Para Dressage Paralympian Sydney Collier joins us this week to explain how her sport works. From searching hundreds of horses to find one with the perfect walk, to the importance of fitness in equestrian sports, Sydney’s gotten us excited to watch her event at Tokyo 2020.
Follow Sydney, her horse All In One–owned by her sponsor Georgina Bloomberg–and her service dog Logan on Twitter and Insta. Also check out her website for more information about her journey.
What are our TKFLASTANIs up to this week? We’ve got news from:
- Swimmer Mallory Comerford
- Author and Brazilian TV star Roy Tomizawa
- Boxer Ginny Fuchs
- Author David Davis — check out his latest article!
- Snowboarders Chloe Kim and Alex Diebold
- Team USA “Mom” Sherry Von Riesen
Throughout 2021 we’re revisiting great stories from Atlanta 1996! For our Atlanta 1996 moment this week, Jill finds out some amazing things about Blaze, the Atlanta Paralympics’ mascot.
We also have Games Updates from Tokyo 2020, including our thoughts on Team GB’s kit.
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
Photo courtesy of Team USA
TRANSCRIPT
Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio. Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.
Episode 188: Sydney Collier
Sydney Collier: [00:00:00] I swear. That’s been the key to my success is them never limiting my beliefs and never telling me, oh no, that’s too big of a goal. You can’t do it. No matter what my body was doing at the time,
Theme Music
Jill Jaracz: Hello, fans of shook, Liston, and welcome to another episode of keep the flame alive. The podcast, four fans of the Olympics in Paralympics. I am your host. Jill. Jarris joined as always by my lovely co-host Allison brown, Allison. Hello, how are you today?
Nabisco’s Tokyo 2020 promotions
Alison Brown: I have brought food so we can snack [00:01:00] together.
Jill Jaracz: Ha would that food be a Rios or CHIPSA Hoy?
Alison Brown: Possibly but okay. So Nabisco came out with their, I don’t know what you would call it. Tagline for Tokyo
Jill Jaracz: mm-hmm
Alison Brown: and it’s snacked together. and I, which I think is rather odd. And then I realized it is in response because for the past year we have all been snacking alone.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. But you know, should you snack together?
Alison Brown: Well, I’m vaccinated come snack with me.
Jill Jaracz: I know. I know. So maybe snack together, maxed. Yeah,
Alison Brown: please. If anyone wants to come and bring me snacks, I am welcome. I will welcome you.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. So on that Nabisco thing, cuz I a, when I saw the press release, I’m like somebody worked really, really hard to say a whole lot of nothing, because really we got some packaging and we got a little bit of new stuff, but it’s not stuff we haven’t seen before.
Alison Brown: Oh, have you seen Oreos [00:02:00] with pop rocks in them before? I have not.
Jill Jaracz: Oh, do they really have pop rocks? I couldn’t get past capital language.
Alison Brown: Okay. They’re they’re sparkling Oreos.
Jill Jaracz: Oh,
Alison Brown: they’re gonna explode in your mouth.
Jill Jaracz: I want to have that sensation.
Alison Brown: I do not. I don’t like my food fighting back. I get enough heartburn.
Thanks.
Jill Jaracz: so, okay. We have Oreos with pop rocks. We have Oreos with like the triple layer of filling cuz it’s red, white and blue.
Alison Brown: Right.
Jill Jaracz: And then like chips of ho with red, white and blue chips. Right. So that’s not much and there’s packaging and that’s, it’s not much to get super excited about,
Alison Brown: you
Jill Jaracz: know, what we need, what
Alison Brown: we need, the life size, Ted Lidy cutouts.
Again,
Jill Jaracz: we do like we
Alison Brown: a Chang,
Jill Jaracz: we do just, you know, put a different uniform on him, take him out of the ski suit, put him in, uh, you know, a track uniform. Good to go.
