Championships, the Olympics, And Other Musings

After two weeks of working my tail off, I am finally finding time to spend a little time catching you all up on my adventures.

Over the last threeish weeks, the North American Junior & Young Rider Championships have consumed my life. To say I basically lived at the Horse Park except for a few hours of sleep every night would be no exaggeration as I put over 125 hours in at work during our last two week pay period.

While the show only lasted five days, I quickly learned that a lot goes into setting up a show of this caliber. Over a week before the show started, we were off and running with long days and nights to get all the last minute preparations done.

By the time the actual show rolled around last Tuesday, I had already clocked in a week and a half of continuous work with no real relief in sight. Thankfully, I had prepared myself for a tiresome and busy week because I literally put in at least 14 hours of work every day during the show except for our last day (Sunday). Even after four days of being back to my regular schedule, I am still exhausted. However, it was literally the time of my life getting to see world class horses compete and experience the world of upper level riders, even if most of them are teenagers.

Of course, as we were wrapping up the Championships (something that we are still working on), part of our office was preparing to go to London for the Olympics. 

Our High Performance Communications Director left on Tuesday for the U.K. after playing event director all week for the show. I'm still not sure how she is pulling it all off, I think she is the energizer bunny in disguise because she was literally the first person to get there in the morning and last person to leave at night. The bonus? She also came in to work up until she had to be at the airport to fly out to London.

Today, the other group of London goers prepared to set off on the trip to the Olympics so the office was a bit hectic with show wrap up and last second instructions for the next few weeks. The good news is that I was given two new Olympic "swag" items to wear and that always makes my day. 

I also got my next task for the next few weeks, or even months, as we redo the Rule Book for 2013. I'm not 100% sure what is all going to go into my part of the project and have a meeting tomorrow to clarify a bit more so I'll hold off on totally trying to explain that for now. 

All I know is that it means I get to play in InDesign again, something I loved messing with in college so it will be fun to be "reunited" with the program (even though I have it on my home computer).

As for the other musings that I posted in the title of this blog...

The other night my roommate and I went out to dinner and were talking about my time here. We realized I've been here almost 2 months. While I haven't done too much in social circles (I'm still working on that), I've had the time of my life and am trying to figure out how I can stay here after the internship is done but that's another adventure in itself.

My life is currently all kinds of exhausting but the opportunity I've been granted is amazing and I look forward to continuing on with it in the next few months, if not the next few years.

Live from my bed in Kentucky,

Mel

Living And Breathing the Business

Welcome to the end of another hot week in Lexington. Usually I'm a fan of hot weather but when stepping outside and instantly getting drenched with sweat happens, it's time to reevaluate my fandom. When even lifelong citizens of Kentucky are complaining, I don't feel so bad though.

But this post isn't just for complaining about the heat, I promise.

Before I moved here, I looked at all the sales dates to try and figure out which ones I could attend. While most of the sales are actually during the week (a not so fun thing for me since I work Monday thru Friday), they have viewings during the weekends. The first sale in my sights was the July Fasig-Tipton sale. I've never went to an auction there as last November, we only went to see horses at Keeneland, not over across town (to put it in perspective, Keeneland is three miles from my house, F-T is about 15-20). 

It looked like the heat was again going to foil my plans for going to the "kickoff" sale of the auction season. Yesterday it was much too hot to do much of anything and that was when I planned on going and the forecast showed that it was going to stay hot for the rest of the week. But when I woke up today and my phone said it was only 89* out, I decided to take the chance of going, even when the other two weather sources said it felt more like 100*.

I'm not going to lie, my desktop background made me feel like a slacker if I didn't go (more on that later), so that had a major part in it and I'm glad I did. I got to see some awesome horse flesh and even talked with grooms, buyers, and sellers during the 2 1/2 hours I was there. I took over 1,300 pictures and spent a few hours this afternoon sorting them out and putting them on the web. I'm about half way through so tomorrow night I get to do the process again.

Now back to my desktop background. 

When I went to the Kentucky Derby Museum a few weeks ago when I was up in Louisville, I took a picture of one of the many quotes on the walls. If you know me, you know I'm a HUGE Bob Baffert fan, so it's no surprise that it's his quote I took a picture of. The quote goes like this:

"If you're gonna be successful, you have to live and breathe this business."

