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Dressage at #RK3DE – Watch Day 1 On Demand on USEF Network

Photo credit: RedBayStock.com.

The only place to catch the action-packed competition is the USEF Network live stream. Wall-to-wall coverage of each phase will be available on computers, tablets, phones, and smart TV devices. As always, the broadcast will include multiple camera angles, live athlete interviews, and analysis from professional sports commentator John Kyle with varying guest hosts.

Don’t miss the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event presented by Land Rover broadcast on NBC Sunday, May 7, at 1:30 p.m. ET. Check your local listings for channel numbers in your area.

“It Inspires You to Be Better”: Athletes Share Memories of the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event

Leah Lang-Gluscic
Leah Lang-Gluscic completed her first Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event in 2016 aboard A.P. Prime.

“Rolex is a spectacle, in the best way possible. You think you’re going to get there and it’s going to be this long week of waiting. But with A.P. in particular, I had such a huge fan base for him that I was occupied every single second of the entire week. It’s nice, because you don’t have time to sit and worry about how big and long the cross-country is or about how your horse might be wild in dressage. So it’s unique in that there really is something for the riders to be doing almost every minute of the competition. Personally, for me, I love that.”

Sinead Halpin
Halpin finished third in her first Rolex Kentucky event in 2011 with Manoir de Carneville, earning the pair the Rolex/USEF CCI4* Eventing National Championship.

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Sinead Halpin and Manoir de Carneville (Mike McNally)

“I’ve been there a thousand times to watch, but I’ve ridden there three times. I think every time I have gone it’s been a little different. It’s truly the pinnacle of the sport, and one of the things that three-day eventing does is it wraps so many emotions and so many experiences into one weekend, right? Rolex is like that times 100.”

Elisa Wallace
Wallace first attended Rolex Kentucky as a spectator in 2008 and returned in 2014 to give a training demonstration with her mustangs. She rode there for the first time in 2015 with Simply Priceless, with whom she also finished sixth last year.

“There’s nothing that compares with going to your first Rolex. You have this weird thing of, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re here, and I don’t really believe that I’m here!’ It’s a surreal feeling. That stuck with me throughout the whole thing; I kind of felt outside my body.”

Jimmy Wofford
Olympic medalist Wofford won the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event in 1981 with Carawich and again in 1986 on The Optimist when the event was a long-format competition. He’s also coached many riders there and regularly serves as a commentator.

“I went around the course probably 10 times. It was always a challenge. First of all, it was a challenge for everybody because it was a classic format. I never rode in the modern short format. And of course, I especially remember ’81 and ’86. The first Rolex sponsorship was in 1981; before that it had been the Kentucky Three-Day Event, even though it already took four days to put it on back in 1981. So I have the first Rolex watch that was ever won there.”

Kim Severson
U.S. Olympic medalist Kim Severson won Rolex Kentucky three times with Winsome Adante, who was owned by Linda Wachtmeister’s Plain Dealing Farm. This year she’s competing at Rolex with The Cross Syndicate’s Cooley Cross Border.

“For the years that I was with Linda [Wachtmeister], they still had the tie pinneys for your number. It was always a thing that we did: Linda tied my number for me before I went on course. That was always a special thing because it was our thing.”

Doug Payne
Payne first tackled Rolex Kentucky in 2012 with Running Order, then owned by Stone Hill Farm. This year, he returns with his 2016 mount Vandiver, a horse he co-owns with Debi Crowley and Jessica Payne.

“The first time going down the chute into the arena there for dressage was probably my most memorable moment. Of course, you can’t beat having a cross-country round and all that, but that’s what’s etched in my mind: the first time going down the chute and stepping onto that stage.”

Dorothy Crowell
Lexington native Crowell and Kentucky-bred Molokai were hometown heroes when they won the first Rolex/USEF CCI4* Eventing National Championship in 1998, the first year the event was run as a four-star. The pair finished second overall that year at a time when Rolex Kentucky was still a long-format competition.

“My main memory, the one I go to anytime I think of Rolex, would be of the first four-star in 1998. It was Molokai’s final three-day event after a pretty amazing career, and it was in our hometown. It was the only competition where every stride he took, people were cheering – the whole 14-minute course, from when we left the box. On the gallop stretches there were only a few people, and sometimes, as when we were going through the Head of the Lake, there seemed to be thousands of them.”

Lauren Kieffer and Vermiculus Dressage Test

Check out Lauren Kieffer and her Anglo-Arabian Vermiculus performing their dressage test to lead the Rolex/USEF CCI4* Eventing National Championship after Day 1. Watch Now >

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