Alison Brown: No one will know the difference he could run. just stand there with [00:03:00] your red, white, and blue chips, a Hoy Ted. We’ll be all set. I swear if I see another one of those, I’m gonna be like a college student and I am totally gonna swipe it.
Jill Jaracz: so note to anybody who works in a convenient store or a big box store that had a Ted Lidy cutout, if that’s in the back room that does.
Alison Brown: Please because I don’t wanna snack alone. I wanna snack with Ted lickity. oh my God. That could be their giveaway.
Jill Jaracz: Don’t snack alone snack with Ted lick.
Alison Brown: Well, the snack together.
And who are you gonna snack with while you’re watching?
Jill Jaracz: See, that is brilliant because even if it’s not in person, you could like have a virtual snacking session
Alison Brown: while you’re watching a particular event, you know, retired Olympians left and right. Oh my God. I would enter like a thousand times for that.
Jill Jaracz: Right?
Alison Brown: Why are these people never calling us? We came up with diamond stacking [00:04:00] rings.
Jill Jaracz: Mm-hmm
Alison Brown: remember that.
Jill Jaracz: Yes.
Alison Brown: And we came up with this. We’ve come up with so many good marketing ideas. Nobody TA asks us
Jill Jaracz: well, we’ll have to work on it. Maybe, maybe I’ll get at Nabisco.
Alison Brown: There you go,
Jill Jaracz: okay.
Alison Brown: Go tweet at them.
Thank you, patrons!
Jill Jaracz: Hey, before we get started on today’s show big shout out to our Patreon patrons.
As you may know, this show takes a lot of work and time and financial investment. Uh, we appreciate our listeners who, uh, donates money to help us cover those costs. You can become a Patreon today at patreon.com/flame alive.
Sydney Collier interview
So today we are talking para dressage. I’m very excited about this.
Alison Brown: You are so excited about this and I am excited because I always excited whenever we get to talk about animals.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. So, uh, we are talking with Sydney Collier. Sydney is a us para dressage writer who at age 18 was the youngest equestrian athlete at the 2016 Rio Paralympics. She [00:05:00] placed seventh there in the para dressage grade one B individual event and 12th in the team event. Uh, she was riding the horse, Western rose.
She has a new horse now called all in one and they are working toward qualifying for Tokyo. Take a listen,
Alison Brown: let let’s start with
Jill Jaracz: what is dressage all about? Because a lot of people go dressage. Uh, you know, there’s just horses walking around and sometimes they walk around to music. So what’s going on here?
Sydney Collier: Dressage is all about the relationship between the rider and the horse, and really making something super challenging. Look super easy because you have this relationship with your horse. And it’s actually interesting because we make it look so easy that people don’t really get all [00:06:00] of the hours of work.
They go into it. And it’s really neat because when we’re showing, we’re showing a specific pattern and we’re getting judged on our harmony with the horse and the movement of the horse, and for us para dressage riders were judged on, uh, a parallel level to our able bodied counterpart. So they don’t take into account what our body doesn’t do.
They take into account the horse’s movement, how accurately you’re riding the test and really your overall picture with your horse. And to me, that’s the beauty of it is that, uh, when you’re riding para dressage, it puts you on a level playing field with your able bodied counterparts and your disability doesn’t matter anymore when you’re on the horse and, and working to [00:07:00] master these super intricate little things in the show and then everyday training.
Jill Jaracz: So it it’s interesting. You called it a test. That’s what they call each, I guess, leg of a competition. It’s you’re doing a test to test the horse.
Sydney Collier: Yeah. So we have different tests, like basically test out different aspects of our training and of our relationship with the horse. So each quote, unquote, test and day of competition, the layout of the test is a little bit different and they compose our days of competition.
So in Tokyo or any world championship, now the first day of competition is our individual test day where we ride [00:08:00] our individual test for the chance of an individual metal. And then from that day, our. And then our team riders are actually selected from our individual day scores. The top three riders go on to represent the team in our team test competition day and vying for the team medals the next day.
