Confession

(originally posted by Katherine at 6th May 2012 at 04:52)

Confession: I have to admit I’ve fallen off the truck a bit with respect to training these past couple of weeks. What! Well, in defense of myself, I had to make a trip back to the frozen north (Edmonton Alberta) to move my daughter (the Sundance Kid) out of university – seems that once the term is over they don’t want the young ‘uns anymore. Oh well, their loss is my gain – a partner in crime, and one who has a solid year of “higher learning” under her belt. Bonus! So between that, making a quick trip back to the Hand Hills, stopping over to see my family, and contracting some horrid cold virus, I am finally getting back to where I feel lively enough to continue on with the rigorous task I have assigned myself.

Feeling pretty bad about the gap in training, I was pleasantly surprised to receive that training email from the Derby organizers, advising not to live too “clean”; that “partaking of the local Mongolian culture (including vodka and fermented mare’s milk)” is very much a part of the Derby experience. So in consolation, I think I may have that particular requirement of training somewhat under control (note to self: that daily wine intake is now officially “training for the Derby”.)

While away, I did manage to scare up some great sponsorship:

I have received a wonderful donation from my brother Millard Phillips, the pipeline construction engineer extraordinaire, of Leslieville Alberta. Not only did he pledge an excellent amount of cash to the cause, he has apparently forgotten that I owed him money from 25 years ago. Oops! (He doesn’t actually read this, does he??) Millard and his lovely wife Colleen have shown me an amazing amount of support, and Colleen has jockeyed to the lead as my head cheerleader (Every Leslievillian seemed to know what I was up to, thanks to her.) Wonderful, thanks, you guys!

Millard's Contracting & Jordan's first "horse" Phoebe - a good combo, no?

Viterra, thanks to Lorine McCook and Clare Sheerin have come on board as a sponsor of this crazy endeavor. In case you don’t know who Viterra is – check this website out www.viterra.ca They are Canada’s largest grain handler, delivering Canadian grain to more than 50 countries. They also retail the inputs necessary to grow said grain; and are also involved in oat, canola, pasta and malt processing.

I’m not sure how many of you remember the iconic prairie elevators, but Viterra’s name was on some of the last ones standing before the restructuring of the grain delivery protocols in western Canada saw the wooden elevators replaced with localized concrete mega terminals. Anyways, Viterra has been a fixture on the prairies forever, as they are the child of the marriage of Agricore United and the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool; and Agricore United was the offspring of United Grain Growers and Alberta Wheat Pool; and AWP was around since the early 1920’s; UGG since the the early 1900’s…and so on, and so on, back to the days when the first settler in the wilds of western Canada planted a seed of grain in this wild new land.

Okay, don't tell anybody, but this is not an actual Viterra elevator - it used to belong to their competition Pioneer Grain. It is the last standing elevator in Delia Alberta, however; and used to keep company with a few Viterra (AWP) elevators until they burned down a few years back.

And finally, a desperate plea to the Kicking Horse Coffee Company of Invermere British Columbia produced this! Coffee to fuel my training, thanks to the lovely Mia of Kicking Horse Coffee. This is how I begin my day, in the saddle, doesn’t matter if the horse is under me or not.