Since my life right now pretty much revolves around horses, I feel like I fit that quote pretty good. However, when I was at breakfast with a friend a few weeks ago, one of their friends that stopped by our table gave me some advice on getting into the thoroughbred side of things (the place I ultimately want to go), 

"You have to constantly be seen and let them get familiar with you."

He was referring to everyone in the business because let's face it, the racing industry is not easy to get into without help (thankfully I have a wonderful support system behind me). So when I lollygagged about trying to come up with an excuse not to go out to the auction grounds today, I just felt more and more guilty. It wouldn't just be missing a day of seeing the future stars of our sport, it would also be a missed opportunity to get myself a glimpse of the inside of the industry, even if it didn't have any real effect today.

After all, good, professional exposure can't hurt. And I had a blast at the auction so it helped even more. Every day I spend doing something on the racing side of things, the more I realize that one day, I want to end up in the industry. My next task is to figure out how I can go from the unknown person walking around with a camera at the sales to someone people recognize. I have a feeling that may be a little tougher than I would like it to be. 

And for a small update on the internship front: This week was a lot of last second stuff to get done, especially since it was only three days of work. The eventing team was named early in the week so I worked on the media guide for that (I had helped with jumping last week), then I did our nominations for athletes of the month, which was kind of fun to do.

I've been trained to not put any opinion into anything, but this exercise was one where I had to make the riders sound even more awesome then they are. It was one of those creative type of tasks that let me escape my journalism ways for a bit. Then Friday was basically doing all the Young Riders stuff that needs to be done with the show only a week away. It was a pretty simple and straight forward week but it was really nice to have a steady stream of work to do, it made the days go by much quicker.


Until next time,
Mel

A week of frustration and opportunity

As I sit through my first big storm in Kentucky, I figure it's a good time to blog.

Not much has changed since my last post on the internship. I finished all of the bios I talked  about last time, including adding the edits that our proof reader said needed to be done. The website is up and running now (http://www.usefnetwork.com/featured/Olympics2012/rosters/eventing.aspx) so there's not much for me to do other than make sure it doesn't go offline.

This week, my only real assignment was writing a press release on Monday and Tuesday. Other than that, I once again sat around waiting for work to come my way. I'm hoping that after this week, I'll have a lot more to do with the Young Riders Championships coming to the Horse Park next week and then the Olympics starting up right after that. But we'll see.

We've also started a "fitness challenge" at work where we can go so many miles on a bike, walking, or swimming that started today and goes until August 11 (around the end of the Olympics). Because I've been looking for a motivator to work out and get in shape/healthier, I jumped on this chance and started working out today. My "goal" is three miles a day on the bike to get the gold medal but after going over 10 miles today, I think I'll be way over that. 

Plus, after the challenge is over, I should be better off since it takes three weeks to form a habit and the challenge is a little under six weeks so I should still be going at that point. I have a fitness goal that I want to reach by October so hopefully this is the right step towards that.

There's not much more to report on so Until next time,

Mel

An Update

As I lay here in bed sunburned and tired from a fun weekend up in Louisville, I'm not too creative tonight so it's going to be a quick update.

When I last left the blog, I hadn't been doing anything at the internship but wasn't too worried. But on Monday when the other intern got a call to do some stuff on top of what they already had her doing and I was still sitting there, I got extremely frustrated. There's only so much I can take of doing nothing when everyone else is doing a lot of stuff so I kind of had a silent freak out and started questioning some things. Thankfully, Tuesday I was given a lot of things to do so the questioning was short term.

With all of the Olympic short lists named, we have been working on an Olympic team website so I spent my week writing and updating team member bios in addition to other stuff. Friday was another boringish day, but after spending the three days prior to that doing a lot of work, I was okay with the break. 

Friday night, I headed to one of my best friends' houses to stay with her and her fiance for the weekend. She was extremely eager to introduce me to bison lasagna, something I hadn't had yet. Let's just say Friday's dinner  was amazing.

Saturday we headed to Churchill Downs for a day of racing including the Debutante and it was so nice to be back at the track. We also went to the Derby museum between some races and let's just say, it made me once again think about some stuff but that's for another blog.