And that, uh, that takes into account. Basically a percentage of the individual day score and your team test day. And then, and then my personal favorite is the, the freestyle test day, which is a test that is choreographed to music. And it’s, it’s really like dancing with your horse. And there’s so much beauty to that because you have to really [00:09:00] Finese your ride, but also take into account every note of the music and you really have to know your music, like it’s your Bible.
And to me, I think that’s just something so beautiful. And to see it in play in the show ring is, is my personal favorite.
Alison Brown: yeah, it’s very much like figure skating or gymnastics floor routine where the music is another element. Of the competition.
Sydney Collier: Exactly. It, it has to be there and it has to compliment what you’re doing with your horse.
And actually interesting fact is that for freestyle tests, they, our tests, we have our movements that are required of us and we actually get to choose how we choreograph them to our music so we can do them however we want [00:10:00] within our allotted time with our music. So it’s kind of neat because you can put your own little spin on it and it’s super fun.
Jill Jaracz: talking about the moves are the, is the individual test, is it prescribed layout?
Sydney Collier: Yeah. For our individual test and our team test, they are. Prescribed patterns that the judges judge us on. So everyone does the same pattern, kind of like figure skating with their compensatory movements and having a set pattern for those two days.
Alison Brown: So I know Jill was very excited when you were talking about, uh, in another interview, the geometry of dressage. So what, what does that mean?
Sydney Collier: So it actually varies from grade level to grade level. So starting at my grade grade one, our tests are actually all walk and that sounds [00:11:00] really easy. And so you’re actually doing a test all at the walk and having to have E level frame, carriage, and consistency of the gate.
and having to also ride super accurately and I’m actually visually impaired. So my eyes lie to me a lot. and, and I actually count my steps for my movements and then going up the levels, basically they add trot and cancer throughout the higher grades. So it goes up through grade five and grade five are our highest mobility riders.
So they’re the closest to able bodied and the closest to a precinct George dress St. George massage tests. But in my tests, there are 10 meter circles, eight meter circles. There are. [00:12:00] Which sounds really easy but they have to be like perfectly square halts. And then we have our free walks on half 20 meter circles, which basically just is the horse lengthening its neck down and relaxing into the context.
And we also have serpentines from corner line to corner line. Those are our main movements, every. Every movement has to be very precisely ridden, especially when you’re going for making a team like at the Paralympics and at the higher levels, they nitpick so much because in order to metal at the Paralympics, you have to be spot on with your geometry.
You have to be spot on with your gate and. Basically, it means [00:13:00] that your circles, they have to flow. They have to look like circles. And for me, as a, as a rider, who’s blind in my right eye and half blind in my left eye. As I said, my eyes are unreliable. So I’ve had to find ways to ride accurately, even though I can’t rely on my vision.
And, and I count the steps of my shapes in order to ride them accurately and really know how many steps a shape will take in order to ride it accurately through my pet.
Alison Brown: I know I’m sort of like thinking this through going, you can’t see. And you’re up on this very large horse that doesn’t seem to be a natural.
Um, how can I say this? So given your disability horse, riding is not the first thing I would’ve thought of to try.
Sydney Collier: Yeah. See, [00:14:00] actually, actually, I, I first started riding when I was seven years old. Um, and that was actually the exact same age that I got diagnosed with Y burn Mason syndrome. And when I first got diagnosed, I had basically been able bodied my whole childhood and I tried every single sport as a kid.
And I was always just a kid out on the soccer field, picking Daniel iron, just like just the end, never click to say the belief. And . And then one day I just said to my mom, you know, I think I wanna try writing lessons. And, and I swear my mom had been waiting for that all my life, because she used to ride when she was younger too.
And so she immediately signed me up for lessons. And the minute I got on a pony, I, [00:15:00] I realized, wow, this is what I’m meant to do with my life. and it was like, Everything else just like, didn’t matter anymore. I was like, this is what I need to do. And at that point, since I was fairly able bodied, I actually set my sights on making the team for the Olympics in eventing.
