Thursday, October 20, 2011

Pegasus & The Casbah...

Click! to enlarge...
Last Saturday, the 'Tuesday Troublemakers' (= volunteers at Little Bit) and myself had the honour of a private tour at 'Pegasus', an elite racehorse and sports horse training centre near here. Wow, what a facility! Do check out their website for more information on what they do there. The tour leader was none other then the (grand) son of the owners! (a fact we didn't realise until the end of the tour...)

You can already see the collage I made of this event but I also wanted to high-light some of the more amazing pictures I made that morning. As you will see it was extremely foggy and stone and stone cold and it stayed that way the whole morning! My fingers were numb after the almost two hour tour...

And now get ready for  a whole bunch of horse pictures. I've also tried some of my new Photoshop techniques on some of them, just so that you know... <wink> Here we go:



I see you!
This facility also has a large rehabilitation center for injured horses and to me this was the most impressive part. They had a large circular pool (shaped like a doughnut so that one trainer could stand in the inside 'hole' and one trainer could run around the outside) for horses to get a work out in...

Working hard!
And a hyperbaric oxygen chamber for horses! (see their website for more info on this)
If you look closely on the screen on the right you will see that a horse is actually standing in there!
Apparently this treatment is miraculous...

'Lady Di' 
(she has a British owner)

This was a very sad result of a barn fire two months ago. If you look closely you can see that she was burned very badly on her back, but is healing very nicely now, mainly because of the use of that hyperbaric oxygen chamber...

Pegasus also trains horses for the race track and of course they have their own practise track there. Unfortunately with the fog we couldn't see much and there wasn't any training going on, but it gave me some pretty shots nevertheless...


The last two photos above were of an (almost vintage) race-starter. (that is not the official word for it, but I don't know the official word for it...) Loved the lettering on top!


Every tower- nook had one of these beautiful wind direction thingies on it. I especially loved the last one...

So, even though we were completely frozen to the bone by the end of the tour, it left us with a heart warming feeling inside!

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And now for something completely different. Every year our school (and employer) has a fundraising auction and this year's theme is 'Casablanca'. Some fellow parents and friends have asked me to help out with the sewing of the center pieces.
I said: 'Sure, I can sew!" Oh oh, the project is a bit larger than I anticipated: 42 tables times 2 square  fabric pieces equals 84!!! That is not only a lot of sewing but it is also a lot of cutting of very slippery fabric! (big pain in the behind I can tell you)

Anyway, now you know what I'll be doing today...


8 comments:

  1. Mooie post over de paardjes! Lekker werkje die kleedjes!

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  2. Die foto van die "race-starter" is supermooi!

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  3. Dank voor je lovende woorden Carla! :-) Die mist maakte alles erg 'spooky looking'...

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  4. I was brought up among horses (Ardennes) but have NEVER been on one....can you believe that! But horses are beautiful animals.
    Chestnut purée is so sweet that you have to have caster sugar on it to neutralize it....How did that sound?
    Aggie kramar

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  5. Hej Marjan, interessante rondleiding hadden jullie, mooi verslag maakte je ervan.
    Je hebt nog wel wat naaiwerk te doen,, succes ermee.
    Lieve groet

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  6. What a wonderful day you had! Horses are such beautiful animals!
    And what a job you have to do... impressing!
    Kram, Monica

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  7. Wat ziet je blog er weer mooi uit, prachtige kop, erg leuk zo! Interessant verslag en mooie foto's, zelfs voor een niet zo paardenliefhebber als ik :) Jaa, en die met die race-starter springt er echt bovenuit, super!

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How wonderful to hear from you!

And Then There Were Two...