We had an afternoon trip into Amsterdam for a coffee and some walking around. Picollo (as always) was a HUGE hit!!!!

First we stopped off for a coffee after the 1.5 hour drive into the city.


Then we started strolling around town.


Where’s Waldo? How about where’s Ex. A hint is he’s somewhere near the bikes!


Picollo and me posing like tourists.


The afternoon turned to evening and after a slice of New York pizza from a street vendor, we packed it up and headed back home.

Well… sorta!

We took a hour or two drive down to Essen, Belgium to visit with Johan and Penny Rockx. They’re definitely great sport horse people and just great fun to be with. We enjoyed a walk around Antewerp, a great dinner at a quaint restaurant and some quality sport horse conversation. Represented last night at dinner? Dutch, Canadian, Australian and American.

The drive down took a bit longer than the 1.5 hours it has before as we got stopped in bumper to bumper 3 times and had to take a detour on what really look like a bike path turned temporary road while they worked on the regular road just over the canal. Funny!


You walk around the corner with this fabulous view of the square. It was the first European city square Ex had ever seen. I think he had a great time! How could we not all have a great time as Johan told great stories about the city, it’s development and the architecture!


We tried to get a couple nice people to take a picture of the entire group but I don’t keep the flash on with my camera so they all came out quite blurry. I was able to get one that was pretty decent of everyone else under the front of the church tho.


Here’s another one of the group (minus me) on the other end of the city near a quaint and romantic walk along the canal ending at the castle.


Here’s the end of the walk at the castle with the statue of the man who the city was sort of named after. Long story short, he took unrealistic tolls from people working the canal and they got tired of his unrealistic prices so they cut off his hand and threw it hence HandThrow which formed into Antewerp in the long term.


All told a great night with some fun people!!!

How to keep Picollo quiet in the morning after breakfast.

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While Carrara doesn’t get the extensive turn out opportunities afforded to her at my stable stateside in North Carolina, she does have a nice large window looking out on Anky’s outdoor (which is currently down while construction is going on) but beyond this she does get to watch the horses in the fields and see her neighbors in the windows next door as well! She has a nice end stall!



Again a great lesson today with Anky! Yes she teaches on Saturdays AND Sundays. The women just doesn’t ever stop working! I’m giving Carrara the day off tomorrow as Ex is arriving and I have some production work to finalize but just generally get organized to have my partner back after many months! Yeah!

Wow! What a Saturday night!?! I met an awesome new person whom I completely admire his passion for bringing up youth in the sport of dressage and driving horses to the underprivleged intercity kids and so many more reasons like he’s just a wickedly funny Brit, Mr. Dane Rawlins. Well, back to the point. He was kind enough to invite me to the Equine Elite Auction (http://www.equineelite.nl/en/) this past Saturday evening and what fun!!! I’ve been to German auctions and they are quite interesting with fun entertainment but this was a complete festival which started in the afternoon. I couldn’t attend the afternoon events as I was having a TOTALLY AMAZING LESSON WITH ANKY on my mare so while I did miss the complete festivities, it was worth it for such a fabulous ride.

Here’s the arrival to Equine Elite pulling up the drive.



I arrived, valeted, entered and quickly noticed faces I’ve seen here and there in The Netherlands horse world but none I felt compelled enough to ask the protocol on seating. Earlier in the rainy afternoon during our shared lesson, I had met a fabulous and talented French rider, Bernadette Brune. I saw Bernadette in the hall and asked her if she knew about seating which she offered me to just sit with them at her table so I was able to enjoy the auction and horse discussions with the horse smart French. I love that I can talk about horses here with people that truly know about horses with good eyes. It’s like heaven! There’s so many neat things to say about Bernadette but you must enjoy her website and top facility in Saint-Tropez, France at http://domaine-equestre.com/. They have some lovely and talented horses for sale with great competition records as well.

So the auction began with a booming Elvis medley complete with the musicians and singers arriving in the middle of the arena via white convertible classic caddy! This excellent number was followed on by the opening auction of a one of a kind bracelet with braided tail hairs from Salinero, Totilas, Sunrise and Parzival artfully clipped together with 4 gold clamps engraved with each of the 4 horses names. The uniqueness of this bracelet was each tail piece was cut from the horses after their overwhelming win and record breaking ride by Edward at the EC in Windsor! Here’s a not so great picture but maybe you’ll get the idea:



Then the auction began with everything from 3 year olds just getting started all the way up to Grand Prix. One thing is somewhat positive with buying from auction is the horses will have had some bombproofing for dealing with crowds, noises and distractions in the arena! What fun! 🙂

One of the first horses in.
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One of the top selling horses. Such a long run the movie is in two parts.
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And sold for…
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All told it was a wonderful evening with a great party following the close of the auction. I picked up a few cigars at the shop outside the auction for Ex and they introduced me to a nice light cigar which I took a picture of so he see it, remember it and potentially try it later. DISCLAIMER: No this does not mean I promote smoking in any shape or form.


Many thanks to Dane for the invitation to this lovely evening! It was a great time and I’m so happy I had this experience. If I’d known about it only a week or two sooner I could have likely tried and potentially bid on some of the talents myself! What fun!