Road to the Pan Am Games with Shannon Lilley (Part 3)

By Shannon Lilley | September 28, 2011

Wheels up at 4:30…

First of all I want to thank everyone who came and contributed to the party last weekend to help send me off. My mom and Ryan worked very hard to get things ready and I really appreciate it! It was a fun evening with a great silent auction and people were very supportive.

On to the exciting part… Mango and I drove down to Twin yesterday to meet up with Tamie Smith so we could go back to her farm and then leave together to go to Ontario where we flew out this morning. We got to the airport and again waited for awhile, and then all of the sudden we were rushed to unload equipment. Right when we were finished we heard yelling to get the horse trailer over to the other side so we could load them. The horses got off the trailer and are hurried up the ramp into the plane.. Then we were directed to the back of the plane where we sit in the freezing cold for the 5 hour flight. I had to go to the bathroom so badly but there was no time for that. We got in the back and the plane took off. Wheels up at 4:30. The last time everything was much more relaxed. Not this time. Even the pilot apologized for the attendant’s behavior. He said, "He is very intense this morning. I am so sorry." The horses traveled very well. Mango and Dinero have joined a frequent flyer program and we are working on that free ticket!

We landed in Lexington to refuel and then we went up again to head to Baltimore. We unloaded all of the stuff we brought while Mango and Dinero unloaded from the plane into the van. We arrived to beautiful Morven Park around 3:30, got settled in and I am now ready to go to bed at 11:17pm. I have been up since 5am yesterday!

I rode with Capt. Mark Phillips today on the flat and it was a fantastic lesson. Mark watched me work with Mango in the beginning as he has not worked with us before. He honed in very quickly on the couple things we need to improve. I felt that everything he was saying was stuff I had heard before from Dayna and I was able to fix it all. I was very pleased with my horse and myself today and thankful to have such a solid program at home with Dayna and I feel very prepared for what lies ahead. I am going to be honest though; I was pretty nervous before the lesson just as anyone might be. I just didn’t want to make a fool out of myself! Both Mark and I were very pleased and I now look forward to jumping with him tomorrow!!

Stay tuned for more from Me and Mango…

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