Olympic Riding

For those of you who are like me and want to know when the Equestrian events of the 2008 Olympics will be broadcast, I found this list:

Date: Program–Time (EST) on Channel

Aug. 9: 3-Day: Dressage–2:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. on USA
Aug. 11: 3-Day: Cross- Country–6:00pm-8:00pm OXYGEN
Aug. 12: 3-Day: Stadium Team Gold Medal Final–6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. on OXYGEN
Aug. 13: Dressage–6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. on OXYGEN
Aug. 14: Dressage Team Gold Medal Final–6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. on OXYGEN
Aug. 15: Show Jumping–6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. on OXYGEN
Aug. 16: Dressage Individual–5:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. MSNBC
Aug. 17: Show Jumping Team Gold Medal Final 1st Round–10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m on NBC
Aug. 18: Show Jumping Team Gold Medal Final Round–6:00pm-8:00 p.m. OXYGEN
Aug. 19: Dressage Individual Gold Medal Final–6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. on OXYGEN
Aug. 21: Show Jumping Individual Gold Medal Final–10:00am-1:00 pm on NBC

For many of these times, it looks like things scheduled for MSNBC will run three hours earlier out here on the left coast (according to the schedule I found in The Equestrian News.) There's live streaming broadband of most of the events at http://www.NBCOlympics.com, including next weeks' dressage competitions. The OXYGEN times look like they will run at PDT at the indicated times. You can sign up for an e-mail alert for the NBC streaming video here, on an event by event basis.

Horse Show

I'm not sure I get the joy of horse shows. Long dusty days waiting for a few minutes in the ring and not having the slightest clue what the judges are looking for I'm just not that competitive (unless playing Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit) and I've seen a bit of an attitude that's hard to take. Nevertheless, I went off to photograph the kids from my trainer's program at a schooling show on Sunday.

I enjoy the opportunity to practice action shooting. I didn't have as long a lens as I would have liked, but I still got some good photographs:
Leann and Charlie didn't have much of a chance against the bigger horses over the jumps, but later wiped their friends off the field in equitation.
Ashley and Curio won the timed jumping class and wound up as reserve champion for high point of the day.
Pebbles had a bit of an issue with an orange cone, but if you point her at a jump she's a very happy half-Arab. Very pretty, too.

The kids had a really good time, which I guess is the most important thing.

I rather thought I couldn't do much worse than some of the competitors, so we might take Ace to a schooling show one of these days. He has a lot more substance than some of the Arabians I saw. Too many of them looked incredibly unhappy at their fate. It was a long day for them, too,