Olympic Happy Hour: August 1

Throughout the Olympics, Horse Nation will be capping off each day with a pint-sized synopsis of the most recent Olympic equestrian sporting festivities. Here’s your Happy Hour report for Wednesday, August 1.

One discipline down, two to go!

Dressage officially kicked off today with a jog of horse and rider before the ground jury. All the horses passed inspection, although we can’t say the same for rider outfits. Before reading further, please check out this photo gallery from Dressage-News.com–did you have a look?–and now join me in my freak-out: Edward Gal! Who let you out of the Olympic Village dressed like that?!? Orange trousers! Red tie! Nooooo!!!!!

Edward, they're coming for you.

OK, now that we’ve got that out of our system…

Team Grand Prix dressage begins tomorrow (Thursday) at 11 a.m. local time, running through 3:30 pm. (that’s 6 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. ET). This is the order of go.

Here’s Liz Fletcher refreshing you on how the thing works: “There are three tests to be performed: the Grand Prix, the Grand Prix Special, and the Grand Prix Freestyle (that’s the cool one with music). Everyone competes in the Grand Prix. It serves as the team event and the team with the highest combined scores wins team gold. The top 30 individuals in Grand Prix move on to the Special. Top 15 riders after the Special move on to the Freestyle, and then individuals medal from there.”

Thanks, Liz.

Ten teams and 20 individual will be representing their countries. The U.S. has drawn sixth in the order of go. If you need a refresher course on U.S. team members replete with video and fun facts, click here. If you need a refresher on how to watch it and who to turn to for the best coverage, click here.

In the meantime…

Dressage #1! Dressage #1!

Photo by our friends at SmartPak. If you aren't already, be sure to keep up with Sarah & Colby's Olympic adventures via Facebook, Twitter and the SmartPak Blog!