Royal Recap

Yes, it’s taken me a week to get this up. Yikes. Sorry. The Royal did kick my butt a little – my sleep and my schedule suffered – but it was fun!

Even though, technically, you’d probably say the main focus of our trip to The Royal is the always sold-out, extravagant, largely black-tie, Groupby Big Ben Challenge (which, yes, we had tickets to), to be honest, it’s about way, way more than that.

It begins with a very early, dark start to the morning. Usually cold, too, because it’s November. No traffic, though – that’s a bonus. We make record time to the Fallowfield VIA station which has to be my favourite VIA station, simply because it’s really quite firmly in Ottawa, yet, it looks like this:

By Jamie McCaffrey [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)], via Wikimedia Commons

It’s true the above photo is taken at sunset – not sunrise – but it still shows you how perfectly, enchantingly pretty this busy suburban station is.

Anyway, we get on the train, and we trundle through most of my favourite towns, because they’re also the towns on our way to the Island – Smiths Falls, Brockville, Kingston, etc. I really love Belleville too:

I go with my friend Claire, and her daughter (also my friend!) Sarah, so we always get the classic kids’ VIA punch-out / pop-up  train – which, let me tell you, is super-cool, especially now that they’ve updated it. This year, though, there was something different. This year there was on-board entertainment.

This guy – @zachwells88 if you want to see more pics on Twitter – is a one-man entertainment machine. He does magic tricks, blows up balloon animals, juggles, spins plates on his chin, etc.

As my thirteen-year-old would say – “So, that happened.”

Then we got to Union Station – the world’s most beautiful train station inside – except that it’s perpetually under renovation, and if somebody told me we were disembarking in a war-torn city, I would have believed them. The place was in the exact same state of disrepair as when we arrived last year and I told Claire I was pretty sure I could have project-managed it more quickly.

Fortunately the main hall is mostly untouched by the renovations (?) and is still visually stunning:

By Michael Caven (originally posted to Flickr as Union Station) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)], via Wikimedia Commons

So pretty …

Then it’s traipsing the three-ish blocks to our hotel, checking in, and general excitement of how is the room set up? What can we see from the window? Etc. This, for the record, was what we could see from the window:

For non-Canadians, that glowing red sign is the CBC logo – as my husband would say “God Bless …” – I think I slept more securely knowing the CBC was watching over me at night.

Oh my gosh … look how long this post is, and we aren’t even at the Royal yet!

So, next we went to the Royal.

As usual we had a chatty, informed taxi driver who was willing to share his opinions on construction, film crews, Toronto sports teams, and more with us (on the way back we had a discussion with that driver about the reach, regional variations, and dialects of Pashtung, Urdu, and other similar languages).

Then we got to the Royal.

If you haven’t been, it’s truly a whirlwind of giant pumpkins, very expensive saddles and riding attire, fur coats, artists painting on-site, butter sculptures, very inexpensive Royal “deals” (select t-shirts, breeches, boots, whatever – designed to get you into that particular booth), booths offering massage, henna-tattoos, manicures, the bustling food court (this year dominated by bacon-themed offerings), and – of course – the animals.

We walked until our feet felt like they might fall off, and at least one person in our group was getting a case of the grumpies, and then we lined up in an amazingly efficient production line for custom pitas, then we found seats by the Semex Ring of Excellence (which, I’m not going to lie, prompted a double-take and a few snickers), and we watched a bunch of gorgeous Jersey cows being judged.

These ladies had all my respect, and then some – their udders were so full they actually had to move their hind legs around them to walk, and yet they were patient, and well-behaved. The judge explained how he chose the champion cow in the following way: “She is beautifully uddered with amazing front teat placement and excellent rear teat size.” I mean … really … I just love everything about The Royal.

Once we were refuelled it was time to head to the Horse Palace. If you’ve never been there, it’s a hard thing to describe. It’s true there’s a palatial feel to it … in some ways … like a very old palace where everything has a thick coat of dust on it. I find myself constantly blinking while in the stabling area – the light is dim in the way that makes you feel every second light bulb is burnt out, or there’s a black cloth draped over all the light sources. I have no idea how the horses come out of there shining and perfect; as a groom I would never be able to see what I was doing.

But the stalls are huge, and elaborate, and there are these massive ramps the horses walk up and down to get to the stabling area. And everybody decorates their banks of stalls, and there’s open access to absolutely everywhere except the FEI area.

Last year we got lucky and lingered outside the FEI area and Ian Millar came out to talk to us.

So, of course, we tried it again.

We could see him. And Amy. In fact, they were watching the same class of adorable babies as we were. All of us peering through a chain link fence to the ring below. Just that they were on one side of a laser-eyed lady sitting behind a desk, and we were on the other. Still, Ian and Amy were right there.

Here are the babies lined up for judging (they were very well-behaved):

And we at least got to take a picture of the Millar Brooke white board (I thought it was very trusting that it was in the non-secured area):

After this we were truly quite wiped and we still were nowhere near the start of the big (and very late) show. So, back to the hotel to eat food, and put feet up, and chill for a bit, before heading back again for …

Now THIS is cool. Again, like with everything at the Royal, it’s a big deal, and incredibly casual. A few examples:

Signs everywhere informing that this is a SOLD OUT event. Yet, all you needed to get by the people at the curtains was a stamp on the back of your hand that was a star. Yup, just a simple, boring star. I’m thinking you can buy that star stamp at any Staples in the world. And, once you’re in, you don’t have to sit in your seat. You can stand along the edge of the ring, as long as you don’t block anyone else’s view. It’s fantastic, because you get views like these ones as the course is being set up:

 

 

2) Ninety per-cent of the people in black tie, with the other 10 per cent (me!) in jeans. And that’s all good. Nobody gives each other funny looks.

3) Complete intermingling of regular folk (me) and important folk. I was standing in line in the bathroom and there was a girl in a lovely dress in front of me. It was a bit edgy, and she was rocking it, and I told her she looked great. She was so sweet – all big eyes, and long blonde hair, saying, “Thank you so much!” Ten minutes later, I’m watching the riders walk the course, and that same girl is out there next to a big-time US rider walking the course in her heels and edgy dress and I’m like, “I can’t believe I thought she needed me to tell her she looked good.”

4) You can pay $4.50 for a water, or you can bring your own. You can pretty much bring your own anything. There are no bag searches at all. Seriously – we could have brought our own bottle of champagne, or an entire cheesecake, or a pocket dog and nobody would have cared. It’s quite refreshing.

And then the riding started, and I have to admit, I don’t take many photos when that happens because I like to watch and enjoy. But I do at least make an effort for Ian Millar, so here’s what I got:

 

 

By the time it was all over, after 11:30 we were yawning like you wouldn’t believe.

The weekend was rounded out by an early-morning Toronto run through Chinatown, and by CAMH (the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health), through the university, by the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum), and past Queen’s Park (Provincial legislature). Back at the hotel there were lots of people looking very hungover with shavings on their shoes. The train ride home was lovely – no balloon animals but we made a new friend (which is a total other story).

I’ll just round it out by saying The Royal was (and is) very good:

Maybe I’ll see you there next year?