Sweetpeacefuldream's Friday at the Kentucky Horse Park

Today we got to the barn early and fed Sweetpeacefuldream and took her for a walk around the grounds.  It's amazing how the first day of actual competition changes the feel of the show grounds.  When we arrived this morning the place was absolutely humming with activity.  The horses could feel the difference as well, Miss Pea was much more alert today than she was yesterday. 

It is great fun to watch all the horses participating here in the makeover, especially since I'm coming from Colorado.  Usually when I go to a show I have a trailer full of Thoroughbreds, but I'm in the minority.  Mostly I see warmbloods or quarter horses, but here at the Retired Racehorse Project Makeover, all the arenas are full of MY TYPE of horses!  I'm spending a good bit of time wiping the drool off my chin as I admire them. 

Today the competition started with polo, then barrel racing, working ranch horse, and marketplace rides for the horses who were for sale.  That was in the covered arena.  In the Walnut Arena where I'll be riding tomorrow they had hunters jumping their courses, and eventing dressage was going on concurrently in a different outdoor arena.  There were also three warmup arenas in use.  Busy day.

I went to a few seminars in the clubhouse over the covered arena this afternoon.  The first seminar was a panel of folks who were leaders in the Thoroughbred sporthorse industry in the sixties and seventies, and they discussed how warmbloods gradually replaced Thoroughbreds.  There was some conversation about how one might get into buying, training, and reselling Thoroughbreds and do it for a living today, which definitely merits further discussion. 

The second seminar I attended centered around how to market your horse to find it a new home once it's been restarted after track life.  They gave a lot of good information about videoing, conformation photography, social media management and wording in advertisements.  I have a lot of notes from both seminars. 

I then returned to the barn and tacked up Miss Pea to go for a short ride.  She's acting a little uncomfortable, nudging me when I go to tighten her girth and clenching her teeth a little during riding warmup.  Nothing dramatic or terrible, this is just her way of telling me that she would benefit from some additional ulcer relief besides the supplement she is on that I sent in her feed.  We will pick up some for her tomorrow and hopefully that will make her more comfortable.  

Overall she had a very nice ride this evening.  Once done with her warmup I hopped her over the little vertical and oxer in the schooling arena.  It felt a little rough to me, but Owen got video and it looked better than it felt. When the internet connection here at the hotel is a little more cooperative the video Owen took can be seen here:
https://youtu.be/Wm-ySiFDRHY

I love an audience, so of course I noticed several people stop and watch her working, with some whispers and pointing, which I choose to assume came from awe at her wonderful stretches and rhythmic gaits.  I'm getting excited to see how she does tomorrow!