This was my third trip to Lexington. I have enjoyed all of them, but this one was by far the best. While I was in Law School at UW Madison, I took an independent research class dealing with a bill before the Wisconsin Legislature creating laws and rules for industrialized building. My brothers Jim, Steve and I were working our way through college doing residential construction and had just created our own building company, Kassner Brothers Construction.

I heard there was going to be a trade conference for industrialized construction, and Jim and I talked our Dad, who was the current president of the Wisconsin Builders Association, into driving us to Lexington to learn what we could about that type of construction. Other than the conference, my two most vivid memories of that trip involve going to and returning from Lexington.

On the way there, we drove from Green Bay, until late in the night. We were all hungry and stopped at a restaurant to catch a late bite to eat. The manager said the kitchen was closed, but they still had some prime rib. Neither Jim nor I had ever had prime rib, but we ordered it. Jim was, and still is, a picky eater. He wouldn’t eat the prime rib because he thought it wasn’t cooked enough. We still kid him about that.

My Dad loved horse racing. (Always bet on a grey horse with the number 6) We convinced him to drive us to Lexington by telling him that we would have to drive through Louisville, and that we could stop at Churchill Downs on the return to Green Bay. My Dad had always dreamed of going to the Kentucky Derby. It was quiet the day we went there, but it was a beautiful day, and the sunset, and the track were gorgeous. My Dad truly enjoyed the opportunity to visit and see the facilities because we could just wander around the grounds and see the history without fighting the crowds of a derby day. My Dad never got to go to the Derby, but I know he enjoyed the visit.

My second trip to Lexington was when Jesse was a young equestrian. Each spring when the kids were little, we would drive all the way to Florida for a week vacation. On the way down, everyone was excited to get to the beach so we drove hard to get there as quickly as possible. My wife Vicky and I would take the kids out of school for these trips, and I always explained to their teachers that each trip we would be taking a different route back to Wisconsin so that the kids could see and learn about the geography and history of different parts of the country.

Vicky insisted that Jesse and her brother each keep a journal to describe where they went on the trip, what they saw and what they learned. I believe that this is where Jesse first started keeping a journal. I would urge you to read her article in this month’s issue about the importance of keeping a journal of your equestrian training.

On one of the trips, I chose a route that went through Knoxville, and Lexington so that Jesse could visit Kentucky Horse Park, the site of the questionably named Three ??? Day Event.

Finally, I will say something about the K3DE5*. We drove straight through to the Kentucky Horse Park because we had to pick up our press credentials and photographer bibs the day before the event started.

The grounds are well manicured, and expansive. The buildings are attractive and the equestrian facilities are extensive. Very impressive place. If you have never visited, it is well worth the trip.

On the day before the event, they had scheduled an opportunity for the media to walk the cross country course, which I was excited to do. I wanted to see how the jumps were constructed and figure out where would be good places to take pictures. Unfortunately, on our way to Lexington, the Illinois Tollway first offered us the great opportunity to see what a million parked semitrucks look like when you are standing still for hours. We missed walking the cross country course.

I didn’t see any signs in Illinois and Indiana, but we probably sat in traffic close to the new home of the Indiana Bears of the NFL. As a Packers fan, I am glad I don’t have to drive those highways to get to our games.

On the first day of the 3 ??? Day Event, they did dressage in the Rolex Stadium. Well, at least some of the horse and rider combinations did as part of the first round. The rest of the combinations did their dressage as part of the second round on the second day of the 3 ??? Day Event (Jesse explained that there are more combinations competing in the event than could complete dressage in a single day. This is why it takes four days to complete a 3 Day Event)

On the morning of the first day of dressage, I reminded Jesse to be sure to put on sun screen because it was supposed to be sunny all day. Jesse said she doesn’t use sunscreen because she doesn’t burn. Of course, she got a fairly bad sunburn on her shutter finger hand

Unlike in Fort Worth, the press are not allowed to get physically close to the arena. Well, they can, but they have to stand, in the open sun, in the middle of a large stadium, with no shade. In the picture below, you will see a small, bare area to the right of the arena surrounded on three sides by white rails.

Most importantly, when you are my age, there are obviously no bathrooms out there in the middle of the arena. You can’t simply leave that area while there are horses in the arena. (hint—you can’t leave for hours) As a result, almost all of the photographers are seated about 75 yards (or a little less than 70 meters) from the Arena rails. That area extends along the bottom of the picture and back quite a ways to the left. Still, with a decent telephoto, you can get pretty good pictures. There is a designated press area in the stadium adjacent to where the riders enter the Arena. the picture above was taken from that area. It has nice seating, and parts of it are in the shade. “O frabjous day” it also has separate bathrooms for the press. All in all, the media accommodations were different from Fort Worth, but they were nonetheless great. I will gladly do it again.

