Rolex #2

Though the year is reaching the halfway point, it seems like my list of goals I’d love to accomplish is coming along nicely. Just yesterday, I drug the family (with the help of my mother) to our second annual Rolex Three Day Event.

To say it’s a horse lover’s dream would be to downplay its awesomeness. The weather was perfect (even though I ended up getting a bit crispy when the sunscreen wore off…) so people came out in droves to see the sixty horses and their riders take on the challenging cross country course.

Watching others compete in a sport I love so dearly myself always want to run out and start training for the event myself.

Then I have to remind myself that I need to be patient, raise my children, then I can focus on fulfilling my goals of competing on a more professional level.

Still, it is a bit torturous. While observing the competitors, I can imagine just how it feels to be riding a horse fearlessly leaping solid cross country jumps, something I haven’t done since college. I admit to a twinge of jealousy.

Claire pretending to be a horse jumping over an obstacle. Unfortunately, she would’ve been disqualified because she fell down. Didn’t stop her though–she got up and tried again.

Thank goodness my mom still shares my passion, the girls love watching the horses and Jack tolerates me going all day to an event when he could be using his precious Saturdays pruning his beloved trees or getting the hive ready for another set of bees.

Actually, he says he’ll enjoy himself more when I do eventually come to compete. Aww! He is going to buy me a really expensive horse! (Just kidding–I’ll probably just breed Dancer and create my own superhorse, haha).

The best feeling in the world–successfully crossing the finish line!

There was a little bit of drama–people falling off, horses misjudging the distance to the jumps, dogs barking at the wrong time–but that’s a bit of the thrill of cross country.

And of course, at any large horse gathering (or any gathering of people) there’s the need to show off. Usually that comes in the form of boots with horse people. I guess I’m in the out crowd–I wore tennis shoes.

I estimate my mother and I burned a few thousand calories toting kids, pushing strollers and power walking around the course to catch as many horse and riders teams as we could. It was so worth it.