It's Horse Show Season: Angelstone National Phase 1 CSI**

Yann Candele on Carlotta Singular la Magnifica

So on Friday, I was looking at a piece of paper on the barn notice board that had our show season on it and the dates and places we would be competing in, and because there was one this weekend I wanted to go to take photos!

I did my research, downloaded the order of events and a map and all the orders of go, invited my boyfriend and my mother and went off for an hour drive in the country to go find the show grounds!

The thing that I didn't want to miss was the $50,000 Grand Prix at the end of the day: there were two Olympians riding in it! My favourite was my idol, Ian Millar :)

Ian has ridden in 10 Olympics so far and has represented Canada very well, so of course I was super excited to see his round!

We got there mid afternoon, walked around the show grounds a little bit, I admired all the gorgeously turned out horses and the pretty braiding and then we settled on down in the main show jumping arena. Now my boyfriend knows some show jumping so I didn't have to explain very much, thankfully! We watched the end of a 1.30m class and then we walked to one of the hunter rings (if I was competing I would've been in the hunter divisions - I'm not a show jumper just a hunter and a dressage rider) and watched some horses pop over .9m verticals with flower boxes and brushes before deciding we were hungry and ambled off to the lounge by the main ring to go grab some food and find a good spot to sit and for me to take photos of the $50,000 Grand Prix!

Now, the winner of the Angelstone National Phase 1 CSI** Grand Prix doesn't actually get $50,000 - it's broken up into chunks:

1st - $15,000

2nd - $11,000

3rd - $6,500

4th - $4,000

5th - $3,000

6th - $2,500

7th - $2,000

8th & 9th - $1,500

10th, 11th, & 12th - $1,000

However I did a little math with the expenses for showing at the series of 6 weeks of competitions that Angelstone has:

first of all, let's say you're staying for that "one week" (5 days) to compete: $180 for a stall

a horse could eat a 1/2 bale to a full bale of hay a day: $8 per bale

the shaving in your horse's stall needs to be cleaned every day and it takes 54 bags at $8 a bag

to compete in the Grand Prix it costs $500 to nominate your horse

if you rode in the Open Welcome before to become eligible for the Grand Prix there's a nomination fee of $320.....

180 + (8X5) + (8X54) + 500 + 320 = $1,472

so you'd have to end at 8th or 9th place to make a profit - of $28!

the crazy and expensive world of horses...... and I love every minute of it!

I saw some pretty amazing equestrians- how often do you get to see two Olympians?! Thankfully there were only 2 riders that fell off - Ian's daughter Amy was on course when her horse Ferraro K refused a jump and sidestepped suddenly and she tumbled off!

Out of the first 13 riders that went, only 2 made it clear... the course was designed excellently!

AND after Ian finished at (3rd place) I got his autograph!!!!

I freaked out for a little bit and Jacob was laughing at me, oh well :)

Ian's daughter Amy Millar on Ferraro K 

Ian Millar on Star Power - the horse he rode at the 2012 Olympics!

Julie xo

(note: "CSI" stands for "Concours de Saut International" which is a ranking for international show jumping events. This was a "two star" event, meaning that: prize money 50,000 to 99,999 CHF, the max. height is 1.45m and the horses are at least 6 years old.)