Today, we went and visited her horse which was desperately needed on my end because I am having massive equine withdrawal without a horse to mess with all the time. I got home around 5 tonight and spent about 3 hours putting up some of the pictures I took Saturday because I just can never stop working. I have one folder done and have one more to go before I'm totally done but that gets to wait for another night because I need to rest a bit before morning.

Until next time,

Mel

The First Week of Work Wasn't So... Full of Work

After nearly six months of waiting, I started my internship with the USEF on Monday. In my head I had grand ideas of immediately being given a long to-do list of articles to write, interviews to conduct, videos to edit, etc. Instead, I waited in the office for an hour while the secretaries tried to find out where I belonged since my boss was on her way back from the Festival of Champions in New Jersey and the human resources head honcho wasn't in yet.

I would be lying if my week got any better on the ideas I had at the top of this blog, although I did get to find clips of a Canadian event rider who had been named to the Olympic team so we could send it to one of the canadian channels to air for a segment. The office was maddeningly busy except for me. The other intern was doing stuff for an event she's been hired solely to work, my boss was running around trying to get stuff ready for weekend two of Festival of Champions, and I was sitting at my desk waiting for an order. At one point, I actually built the two bookshelves that had been ordered (with the other intern) because it gave me something to do.

During the first few days of the no work, I was getting frustrated. After all, I had drove across the country for this internship after waiting for six months to start and all I was doing was sitting at a desk doing nothing. But then I put everything in perspective. 

    * First, the USEF internship is something that not everyone gets to do. In fact, right now there are only three interns in the whole office. That's a ton of space and not a lot of interns.    

    * Second, I came to the USEF partially because it is an Olympic body. Sure, I may not be getting any experience at this particular event (the selection trials for London are being held at FOC) but I am able to observe how everything works around the office and prepare myself for the next organized chaos. 

   * Third, I am here for six amazing months and am already in love with the place. In the grand scheme of the almost 26 weeks I am at the internship, this is only 4% of the opportunity. Sure, I may not have had the chance to shine this week but I did put myself out there and let everyone know I was willing to work so it wasn't a total bust.

Today I got a brief "tour" of the Horse Park when we ran magazines out to the racks at three different places and even got a chance to watch a few jumping rounds when we had some issues with the gator and needed to be rescued at Rolex Stadium. This is the stadium where I've seen amazing things happen on television but have never seen it live, let alone actually seen an event in it. 

 One of the jumping rounds in the Stadium today.

So while this week didn't go as planned, I have 25 more weeks to experience and hopefully, if I'm lucky I'll be allowed to stay here. There's no doubt in my mind that I want to work in the equestrian field now and that I want to stay in Lexington if at all possible. After spending a week "researching" all the talent we have on the US teams in addition to the up-and-comers, I am truly excited for the future of equestrian sports and want to stay at the national level where I can really be a part of it all. And if I can do my part to bring retired racers into a second career here as well (in addition to possibly investing myself into one of these disciplines), then all the better.

So yes, this first week may have been challenging for much different reasons than I expected, but it was definitely a learning experience and probably a good break before the chaos starts. Hopefully next week will bring a little more work and a new lesson that only working at an organization like this can teach me.

Until next time,

Mel

Kentucky Highs... and Lows

Well I've finally gone and done it. I've arrived in Kentucky (I've actually been here since Tuesday night) and am settling in. I still have a bit of room arranging to do but that will probably come tomorrow and Sunday, along with some other things on the to-do list.

The first day spent here was basically relaxing after a long five and a half day trip while we waited for my new roommate to get off work. The next day was spent buying me an actual "bed" (aka a very comfortable air mattress) and stuff that I needed. But today was the big day.

I've talked in the past about my love for Three Chimneys, Point Given, and their communications director Jen Roytz. Well Jen and I have been talking a lot back and forth over the last few months and when she offered to show me around Three Chimneys and have lunch with me, I jumped on the chance.

My stepdad and I started off this morning at the repair shop as my car has an A/C problem. After discovering the compressor is out on it, I'm making my summer an A/C free summer because there's no way I can afford that... what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger, right?

But our next trip was to the first "sightseeing" thing we've done all week, our tour with Jen at Three Chimneys. Jen knows my love for Point Given and we've had many conversations about him and his retired son Point of Impact that she is training off the track so of course, the first place she took me was to the big man's stall. What she didn't know is that Point Given got me into racing as a 2-year-old in 2000. 

