Surprise, surprise, it’s been hot again today. So I went to see how the farriers are coping with the heat in their tent behind the stables. To call it a tent doesn’t really give the full picture. They have cooling fans… And they have good coffee! But with the portable gas fired forge running it’s warm, to say the least.
The forge is overseen by British Farrier Ben Benson and I’ll be catching up with Ben to record a video although IOC rules mean I can’t share it until after the Olympics.
The first “day” of dressage was last night between 5pm and 10pm local time and went off perfectly.
This was the first time I wore my formal uniform – dark colours and polyester and hot climates aren’t a great mix. Fortunately, there are showers at the venue.
We did have around 40 minutes of rain which was not expected – the forecast was a 2% chance and the rain seems to have been a square mile or so centered right over the equestrian venue and nowhere else had any.
Charlotte Fry did amazingly well for her first Olympics and Everdale has such a presence.
One of the things I love is when I walk around the barns at lunchtime, it’s so quiet and dark and the horses really get a good rest.
I think this image of a groom with her horse is one of my favourite things that I’ve seen so far at this Games.
This morning I went down to the arena to check on the environmental monitors and found I was the
only one there. I took the opportunity to get a judge’s eye view from “C”.
I also noticed the bell was a special Tokyo 2020 edition.
I expected it to be activated by some high-tech electro-mechanical device, but seems they went low tech on this!
And of course, I watched Charlotte’s test!
