, my heart lies across the pond when it comes to horse racing and this meet is on my bucket list. While I don't regret many things about turning down the Fulbright, not being able to spend a year at British tracks is one of them. That's one of those things that I plan on doing in the future, even if it means changing quite a bit about my life, but that's a few years down the road.

For now, here's an extremely entertaining race to watch (turf horses usually don't destroy fields like this, especially when the fields include a horse like Excelebration)

Until next time,
Mel

Planning Ahead

October 8th... the first day of my extended vacation. Last week, my boss and I were working out the schedule for planned vacations. He has one planned for July and wanted to know if I was going to take any time off this summer. While I wasn't planning on taking time off in the coming months, I got to looking at the calendar and decided that a few weeks before the Breeders' Cup (and the week after the final round of preps) was the ideal time to take an extended break. 

Of course, that got my wheels turning. I've been looking for the perfect time to bring at least one of my horses here and this is it. I was planning on the trip this summer but due to my hand injury, I still can't do any real work with horses but by October, I should be well on the way to recovery and five or so months out on my last surgery (knock on wood). While I've been pushed by some to wait until next Spring to do the road trip, after experiencing this year's Triple Crown trail rush, that won't work in my work schedule nor do I want to deal with the unstable weather at that point. And frankly, if I don't get Vegas here soon, I will go nuts. I'm already having horse withdrawals, it can only get worse. 

But October is quite a few days (and weeks and months) away so while I wait, I exercise. I posted last week about my "mental block" and getting over that lump. I've been to the gym quite a bit over the last week and have even started exercising twice a day some days (tomorrow morning I plan to start my first super early morning and night workouts). I figure that even though I can't get my horse in shape until she gets here, I can get myself in shape, which will help all of us. Plus, I'm still planning on running a 5k this year so it's double incentive.

I've learned in the past few months that all this planning can be for naught if something happens so for now I have my fingers crossed that now that I've hit the seven week (today) mark on my last surgery, I am good to go.

As always...

Until next time,
Mel

Churchill Photoblog

It took me a while but here's the photoblog some of you have been waiting for since I went to Churchill last week.

I still haven't been able to set up the new camera properly with the new hand but I am slowly getting it done. Warning, there are a ton of pictures in this blog. I didn't expect the camera to do so well battery-wise when I was at the track.

The Batman theme song goes through my head every time I see a pic of this horse.

Photo bomb much?

I can't decide if I think classic dressage or classic Thoroughbred.

Because I have a bias towards paints, I had to take this picture.

I just love how powerful this horse looks in this picture.

NOSE!

The crowd staring at Mine That Bird.

Bird trying to get in the office.

Winston, the cutest mini ever.

I got to take a picture with Mine That Bird

The spires from the new seating area by the paddock.

I picked this horse to win race 6, I was wrong.

Derby jock Jon Court

This dude seemed like he had a lot of personality.

Breeders' Cup Classic winner Brian Hernandez Jr.

Lookn Mighty Fast, a Point Given son that won his race.

Kentucky Oaks winner Lemons Forever's little boy Forever Perfect.

Breaking from the pony.

The most famous jock around, Rosie Napravnik.

A storm rolled in about an hour and a half before first post. The track was obviously muddy.

This horse looked like a beast.

Orb has already joined the list at Churchill.

Miguel Mena sees how close he came to winning the race.

Apparently the outrider puts Baby... and his pony... in the corner.

If racing fails, she can be a hair model.

The PG son headed back to the winner's circle.

The beast looks happy to be headed back to the barn.

Even though he looked like a bug, this dude looked extremely happy to be there.

Above/below: An early Derby favorite last year, Mr. Prankster.

Three time Kentucky Derby winning jock Calvin Borel.