2007 Palm Beach Derby's Daily Dish

Astrid's Journal - March 2, 2007: Catching Up with Friends

The first day of the Palm Beach Dressage Derby is always a relaxed one. A few national level classes and the vet inspection is all that is on the menu for the day. For me this means slowly gearing into action and catching up with old friends.

Last night Mary and I went to bed round 2 AM but there was no sleeping late in the morning. The dogs started whining for their walk round 7 AM and Mary got up to get some work done early. Even though it was an early morning, we took it easy and just hung out in the R.V. talking about our work strategy for the weekend, and mainly "getting organized," as Mary prefers to define it.

I went out to the warm up rings round noon to see the riders school their horses and to meet my friends, whom I hadn't seen since Dressage at Devon in September. One pleasant surprise was to see Cesar Parra's new Grand Prix horse, imported from Europe only three days ago.

In the stable area I saw Melissa Taylor and Lars Petersen running around a bit stressed. Lars forgot to bring the tack and had to drive back to Wellington to pick it up. When he arrived back on the show grounds driving a Hummer, I was very surprised to see this Danish rider being so "Americanized". A Hummer is a monstrosity of a car you only get to see on the road in Europe once in a blue moon. It probably burns 25 liters of petrol every 10 meters. "A guy who works from 5.30 AM to 5.30 PM gets to drive to work in whatever car he wants," Arlene Page said in his defense.

The vet inspection started at 3.00 PM and took two hours to finish. I was shooting nice head shots from the horses, browsing around and just enjoying being in the open air (at home, I normally don't go out and just sit on a chair working behind a computer at my desk all day long). The result, of course, was that I got seriously sunburnt, because I was savouring the sun so much after having spent five months in Europe in sunless, crappy, rainy weather.

After the jog, I went to the competitors' party near the main ring. It was hosted by Mary and JJ and sponsored by Markel Insurance and Mushroom Matrix. The party was fantastic: 300 people attending, delicious food (prepared by Paradise cafe), lots of alcohol and Madonna music playing. The atmosphere was great. Judges, riders, grooms, spectators, all schmoozing. As expected, all the food and drinks were gone at the end of the party.

After the party, I was so tired and it was only 7.30 PM. I went to the camper where JJ and Mary were chatting with Dr. Marvin Hausman and his Mushroom Matrix partner Jeff Jensen. We had a great time together laughing about stories from the past. Marvin is unbelievably funny and he told us the most amazing fact that he did the autopsy on Malcolm X. JJ reciprocated with his adventures being a prison guard watching after serial killer Ted Bundy. Those were all great bed time stories. I turned in at 9 PM .