Hello there,

Spent the day at the stud today.

Met Mark Todd this morning which may not mean much if you are non-horsey.
If you are horsey you will know that he is commonly acknowledged to be one
of the world's leading horsemen.

He has won Badminton numerous times & is an Olympic team member.
I am sure that by the next time I have read this Q will have inserted some blurb
to back up these sparse details.

Famous New Zealander

Mark Todd
Born 1 March 1956 in Cambridge.

Gained Diploma of Agriculture at the Waikato Technical Institute.

In 1977 he was a member of the first New Zealand 3-day eventing team to compete in a world championship, at Lexington, Kentucky.

As an unknown competed and won the 1980 Badminton Horse Trials (3-day event) on Southern Comfort.

In 1984 at the Los Angeles Olympics won individual gold on Charisma, then won gold again at the Seoul Olympics in 1988. Charisma was then 16 years old, and was retired after the Games.

Married Carolyn Berry in 1986.

In 1992 at the Barcelona won team silver, but was unable to compete in the1996 Olympics at Atlanta because of an injury to his horse.

Won Badminton again in 1994 and 1996, and Burghley Open European Championship in 1997.

In 1999 an international poll named him three-day eventer of the century.

In 2000 at the Sydney Olympics he won bronze with the New Zealand team.

After the Sydney Olympics retired to breed horses on his farm near Cambridge.


He is now devoting more of his time to breeding & training racehorses
(successfully by all accounts) & he came to look at his mare, Chablis, who foaled
yesterday. Foals are beautiful anyway, but this one was a complete stunner.

Chocolate brown, fading to biscuit-colour from the knees down & with a star & a snip on
it's face (don't know if it was a colt or a filly)

As we were standing there looking the owner approached, I thought 'He looks familiar'
& was then introduced to Mark Todd. He was very nice & chatty & took foties of his new
foal just like any excited owner would.

I also saw Van Nistelrooy in the flesh today, layer upon layer of rippling muscles &
only 3, he certainly is a handsome boy.

I have spent the day being a bit spare-partish as you always are when you are new.

There is something odd going on there & I can't suss it out. The atmosphere is as if
there has been a big row & the dust is settling. What did concern me is that each time I spent time alone with a staff member thsy would be criticising another.
Not good for a happy working environment.

The only one who didn't do this was Trina, one of the head girls, she seemed knowledgable & professional. The other girls were typical horsey girls, totally horse-p****d. What did jar was their language which was absolutely filthy.

I was told if I didnt swear when I got there I would when I left. I disagree, I found their language over-the-top & I couldn't tell if they were laying it on extra thick for my benefit.

I came away today with a negative feeling about the place, probably not helped by the fact that I got wet early on in the day & spent the rest of the day cold & wet.

Even riding my 1st quad bike didn't lift the impression that I might be making a mistake.

Kevin has asked me to start at 7am tomorrow so I can see the vet side of things.

I will see how I feel tomorrow. Kevin indicated that if I accepted the job I could start work next week. The difficult thing is that today people seemed to be looking for jobs to do & yet that I know they have 40 yearlings arriving in a couple of weeks & so then it will be much busier.

I keep thinking that my gut instinct was not to like Trish & it turned out right.

Something about this place is odd & I don't want to have been there for 3 months before I find out what it is.

Cx