When I was at Three Chimneys for their Open House in November, I had gotten my picture taken with him in the background but hadn't got a chance to really pet him or anything like that as it was a show but not touch type of deal. So when Jen learned that I hadn't had quality time with my boy, she asked for him to be pulled out so I could get a proper picture. Of course, I also got to love on him and admire the horse I can pretty much thank for this move. Imagine meeting your favorite athlete or actor and getting to talk to them, that's what this was like for me.

It'll take a lot to top this moment!

Our next tour stop was to see Flower Alley, sire of this year's Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner I'll Have Another. I'll Have Another's connections created a fundraiser before the Belmont where they would donate $20 to the Thoroughbred Charities of America for each picture posted on their Facebook page of toe nails painted purple. Jen and I had talked earlier in the week about posing in front of Flower Alley's stall with our painted toes so last night, I got the nail polish out and prepared the toes.

Jen decided to cheat with getting Flower Alley to come over to the door for our picture and grabbed mints which immediately got his attention. I did an extremely bizarre thing for the picture, taking off my shoe and sock in a barn (and a multi-million dollar stallion barn at that) for the picture while Jen was smart and wore sandals. Here's the end result of our extremely fun picture.

Not only did I get an extremely fun and unique picture, I also got a picture with someone I've looked up to for a long time!

 
As we were leaving the barn, we heard about I'll Have Another's injury and scratch from the Belmont. Of course, our happiness in this picture shot down to utter disappointment and I don't think I'll ever forget Jen saying "Bye Bye Triple Crown" as we walked back to the office. With this development, we had to reschedule lunch and walked away from the farm with a bittersweet feeling.

Our next stop was to the Kentucky Horse Park and the United States Equestrian Federation. I went in to the office to introduce myself but since almost everyone was in Gladstone for the weekend, I only got to meet a few of the cool people I'll be working with. 

I'm second guessing my abilities now that I've graduated but I'm sure I'll be fine after getting in the groove of how everything works. My goal is to learn as much as I can in the next six months while getting all the real life experience I can. If the last few days are any indication of the future, I don't think I'll ever want to leave here.

Tomorrow morning, my stepdad flies home and I continue this adventure by myself. I'm both apprehensive and excited. Hopefully it lives up to every expectation I have and more! It will definitely leave me with some great memories either way.

On the Road Again

Time for a quick blog update while on the road to Kentucky!

We started this leg of my summer journey on Friday bright and early (for me) at 7am and literally spent the day driving through three different states (to be fair, we were only in Washington for about 20 minutes until we crossed into Oregon). We covered about 700 miles in a 14ish hour drive and passed out in Idaho Falls.

Yesterday, we explored Yellowstone and it was AWESOME! It took a ton of time and set us back about half a day or so on the traveling but it was well worth it. We got to see multiple animals on the road and got to see two different types of geysers go off (including Old Faithful, below). Trying to put that visit into words would take way too many pages on this blog.

However, we got set back even farther with an ummm.... interesting side trip that our gps decided to take us on. It took us on an alternate highway that is closed during the winter. Usually that's not too bad, except for the fact that it was straight up the side of a mountain at a 10% grade. I already don't like heights so going up the side of the mountain from about 4,000 feet to 9,000 feet was not a good experience for me (or my car as we were putting up the mountain at about 19 mph). We did get to see some cool things when we hit the top of the road but it is not something I would like to experience again.

That white area is part of the road we went up.

Today, we visited three landmarks in the Wyoming/South Dakota area. Our first two jaunts were to Devil's Tower (which has a really cool legend attached to it) and the famous Sturgis (a must for my biker stepdad). We had an awesome lunch at Sturgis' Knuckle Saloon, I highly recommend it if you are in the area. 

However, the best part of the day was going to Mount Rushmore. I'm a very patriotic person and going to a memorial that honors four presidents was awesome. It reminded me of why I'm moving to Kentucky for my internship and made me even more excited to get there. Like Yellowstone, I can't put my Mt. Rushmore thoughts into just one blog so I'll leave it with a picture.

We have a few more days of traveling before we roll into Lexington sometime next week. If anything else exciting happens, you can bet that I'll try and include it in my next blog.

Until next time,

Mel