At the end of the dressage, competition the press were invited to ride a hay wagon around the cross country course with the course designer, Derek di Grazia.

On the way to the event on day two, we took back roads to Lexington because of long traffic jams due to highway construction. It was a beautiful morning, and the back roads leading up to Lexington pass through some beautiful horse country. It would be worthwhile to spend a few extra days just looking at the countryside and the equestrian buildings. I learned that you can tell who has money just by looking at their fences. The more horizontal planks your fence has, the better off you apparently are. Well-to-do owners build fences with four horizontal planks between posts.

As you can see, unlike the white equestrian fences we see in Wisconsin, the fences in Kentucky are almost always dark brown. I wondered why, so I did some research. When I was younger, I wondered why almost all of the barns here in Wisconsin were red. I learned that early barns were typically sided with wood boards. Over time, farmers saw that the boards would deteriorate unless they were painted. Because paint was expensive, farmers learned that they could mix less expensive materials, including linseed oil to allow the paint to sink into and preserve the wood. In order to add iron to the mix to further preserve the wood, they added blood, which created the red color.

I speculated that something similar was responsible for the brown fences. I learned that the same concerns applied, but the horse farmers in Kentucky wanted a color that wouldn’t draw attention away from their horses. They chose to add a different, equally affordable product to their mix, Creosote, a tarlike substance which made the fences dark brown or black. Typically, creosote is used to preserve railroad ties.

Here are a few images of horse country scenes I found enjoyable.

Day three of the Three ??? Day Event was Cross Country day. It was quite a hike from the media center to the cross country course, especially carrying all of our camera equipment. Between the media center and the course, you pass through an extensive area of vendors selling equestrian equipment. Jesse and I had an opportunity to talk to many vendors about being able to offer their products once we open our ecommerce page.

By the way, we are just about ready to launch the e-shoppe. We have the website set up, the inventory on hand and the shipping equipment ready to fulfill orders. We would be open today, but Microsoft has complicated its email authentication system to the point where Jesse lost all access to her email. I wasted two weeks trying to get her back online, including almost three hours talking to an extremely patient support person at Microsoft yesterday. Jesse got back online a single one time, but the second time she tried to connect, it didn’t work again. Update. That helpful, patient Microsoft support person called us back Friday afternoon. Jesse is back online. Hopefully we can launch the store by early next week.

As we walked to the cross country course, we passed a display of vans that had been converted by a company in Belgium into one or two horse vehicles. They are firly common in Europe, but they are an exciting development here. You need a heavy truck to pull a horse trailer. Both the truck and the trailer each require a place to park. Combining them into a single vehicle is a genius idea. No need to back up trailers. I am trying to get the vendor to advertise on our site. I offered him free ad space. I hope we can work something out.

Photo By DressurSPORT.com, LLC

One thing we both noticed as we walked to the course was the fact that almost a third of the groups of visitors were walking a dog. At any given time, we were within talking and licking distance of a handful of dogs. Just a sample of the dogs we saw.

During the haywagon tour, I picked out several jumps I wanted to photograph. The first place I went was at jump 18 (the Defender Head of the Lake). As I approached the area, I saw two photographers wearing the bibs we had to wear. I approached them and told them this was my first time photographing an event. I asked for any suggestions they could offer to a newbee as to etiquette, good locations, etc. They were incredibly friendly. They told me to follow them, as they would take me to a special place where most photographers are not allowed to go. I am attaching a course map showing where each of the jumps was located.

Jump 18 (Jesse says it is an A-B Combination with options for an alternate route) is one of the most elaborate obstacles on the course. As the horse and rider combination approaches it, they first jump over a fence and land in a pond. They must then run through that pond before going over a second jump in the water and land back in the pond. They then run (don’t know if they had enough space to gallop) to the edge of the pond (Jesse prefers “Lake”) where they must jump out of the water onto the bank and almost immediately thereafter have to jump uphill over a third jump. It is, without a doubt, the most photogenic, and I would say difficult, obstacle in the course. The first three riders all had to circle back to complete the third jump

Those friendly photographers took me to a spot on the edge of the pond (Jesse says “lake”) immediately in front of a covered stand that was reserved for horse owners to watch the event. I was allowed to set up with my back against this stand, 8-10 feet from the edge of the pond/lake, and directly across the pond/lake from the first jump into the pond. The horses would then run towards me and the second jump, slightly off to my right, before turning directly in front of me to approach the jump onto the pond/lake bank.