And I was seven years old at the time. And my parents, my parents didn’t ever tell me that’s crazy. You can’t do it. They were like, you go Sydney, you can do it. And then actually at the age of 11, um, since what I have is so rare that less than a hundred people on earth actually have it diagnosed. I actually, we ended up going to California in order to seek experimental treatment because I was the first kid to basically ever get diagnosed and have the option of treatment.[00:16:00]
So, so during my first brain surgery, I actually ended up having a massive stroke and I, I woke up couldn’t walk. Couldn’t like, It couldn’t do anything independently. And I spent the whole summer in inpatient rehab trying to relearn how to walk, trying to figure out how to live again, because my body just, it didn’t click anymore.
And I, I was like, all I wanna do is be able to ride again. That’s all I would talk to my parents about was like, I just wanna be able to ride again. That’s. Anything else is like just icing on the cake. Really. I just wanna ride and I wanna get back to my pony in Michigan and keep riding. And then actually I got really lucky because in 2010, I got to go watch para dressage happen at the world, equestrian games in [00:17:00] 2010 in Kentucky.
And I, I saw it happening and I had been going through this very dark time of, okay, my body doesn’t really match up with what I want to accomplish anymore. Like, what am I going to do now? And when I saw para dressage happening, it all really clicked to me like, wow, if these riders are doing it, then I can.
Accomplished these big things too, in sitting in those stands. I, I said to my parents, to my mom and my Grammy who was there with me, I said, next world, equestrian games, and next Paralympic, that’s gonna be me. And at this point I was 12 years old and they, they never made me feel like I was crazy. They, they said, yeah, you can do that.
And I swear, that’s been the key to my success [00:18:00] is them never limiting my beliefs and never telling me, oh no, that’s too big of a goal. You can’t do it. No matter what my body was doing at the time. And my body sure has thrown me a lot of curve balls along the way with having had with having had more vision loss throughout the years and having had actually four more strokes since then.
So, so I’ve had, uh, significant loss of my left side through the years, actually in 2016, after representing the USA in Rio actually was when I had my fifth stroke. And that’s the most recent one knock on wood . But, but that was the one that actually walked, wiped out my ability to walk and my ability to steal anything on my left side.
[00:19:00] So that’s been a big curve ball when it comes to riding because. Uh, I really have to tune in more to my left side, even though my brain just wants to totally ignore it.
Jill Jaracz: I have like five questions off of that. Hey, I just wanna say how thrilled your mom must have been to be a horse person and then go, my daughter’s a horse person too.
This is awesome, but, okay. So how much does your brain hurt at the end of a day of training? Just because it’s had to work so hard to try to, to make the left. Understand what’s going on
Sydney Collier: so much. like, honestly, it’s a hard feeling because I have to constantly be pushing myself to recognize the left side of my body.
And it’s weird cuz I, I have no feeling, but the best way that I can think to describe my lack of [00:20:00] feeling is whenever I try to tune into something on my left side, rather than getting normal cues in my brain, I just get this super claustrophobic feeling almost like I wanna crawl out of my own brain where like my brain’s telling me no, no, no, don’t try that.
Or like, no, no, no. You’re super closed in by your own brain. And it’s just, it’s the. Weirdest thing I’ve ever had to try to overcome, especially because my brain actually now, now recognizes centered as literally like half of my right side, since it doesn’t think my left side is there. So it takes a lot on the horse to really, because I ride one handed too.
So I have to really focus on [00:21:00] bringing my hand to the left and, and not allowing myself to just completely dominate the ride with my right side. And I’d say that’s one of the most challenging parts, but, but I never let it stop me. It, it’s kinda really fun to, to keep trying to push myself to, to overcome it because each day presents new exciting challenges and also presents these new developments in my own abilities.
