Rolex Kentucky 3-Day Event 1999

Note: This web page is an unofficial presentation by an individual who has absolutely no connection with Rolex, Equestrian Events, USCTA or any other organizations responsible for producing the Rolex KY 3-Day Event. The information here is accurate to the best of my knowledge.

As expected, the 1999 Rolex Kentucky Three-Day event was bigger and better than ever, building on the excitement created in 1998 with North America's first CCI 4* event. The cross-country course was even more challenging than 1998, with more fences "asking the four-star question", according to the course designer and some of the riders.

The total number of riders in the event increased this year, so that the dressage phase started on Wednesday, leading someone to quip that this was "the world's first 5-day 4-star 3-day event". Since I don't find dressage very interesting (I know I'm narrow-minded), that didn't make much difference to me. But the increased number of riders did provide more photo opportunities during the cross-country and stadium phases.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll start showing some pictures, and save the gab for later.

* * * Cross-Country - Page 1 of 2

Roughly the first half of the *** cross-country course, fences 1 through 13. This index page contains a bunch of small thumbnail images. Clicking on any thumbnail will cause a larger version of that picture to be displayed in another window, along with some descriptive text. The index window will remain open so that you can quickly jump back to it without reloading it. Alternatively, instead of returning to the index to select a new picture, you can "click" your way around the course by using the links provided with the large picture.

* * * Cross-Country - Page 2 of 2

Same format as the previous page. The second half of the course, fences 14 through 26. I didn't get a picture of the final 27th jump, and I missed a couple of others (10 and 22). They weren't very spectacular, so you're not missing much.

* * * * Cross-Country

Hey!! What's going on here? Didn't **** have more, bigger, better jumps than ***? So how come there are fewer pictures? And where's the water jump? Did this bozo really skip the most exciting jump? Yep, sorry about that. The **** course was definitely longer and more interesting. But there were a lot fewer horses (about 30 ****, compared to about 75 ***). With a longer course, and about half as much time to drag my aging carcass and gimpy knee around it, I had to skip some parts of it. The water jump, although awesome to watch, is really tough to photograph without one of those coveted armbands to get into the press section. So it was one of the areas I bypassed in favor of jumps where I could get better pictures.
(Update: After reading my sob story, Tim Pointing of Equestrian Sport Photography in Canada generously gave me these pictures of the four-star water complex.

* * * Stadium Jumping

Not quite as many pictures here, because stadium jumping doesn't provide the kind of variety that cross-country does. It's neat to watch if you're there, partly because of the suspense. But when you start looking at pictures, they all start to look alike after a while. And it's tough to get a decent shot of many of the jumps. So I just took a few pictures of some of the more popular riders, getting as many different jumps as I could. The format is a little different here. Still an index page with a thumbnails, but the pages aren't linked like the cross-country pages, since there's not really a logical progression between them. The large pictures still open in a separate window, keeping the index open; you can return to the index by moving your mouse back to it and clicking.

* * * * Stadium Jumping

Same story as the *** stadium page.

I didn't take many "social" pictures this year, because I took a lot more of the competition (or maybe I was intimidated by those threats to drown my camera in the hot tub). I did get one shot of some of the group at the Foxhunters' Oasis on the cross-country course, generously provided by some members of the Miami Valley (Ohio) Hunt. And I collected some interesting comments from some of the Internet Equestrian attendees, mainly from the chatter on the Rolex email list.

For more information about the event, check out my Rolex Intro page, which has additional information, links to my pages for other years, and links to other sites about the event.

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