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