Results from Day 1 of the Nation's Cup

Australia in 1st with 40, Canada in 2nd with 44, USA in third with 49, Hong Kong in 4th with 78, and New Zealand in 5th with 111. Our guys rode great- wish them luck for tomorrow!

Janna

Edited to add: (Wrote this before Day 1 of Nation's Cup and wasn't able to get it on the blog in time!)

Janna here, reporting live from China!

Tonight is our first stage of Nations Cup show jumping. We will jump under the lights in the huge ring at Camelot. We had a practice last night under the lights so that the horses could get accustomed. (These horses are almost exclusively ridden in the indoor arena during the day.)

We have a mixed bag of horses and tonight should prove interesting. One of our original horses is lame so we were given a back-up horse last night. He is nice but has a naughty habit of jumping exuberantly and then landing and planting his feet like a bronc- Gus was on him first and it was amusing to see him nearly go over the horse’s head. Sara got on next and he tried it with her too. Sara was able to figure him out though and he looks like he’ll be a reliable ride now. Derek’s horse is a steady guy but in the stable he looks rabid. He bites incessantly and tries to attack anything that walks by. He likes to leave rails up though so we can deal with his crabbiness. Elizabeth’s horse is the nicest one of the bunch. He is a warmbloody looking horse that is uphill and has a to-die-for canter. He should give us some nice scores tonight. Now onto Gus’ horse… He is… well, he is a horse. He is a bay horse. He is a bay horse that could have a career as a lumberjack because he likes to annihilate wooden rails. At high speeds. But it is not only rails that he likes to annihilate, he also doesn’t mind plowing through metal standards from time to time just to keep things interesting. Fingers crossed that tonight goes well!

The last few days we have been just hanging out around Camelot, there have not been a lot of formally organized activities. The team has gotten creative on their quest for entertainment. We have had team Family Guy viewing nights in the movie theater (the complete six season DVD box set of Family Guy was one of Sara’s buys in Shenzhen- good choice Sara!). Derek and Gus have been flying Gus’ remote control helicopter around Camelot (on a completely unrelated note, a few nights ago some team coaches and managers reported UFO sightings…). One night Derek sang karaoke with two Chinese couples. Everyone enjoyed Chinese cooking classes too and were impressed by the very sharp knives and inferno-like flames used to prepare the food.

We are all excited about our Nation’s Cup rounds tonight… wish us luck!

Janna