OUR KENTUCKY HOLIDAY

Where do I begin lol Philip and I have just come back from our holiday of a lifetime to the horse capital of the world...Kentucky! We stayed in Versailles (pronounced Versales not Versay lol)just outside Lexington!
I have longed to visit the Bluegrass state to see the famous Keeneland September yearling sales and the beautiful horse farms over there (that's TB Studs to us English!)
You will have to check out the photo's because I just can not put into words how awesome it is!!!!
If any of you have driven past Newmarket and seen the beautiful post and rail fencing at the studs there..well multiple it by 500 (I'm not kidding!!) and you may get some idea what it is like! Around Lexington to the small towns surrounding it you will see nothing but studs and their famous fencing, one after another and on each side of the road. Lexington is a small city and a rich area and not as you expect Kentucky to be! Further out in the country you do get the Rednecks (simple farm folk) but everyone we met were so friendly (typical of the more southern folks we were told)
Ok, so it was my first trip to the US (Philip has been to Florida before though)and we flew from Gatwick to Newark (7 hours)..it took ages getting through immigration..fingers printed and photographed lol They were typical accents from New York and New Jersey or New Joysie as they pronounce it! and then we got a connecting flight to Lexington Bluegrass airport (2 1/2 hours) When we came in to land at Lexington we could see all the studs and I was nearly crying! Yeah! I know I'm mad lol
We picked up a hire car ( a chevvy lol) and the friendly girl at Budget told us to look out for the Sheiks private jets as we drove out (they were in town for Keeneland. Private jets!!!!!!!lol they were massive Jumbo's!!!!
Anyway we drove to our Bed and Breakfast to Versailles and what a beautiful place it was! Rose Hill Inn is a old civil war home and the owners Sharon and Emiel were so welcoming. They had put it back to it's original decor and it was like walking back in time....just beautiful!
We were welcomed by Andy their lovely soppy Golden Retriever and their mini Donkey Chocolate and their goat Boerman, they were so cute! We couldn't have wished for a more perfect place to stay :-)
On our fist day we set of to The Keeneland yearling sales! Boy oh Boy you have never seen anything like it! It is huge and they are selling for about 18 days and there must be at least 300 yearlings going through each day. We missed the first two days and were told that one of the Sheiks had paid 9.7 million dollars for one TB yearling lol but we did see one go for a mere 900,000 dollars!! The auctioneers are amazing and they almost sing when they do their thing! They actually sing the final bid..it's so cool! :-)
Well behind the scenes is something else! There are barns (stable rows)in blocks of I think 50 or more and there must have been over 100 blocks. They come in off Horseboxes and trailers everyday and are got ready for the sales. The Americans do this quite differently to us and use mainly trailers but not small bumper pulls like our trailers but massive trailers that hitch like an artic to the top of a big 4 x4 and their Horseboxes they call Horsevans and they are nearly all shiny alliminium not colourful like ours. They have freelance grooms that come in specially to get the yearlings ready for the sales and we met an English lad that works down in Ocala Florida (another big horsey place)who came up especially to work getting them ready. They come off the trailers... are sedated ...trimmed...manes pulled ... bathed and then sold! They are usually there a couple of days to settle in and be shown to people before they enter the sale ring though. I was in my element lol The grooms hand them over to two black people for the actual sale (I'm not racist if you are wondering where I am going with this remark) I asked someone why this was as I wouldn't normally associate black grooms with TB racehorses, although I have black friends who ride horses over here. Evidently it is a tradition over there and these people (a lady and a man) would come from old horsey families that have always done this for generations dating back to slavery as Kentucky would have been a Confederate state back in the old days. I've got to add that I saw no racism while I was there from either colour skin which was so nice :-) Which is a totally ignorant remark because I'm English and live near London where there is a lot of racism and have only read about the civil war and slavery. I just thought I'd share interesting things I found out :-)
The next day we went to Louisville (pronounced Louieville) I was pronouncing everything wrong so I'm letting you know too lol and we went to The Equine Affair which is huge and a little bit like the Equus event we had at Excel Docklands, except four times bigger lol It was a mixture of English style, Western Style and Saddleseat and all the other disciplines the Americans have that we don't. Philip fell in love with all the Western gear and wanted to buy a western saddle lol they were beautiful but I don't know which one of my horses he thought he was going to saddle up lol There were demonstrations and we saw a Tennesee Walking horse demo which was cool. If you thought a horse just walked..trotted and cantered.. think again!
We then had to rush back to meet my two friends who had driven 6 hours from Southern Virginia to meet us. I had struck up a strong friendship thanks to the internet with my friend Day and and Michele who I also talk to on the internet. It was awesome to meet them and we went out for dinner to a cute little restaurant in Midway (another famous place for stud farms) it really is a cute little town with a railway through the middle just as you see in the films.
The next day we went back to Equine Affair with Day and Michele and shopped around but never actually bought anything lol in the evening we the watched the Pfiser Phantasia which was great..we saw trick riding and a cool western reining display where this lady did sliding stops and spins and galloping flat out across the arena doing flying changes and then a really collected canter they call a lope....WITHOUT A BRIDLE!!!! oh yeah! all this completely by body weight ! we saw saddlebreds do a display and they did the rack..which is weird lol I can't explain what gait that is but is similar to a trot but isn't two time and they go really fast..very strange! They had lots of different breeds and of course dressed up for everything :-) It was quite cool when they played the American National Anthem and we stood... I got goose bumps and I only get that when I here my own National Anthem lol I got goose bumps too when they played Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA! got to admit I was a fan of The Boss back in the 80's lol and that made my day :-)
The next day Sunday we all went back to Keeneland and then went to the Kentucky Horse Park...which is a fantastic place!