I got unbelievably great pictures. Really! But I accidentally deleted all of my cross county pictures while processing them for this article. I have been doing photography for about 60 years. I thought I was pretty good at it. Apparently, it takes longer than 60 years.

I won’t spend more of your time telling you about the other pictures I don’t have.

The fourth day of the 3 Day ??? Event was the Stadium Jumping event. It was also held in the Rolex stadium. As you would imagine, I got a lot of pictures of the horses jumping, which I was somehow able to actually retain. Jesse told me to mention that the competition was fierce between the UK and the Australians, but that eventually an American, William Coleman, riding Diablo, won.

The results of the 2026 Kentucky Defender Three Day 5* events can be found at the following:

https://realtime5.startboxscoring.com

What else happened in Kentucky. Unlike Texas, Kentucky isn’t famous for barbecue. What I wanted to try while I was in Kentucky was bourbon. It is not hard to find a distillery around Lexington. The closest one was about 200 yards from our hotel. Actually, I was also interested in rye whisky. My favorite cocktail is a Sazerac. It was, some say, the original cocktail. Originally developed in New Orleans, its principal ingredient is rye whisky. The other ingredients are Absinthe, Peychaud Bitters and sugar. You can substitute bourbon for rye, but I am a traditionalist. My recipe. (More cont. after recipe)

SAZERAC COCKTAIL

• Put a tablespoon of sugar or equivalent bar syrup in a double old fashioned tumbler,
• Muddle 4 dashes of Peychauds bitters into the sugar/syrup. (Essential. No other bitters will work. Originally only found in New Orleans, but it is now available online or at better liquor stores.
• Fill tumbler with crushed ice and then fill with rye whisky until just a little ice is still showing
• Empty the tumbler into a metal shaker and shake for 5 to10 seconds. Let it chill while you do the next step
• Pour a half teaspoon of Absinthe into the empty tumbler and then spin the glass in a spiral in the air to allow the Absinthe to spin out and coat the glass. Pour off any excess. (You can substitute Pernod if you don’t have Absinthe, but I strongly recommend you get some Absinthe}. Don’t worry about Absinthe. So far I haven’t gone blind.) I learned this recipe from a bartender in a famous restaurant bar on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. He actually spiraled the glass in the air behind the bar. My wife has problems with that. Always mumbles something about the mess in her kitchen. When the weather is nice, I will go outside and do that. If not, I will simply swirl the tumbler over the kitchen sink. Not as much fun though.
• Pour the shaker contents back into the tumbler and garnish with a shaving of lemon or orange peel, rubbing both sides of the shaving on the edge of the tumbler.
• Rinse and repeat as long as you are not driving.

In case you were wondering about the fish in the title. (PLEASE NOTE, THE ORIGINAL TITLE FOR THIS ARTICLE WAS “So long, and thanks for all the fish.” I changed the title this morning. While researching how to get more clicks for the website, I learned that SEO, search engine optimization, likes titles that suggest what an article is about. That title, although hopefully amusing, wasn’t optimal. Here is how I chose that title.)

The first time I went to Lexington, I learned that one of my favorite fast food restaurants, Long John Silvers, was started in Lexington. I was hoping to have a lot of fish and chips when I got to Lexington on this trip. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any of their restaurants this time, so I didn’t get to say, “So long, and thanks for all the fish.” That line is the title of the fourth book by Douglas Adams in his Series “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”. The series is like a contemporary version of
Dickens’ satirical Gulliver’s Travels. The title of the fourth book refers to the fact that shortly before the earth was about to be destroyed to make way for an intergalactic freeway, all of the dolphins, who, unlike humans, knew what was coming, were leaving the planet. Their parting words were, “So long, and thanks for all the fish.” I would recommend that you buy the whole series of books, sit down with one of them and a Sazerac (when you aren’t actively equestriating) and enjoy life.

In short, I loved watching eventing. It’s one of the only ways you get to watch so many Olympians competing in the same place outside of the Olympics. I would recommend that you go to a Three (or more) Day Event first chance you get. They are pretty exciting to watch. You get to watch the only non-human Olympians do superhuman things like this …

GOOOD BOY!!! If you enjoy these articles by a non-equestrian in an equestrian world, PLEASE COMMENT BELOW!