Just a quickie to remind you all that I’ll be posting several times over the following ten days as I head to Holland for the Global Dressage Forum. It’s always an honour to be an invited journalist, and this year is extra-exciting. I am anticipating a terrific event next week – after last year’s ‘calm before the storm’ where everyone seemed to be tiptoeing around the issues and each other, in 2009 the lid’s been ripped off in every possible way: the scores, the doping, the judging system. I’m rubbing my hands so much I could start a fire with them. Pity to those of you who will miss it, but I’ll do my best to bring the highs and lows to you through Straight-Up. And of course in a more PC way through my magazine articles.

A couple of other things you can expect to hear about from me over the next week:

– The DC Board has released its new High Performance Committee Terms of Reference. At a glance I’m getting a sense of smoke and mirrors, but will more closely compare the new Terms with those they replaced on my long, long flights to Europe tomorrow.

– And if you couldn’t care less about the state of affairs at DCB, then tune in after Sunday when I will have visited a certain someone in Holland – I’ll keep the ‘who’ a surprise until then!

– One final thing: Canadian DQs can expect a talking-to about your apathy when it comes to supporting clinics and symposiums. I’m just waiting until I’m in a sufficiently bad mood to write that particular rant.

In the meantime, if this short post left you yearning for more entertainment, check out this dressage song from the brilliant but unavailable-in-Canada British series Smack the Pony:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRpb5dugiB8

Or this somewhat less enticing audio interview with Meredith, show jumping’s first lady and mom-to-be:

 http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=313208812