Sapphire had a baby!!

The great Sapphire and Topaz, her new foal. 

My daughter greeted me with this news the other morning as soon as I wandered into the kitchen.  As I'd just left my bed and was woefully undercaffeinated her comment made absolutely no sense to me.

"Huh?" was my witty rejoinder.  "What are you talking about?" 

At least, that's what I think I said.  Sophie says what she heard come out of my mouth was more like "Mwahnahschoogenfeld."

"Mom! Sapphire had her foooooooo-aaaaalllllll!"

At this point Sophie gave up, grabbed my hand, and dragged me to the basement family room where she has her Breyer horses set up in what I call Happy Valley Hillbilly Ranch. I say hillbilly as, since we refuse to buy another gi-normous Breyer barn, the child has gotten resourceful and created barns out of whatever is at hand.  As of today's writing, most of the ranch's residents reside in old wine boxes. Not Sapphire, though. She resides in the Breyer barn.  Rank has its privileges and all. But I digress.

The Great One's stall.  With nameplate, of course.

There she was, in the north field, the Magnificent Mare herself and her brand new baby.  I had no idea the mare was even expecting and had a tense moment as I contemplated lack of pre-natal care, however both mother and baby looked quite healthy.  Sapphire was already cantering about her field -- concerned about getting her pre-baby figure back, perhaps? 

"Did you let McLain know?" I asked. For some reason this was all my sleep-addled brain could come up with. You can't see in the picture, but Sophie's Sapphire is autographed by McLain.  If you've been reading AWIP for a while, you'll know I blog for Horse Junkies United as well.  I covered the Devon Horse Show and Country Fair for HJU and, during a embarrassing moment of weakness, ran across  the schooling ring and pretty much tackled the poor man in hopes of getting him to sign my daughter's Breyer model of Sapphire. McLain, ever gracious as he is, signed the model for me and then told me to tell Sophie to "take good care of her."

McLain and me, taken seconds before he called security. 
Just kidding!!

McLain has no idea what he started.  He's created a monster, really, as Sophie has taken his words as gospel.  Sapphire is on a regular grooming and exercise schedule.  All Sophie's horses have a set turn out schedule, however, Sapphire gets the best "field" and is out mostly at night since Sophie feels the bugs annoy her.  Inevitably, once bedtime is announced I'm told, "I need to turn Sapphire out!"  Now, I'm well aware this is a delay tactic of the highest order, but I indulge it because, well, it's Sapphire. 

Sophie takes good care of Sara (Sapphire's barn name) in other respects as well.  It's well known that Sara loves her Dunkin' Donuts.  Sadly, we don't get to the double D's as often as the big mare would like, but I do bake often. Sara's learned to love chocolate chip cookies, espresso chip cookies, and dark chocolate Kahlua brownies. (Crap! Chocolate is no good for pregant women!  What about preganant mares?) Sophie takes care to feed her only small amounts of these indulgences, though. (I know, as I vacuum up the crumbs.)

We decided to err on the side of caution and removed her brother's Lego Millenium Falcon and Sith Infiltrator out of the back of their field, as from what I understand foals are like children and thus highly accident prone.  Neither of us know anything about caring for or raising foals, so Sophie has pulled out all of her horse books and is reading up on the subject.  She says you always have to do right by your horse, but it's especially important when the horse in question belongs to one of the best riders in the world and he has specifically told you to take good care of her. 

She gets no arguments from me on that point.

Thanks for reading!

Fun With Sapphire at Devon and Setback Update...

This past weekend I had the HUGE privilege of covering the Olympic Observation Event at the Devon Horse Show and Country Fair for Horse Junkies United.  It was AMAZING -- I got to sit in the official press box with all the "real" journalists.  However, part of getting a press pass to cover it for HJU means the content belongs over there, so if you're interested in knowing what I saw and who I met (think big name rider!) you can read about it by clicking HERE.  Sorry to make you do the extra work, but rules are rules!

To update you on the Home Front:

The Boy, aka Noah, has been given the okay to wean himself off his cane and is now going for PT in the hopes of joining his summer rugby league only 2 weeks into the season. (Conveniently, we get to go to PT together.  How's that for mother and son bonding time?)

Me: I've recovered from my stomach bug and have moved on to a head cold. As Charlie Brown would say, AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!  Oh well, better a small cold than anything serious.  The PT is helping my back, although it's embarrassing to realize how weak I've gotten, and of course it's fun to share giggles with the Boy as we do our exercises together.

Sugar: The Sainted Mare has not progressed as far as we would have hoped by this point.  We've been tack walking her, which she finds boring beyond belief, icing her, and hand grazing since she can't be turned out. (She likes the hand grazing part, especially as she doesn't need to wear her grazing muzzle.)  She had her second ESWT session and a re-eval on Monday, which showed she's still lame when being flexed.  So, 10 more days of tack walking, etc., and then another ESWT and an ultrasound to see where we are at.  I've also asked my good buddy Carolyn to come down and cold laser Sug a couple times a week.  I'm bringing out the big guns now! Fingers crossed that we see some improvement.