We went and had dinner again with Day and Michele and said our tearful 'goodbyes' as they sent off for their long drive home :-(
Monday we went for a prebooked visit to the famous Claiborne Stud. We had a private tour with a lovely guy called Gerry/Jerry? who really loved the horses. He showed us the stallions and old man Dansig ..they were beautiful! :-) he showed us the graves of some very famous horses :-) A few of them are my horses relatives and that was cool! We had our photo taken next to Secretariats grave.. he was buried complete but the others were buried with just their head, their heart and their hooves (I know it's a bit morbid) but that's what they say makes a great racehorse.
Just as we were leaving there was a group of old folk on a tour and this poor old lady either slipped or fainted and went 'smack' over backwards on the road!! I ran and picked her up and she nearly lost conciousness (sp) and I thought she was going to die!!! it was awful! We left after they got her back in the van and I hope she was ok?
Now Tuesday was a special day for us as I have another very dear friend who lives in Rhode Island in New England. She had booked a flight to meet me in Kentucky and had a horrible freak accident on her horse 'Mr Big' a few days later. She was jumping him and on landing did a flying change a he did a playful 'yippee' buck and poor Brenda shot over his head landing on her head (she thankfully had a riding hat or helmet as our American friends say or she wouldn't be here to tell the tale) The shock to reality in our sport is that poor Brenda broke her neck, back and pelvis and is now in a wheelchair for the rest of her life :-( I can only tell you what an awesome person Brenda is because she is so positive and cheerful and is thankful she is alive and also not a quadraplegic like others she has met in the Hospital.
So Philip and I flew up to Boston where Brenda is in Hospital to give her a surprise visit :-)
my other friend Karen picked us up from the airport with Rebecca another friend I have met through the great internet. We went for lunch and then went to the hospital where we met another friend Jaime, her boyfriend and her daughter Mikaila . We waited ages because Brenda was in therapy and the nurses hid us all in the waiting room....but Brenda turned up in the waiting room unexpectedly..well I just dived and hid behind Philip! so Karen introduced everybody (as we have all only talked on the internet) and she said she didn't know who 'we' were!.. at which point I peeped my head out and looked at Brenda and the look on her face was a 'picture' as she suddenly realised it was me!! well you can imagine that we were both just in floods of tears! it was great lol very emotional and well need I say more :-) Karen then gave her a quilt that all of our internet friends had made from squares we all sent to Karen who had beautifully made fit together! Brenda loved it :-) we spent ages at the hospital and didn't leave till gone 10pm and Brenda said the nurses knew how special her visit was to her as they don't even let her family stay that long lol
We had our goodbyes and then stayed at Karens house that night. The next day Karen took us to see Brendas horse Mr Big and also the horse she rides Tyler and her own horse Andrew. Karen gave us a great tour of Rhode Island and also of Boston but that wasn't actually planned lol as we kept getting lost driving round Boston ! ;-)
She took us to Allies donuts on the way to the airport and I ate nearly all of them on the flight back to Kentucky (I did let Philip have a couple though lol)
Thursday and Friday we spent driving around Lexington looking at the farms and Friday night we went to the Famous Red Mile Racetrack at Lexington but it wasn't TB's we were watching but Standardbred Harness Racing (trotters and Pacers) oh boy! do they GO ! LOL They are big into it over there and some of the purses (prize money) were as much as $12,000 a race.
On Saturday we met up with another friend of mine ..Winona and BF Gary :-) Gary is a true cowboy and has the moustache and hat and boots to match :-) He also has a way with the ladies lol and chatted to everyone in his path ;-) They are truck drivers and drive from their home in Oregan on the west coast to the east coast all the time! they managed to get a load near to us at the right time so made it possible to meet up :-)
We met up Saturday afternoon and spent the time chatting and had something to eat in one of the infamous Waffle Houses. While we were there the waitress told us about a festival in Georgetown, so we went over to Georgetown and found out they were having The Festival of the Horse. It was really a cute parade and they had sorts of breeds and lots in fancy dress, we were concerned that some of the horses were very thin though and were surprised as it's such a good area for grazing...they were real country folk there and I guess who you'd call real Rednecks :-) They had stalls with lots of goodies for sale and I bought a funnel cake which is a great big waffle like thing in woven strips covered in icing sugar! yum :-) On Sunday we went to the horse park again and visited the museum there, which is very good! They actually had real stuffed horses in the displays which was a bit erie! We then went for a western ride around the park..it wasn't exactly exciting as we plodded along at a walk and went up and back down the same path and were told to just sit still as they knew where they were going! well at least I rode in a western saddle even though it was synthetic lol I did break the rule by not wearing a hat though and feel pretty bad about that. Winona and Gary then took us to a western store and we just had to buy some cowboy boots and cowboy hat each lol So Philip got his hat eventually :-)We then said our goodbyes as they had to get their load delivered to Virginia by Monday morning.
Monday we spent packing and taking it easy before our flight home :-(
We had a terrific time in the U S of A :-) and can't wait to go back someday!