day 4 _ O3

Well finally we got this thing started!! A great day of dressage with 6 scores in the 30's! One of them is Gina Miles for Team USA and the other is becky Holder with Courageous Comet...Gina would have a better score , except McKinlaigh decided he wanted to become a Grand Prix dressage horse and do multiple flying changes during the serpentine movement. Too bad , cuz she was so on form...a lovely test. She is currently in 6th. There were two battle going on...the first between the husband/wife team from Australia: Lucinda/Clayton Fredericks, who both scored in the 30's! Lucinda got an amazing 30.4 and Clayton got a 37.0. Needless to say, the Aussies are kicking b...! The second battle was , as I now call it, the Battle of the Greys .....our own Becky Holder with Comet, and Megan Jones (Australia again!!) and her wonderful Irish Jester. Becky laid down a terrific test, with lovely trot work and got a 35.9 ( I think one of her career best scores) and then right after came Megan on the lovely Irish Jester (very close to my own personality, don't you think?), who put in a free flowing , marvelous dressage test. I am telling you, the quality of the dressage, even with this new test, is absolutely fantastic. However, this 3 day event will not be won on the dressge alone..there is a lot to do on cross country, and I am sure the show jumping will be big and bad!! As far as the team standings are concerened here they are:

Australia is in the lead, USA in second and Sweden in third (but not all teams have finished 3 riders yet).. Remember 3 out of 5 scores count for the team final. Another big setback was the withdrawal of the French superstar, Nicolaus Touzaint, with his Badminton, and European champion, Galant de Sauvagere. Word is that the horse may have fallen during a longeing session yesterday...rumor at this point, but we all felt that there was no joy in Ville du Francais this night.....they only have three riders now , since Jean Toulere did not present for the jog. I hope to have more on that tomorrow, since it happend so late tonight. Remember, we had two sessions today 6:30 Am to 10:30 am, then again from 7:15pm - 10-00pm. It's been a long day friends....

I just got home to read some of your comments,,,,they are really appreciated and I love to hear from you all, many thanks!! The late evening news brought bad news about the attack and killing of a US visitor and relative to one of our coaches from another sport....seems like our results are a bit anti climatic...I hope we are not going down a bad road here.....security is tight and well handled, but can we really prevent the dedicated terrorists and crazies? This is not my soapbox for that issue..we just want, as all atheletes do, the safest, and best possible venue to perform for the world at the most prestigious competition ever. Let's pray for those family members who have lost their loved ones.....

Competition continues tomorrow at 6:30 again, and we should be done by 10:30. The horses will then be transported up to the cross country site at Beas River (about 20 miles) late in the afternoon. Back here at the main arena, we will have the horse inspection (trot up) for the Grand Prix Dressage horses at 4:30pm....busy day, change of clothes, and maybe,,,just maybe some sleep!! That's all for tonight (day for you all),

Brian (NOW.. THE OFFICIAL ANNOUNCER FOR THE OLYMPIC GAMES 20008)

COOL EH?