So that's where we stand.  I hope you do go on over to HJU to check out the Devon piece. 

Thanks for reading, and take care!

Long Live the Queen...

No, not the one with all the corgis (Elizabeth II of England).  The one of the show jumping ring, Sapphire.

I was supposed to be at Devon last night, covering Sapphire's retirement and the Well Fargo Grand Prix of Devon, but a nasty stomach bug laid me low.  I can't complain about losing 5 of the pounds I've gained since I fell off last September, but I'm not thrilled with the timing.

Thanks to the wonder that is the Internet, at least I got to watch the events on my laptop.  Sophie and I curled up on the couch together, my little girl smelling of green apples and clean little girl after her shower.  We both started sniffling as McLain walked Sapphire around the warm up ring, and had segued to fall on BAWL mode by the time she entered the ring.

She looked fabulous, and was on her toes the entire time.  Soph and I loved when McLain rode her to the side of the ring and let some children say hello to their idol.  What a gentlemanly thing for McLain to do.  Sapphire, for all her excitement, was very good for the kids, standing still and letting them get a good look and a few pats of the famous nose.  My daughter ached to be there, and was a bit sad that I wasn't, as she'd harbored hopes that I'd be able to get her Sapphire Breyer horse autographed. 

Sapphire looked as though she couldn't quite figure out why she was being untacked, why she and McLain weren't jumping the fences in the ring with them.  That was so good to see -- the fact that she was still in form, that she would have loved to have been out there, that her fire was still lit.

It was a perfect ending to the evening that McLain and his new mount Antares F, a high energy horse as different from the placid Sapphire as it is possible to be, won the Grand Prix.  I think we could call that coming full circle, don't you?

Be well, Sapphire.  Enjoy your donuts, and have fun being a momma.

My favorite photo from last night, taken by Rianne Berker.

Thoughts on Sapphire's Retirement...



Sapphire and McLain at the WEG 2010

 I was on my up to bed when I stopped at my computer to send a quick email to a friend.  Of course, that meant a quick perusal of what was new on Facebook. 

Dumb move, as the news that greeted me, the retirement of McLain Ward's magnificent mare Sapphire, pushed bedtime back a good hour and a half as I then needed to indulge reading coverage of her past triumphs, watch a slew of YouTube videos of past rounds, and peruse photos that I had of her from various competitions I'd seen her compete in.  Sadly, there were too few of these for my liking.

Why should this happy news be upsetting, you ask?  She's going out on top, she's recovered from her injured check ligament, and most importantly, she'll be able to indulge in as many Dunkin Donuts as she wants. (The Sainted Mare is violently jealous.) 



                              

                      One of the Great Ones passing "The Greatest"


Selfishly, I'll miss seeing her in action.  When I expressed this to my husband, he said, "So what?  What's the big deal?  Athletes get old and retire all the time."  (This from a man who, at the World Cup in 2009, would not get me a snack as McLain and Sapphire were coming soon in the order and he did not want to miss them).

His comment left me incredulous.  "Haven't you ever been sad when one of your favorite Eagles/Phillies/Flyers retired?" I asked.

"Nope."

Men! Heartless creatures.  Let's just say I was not ready to see things rationally at this point and there was a decidedly glacial cool down on my side of the bed.

"Is this going to be like Princess Diana/" asked Mr. Sensitive.  A little background, I am not normally a celebrity hanger-on, but I was ENAMORED with Princess Di.  I have a collection of books and old magazines that darn near needs it's own room.  The night she died, I stayed up late to watch network coverage. I fell asleep before news of her death broke, and when i awoke the next morning, the first thing I did was ask my husband for news.  "She croaked," was Mr. Sensitive's reply,  I did not speak to him for a week.  (I swear to you, I'm not normally that irrational, but a girl's heroes are her heroes, and not to be trifled with.)

Back to Sapphire.  She's done it all -- 2 Team Gold Medals at the Olympics, a team Silver at the 2006 WEG in Aachen, winner of the Pfizer Million in 2010 2nd in the FEI World Cup in 2009, (we won't discuss what happened in 2010), and top spot by .02 seconds over Eric Lamaze and the insanely quick Hickstead in the 2009 CN International at the Spruce Meadows Masters Tournament in 2009.


                          

                        Baby Sapphire.
                      Think Her Foals Will Be As Cute?

Hopefully Sara's fans will one day have the opportunity to see her progeny take on the big fences. Attempts to breed her while she was recuperating from her injured check ligament were unsuccessful, but fingers crossed that things will go better this time around.

Sara doesn't owe anybody anything, least of all her adoring fans.  We've had 10 years to bask in her magnificence. Quite frankly, though, the show ring will be less exciting for lack of the Big Mare's presence. 
 
You'll be missed, Sara, and we thank you for all the wonderful memories you've given us.  It's been a privilege to watch you in action.