The horses left Ireland on the week of the 14th of August. Rob Hayden, The Yellow Earls’ groom travelled with the Irish Eventing Squad’s horses and Hike Holstein’s dressage horse. Rob has tremendous experience in international horse transport as he has flown with many of the horses I have sold over the last few years. The horses’ journey was uneventful. They took the 28 hours of flying time well. Rob texed us from Dubai and Singapore to let us know that The Yellow Earl and all the other horses were in good form. They arrived in Sydney to discover it to be very cold at night time and there was an immediate SOS to bring out further rugs for the horses. Apparently it is chilly at night but warm during the day. This is ideal weather for horses and it seems as if all the horses that have gone out for the Olympics have travelled well.

Virginia had a week free after The Yellow Earl left Ireland. She busied herself with various domestic tasks, making sure that our son Will’s clothes were prepared for boarding school and coming to see some horses with me. It was a nice week as both of us had been very hectic up until then. I had clients in from South Africa and the US over the previous five weeks and had been very busy. I did however manage to take three days off to go hunting in Scotland !!!.

Virginia flew out to Sydney on Friday the 25th of August. For the last four years since Atlanta she had been planning for this day and yet to say goodbye to the boys at Dublin Airport was difficult. Her travelling companions on the day were Trevor Smith, Hike Holstein and Col. Ned Campion, Irish Chef de Mission. Nicky Cassidy and Austin O’Connor had already travelled to the UK with the horses and were joining them in Heathrow. Susan Shortt and Patricia Donnegan flew out a few days earlier.

Our first problem at the airport was to distribute the excellent saddle pads supplied to us by Equitux. Virginia felt she could distribute these to the various riders at the airport, however, when we arrived, their baggage had already been checked in. Aer Lingus were very accommodating in packaging them and making sure that they would arrive in Sydney the same time as the Irish Team. I think it had something to do with the Irish Tracksuit that the Team members were wearing. I am half thinking about doing this myself but I have a feeling that when they see me at check in they will know that darts is not an Olympic sport !!!!.

News from Sydney is good. Horses are all well and the Riders are in good form. They moved into the Olympic Village on Saturday the 2nd of September. This has made life a lot easier as up until then they had been living out of a suitcase, now they have a base which will be home for the next four weeks.

The Team was very pleased to see Eric Smiley do so well at Burghley last weekend and he deserved this success. Eric was unfortunate not to travel to Sydney.

Over the past week, Virginia has been trying to gets to grips with the mysteries of the Internet. I have received a few e-mails from her, which have been a little cryptic to say the least. While travelling to Sydney the main method of communication between us has been text messages. This novelty had been aided by the phones provided to the Irish Olympic Equestrian Team by Derek and Deborah Mac Dermott of Mac Dermott Communications. If you wish to send Virginia a good luck message you can either contact her at info@irish-equine.com or virginiamcg@hotmail.com (no spaming please as I have just about convinced Virginia as to the benefits of e-mail !!!).