CDI-W Palm Beach Dressage Derby

Show  heating up along with temperature

Thursday 2nd March 2000 

On Sunday evening 27th February 2000 I flew in from Amsterdam to Florida, arranged to get picked up by young rider Kate Poulin. She gave me a ride to Deleon Springs, Mary's home toxn. I had been excited for two months, anxiously waiting for this day to come; the day on which I would see Mary again. Of course I brought a load of coffee and Belgian chocolates because I know Mary and JJ simply love them. The first three days were spent working in Mary's home sorting and numbering pictures. One day we went to Daytona
Beach driving on the shore passing a mile of the most perfect ocean you can image. Mary and I lined up for a  nice cosy picture; the Junior Riders/ Dressagedaily team back together. We ate in an Outback restaurant and I was advised to select the Queen Victoria steak from
the menu ,which turne out to be simply great! On Wednesday we mainly mellowed out in front of the tv because everything was set for a departure to the McPhail equestrian center, which hosts the
Derby this year. 

However, I thought we were set. On the morning of Thursday 2nd March there were some problems when loading the truck. Mary seemed quite confused about what she wanted to take
with her and which gear had to be brought by Dell Goodwell, one of the camera handlers. In a pensive mood, thinking of a million things which had to be done, she forget some important phone numbers so we had to drive back once. The trip to the premises in Palm Beach, Florida, took 3 hours and a half, only stopping for a short grab to eat. After our arrival on the show grounds, I helped JJ set up the display while Mary was mentally preparing herself for her shoot of the vet inspection, which started at 3 P.M. JJ went out to get us some liquids for tomorrow and I
especially ordered Mountain Dew, a drink which is not for sale in Belgium. 

The jog was so fun, mainly because I got to see so many faces again which I haven't seen since two years ago at the 1998 North American Young Riders Championships in Denver, Colorado. I was of course especially pleased with my new encounter with Nicho Meredith, the official announcer of the show. He is such an interesting person and has the warmest heart and gentle soul. I got introduced to many new riders and I had an interesting chat with Robert Dover about his new horse Ranier. After the jog, Mary and I ordered a great dinner at the boot right across Mary's camper. Run by two crazy but very enthusiastic and inspired ladies, the owners prepared us a great meal of grilled shrimps and risotto. After dinner I grabbed Mary's camera, going out to the warm up ring in an attempt to capture some nice shots during Magic Hour. I can never predict how the prints will turn out to be as I am still an amateur. Round 8 P.M we loaded up, in order to turn in early so that we could rise and shine tomorrow for an extremely busy first day at the show.

I chose this title as the first one in a series of daily reports because I read the sentence in a funny article by Mary Phelps on her site dressagedaily.com. The weather in Deleon Springs was cool, spring weather, but the one in Palm Beach was considerably hotter so I had to change clothes like three times. I was worth it because I was cooking in my European winter ensemble.

Images by Astrid Appels and copyrighted for Phelps Photo