Like the relationship with the horse has been something that is just. So therapeutic in a way that like, you don’t even realize you’re doing physical therapy when you’re riding and that’s the best part is that you’re just doing something you love. You’re not focusing on rebuilding all [00:22:00] of these things, but you in fact are.
And that’s like part of what inspires me so much about being an equestrian.
Alison Brown: So is the horse. Especially trained before you get your hands on it. So
Sydney Collier: so yeah, actually my, my trainer warms him up for me every day, so that, because I’m just doing intense walk work with him. Basically, she warms him up at walk canner before I ride every day.
Um, but before we got him, he was just doing totally able bodied stuff with an able bodied rider. And, and then when, when we got him, he had to totally readjust. To being a para horse and he’s taken it on with grace. He’s, he’s a really special horse. It’s hard to find horses that have the international quality, but then [00:23:00] also have the, the right brain to really be able to overlook all of the uniqueness of our bodies as Parar.
And we really luck out when we found LA,
Jill Jaracz: how long did that take to find him?
Sydney Collier: It took a long time in 2018 at the like. In about Midwinter, we started looking and then we found him in the beginning of June in 2018, we were lucky enough to find him. We watched, I swear, hundreds of walks in hundreds of videos of horses, like throughout the world.
And, and especially for walk only horses, you you’d think it would be super easy to find horses that would embrace that job and have the quality of walk that [00:24:00] you need. But it’s actually very difficult to find horses with really nice aesthetically pleasing walks cause upper level horses. They aren’t really required to walk all that much.
So it’s just really a quality that a horse has to be born with and has to, to really. Know how to do and know how to love. And we got very lucky finding that in a, and, and lucky to have a horse owner that, um, that bought him for me in Georgina Bloomberg,
Alison Brown: by the way, that’s such a cool little side note that it’s Georgina Bloomberg, that’s working with you and, and your horse.
I know she’s been very involved with, with horses her whole life, but as a, as a new Yorker, I’m always like, oh, the Bloombergs .
Sydney Collier: Yeah, she, she is incredible. And we actually connected at a [00:25:00] fundraiser for Rio in two 16, and then after Rio, uh, we connected and she joined my team.
Alison Brown: So I wanna ask you another question about working with the horse and just how you’re able to communicate, because obviously if your left side is not.
Able to make those movements. H how are you physically communicating with the worse
Sydney Collier: talk with RA? Um, sometimes. And I’m, I just tell him okay. What we’re doing. And then I also I’ve, I have to find ways of cueing him to do things differently. I, I, with my rain, since I hold it in my hand, I have to basically kind of neck rain, almost in a sense, I have to bring my hand over to where I need to.
And then I also have to really, really be in touch with my seat bones, like especially my left bone, even though I [00:26:00] can’t feel it. And he is very well attuned to. My lack of a left side or my strange spasms. Sometimes he just tunes ’em out and I really have to rely on the parts of myself that I can use well, but then also not overusing them to the point where he gets uneven.
If that makes sense, it makes it exceptionally challenging because ISN an equestrian, it’s all about symmetry. So I really have to work on simulating this symmetry even without having the feeling or the correct use of my left side.
Alison Brown: Okay. And what’s his favorite treat for when he’s done a good job?
Sydney Collier: Oh carrots all the way.
Carrots, carrots, and bananas. But he is, he is a funny horse because honestly he’ll [00:27:00] eat anything. And, and we found out at Easter this year that he really loves pee. Like pees are his new, like favorite, favorite all time, like Easter treat. So that might only happen once a year, but
yeah, he, he loves his seat.
Jill Jaracz: That, that was one question I had. What, what Allison had asked when, when somebody has, uh, the reigns in two hands, what does that do? That you have to overcome.
Sydney Collier: So in two hands, it’s basically like a channel, right? For the movement to go through the rains and, and like, it’s more of a channel than what I have with my one handed, shorter rain and, and that’s where our adaptive aid, our, our [00:28:00] compensating aids come in and we’re, we’re allowed to have certain compensating aids that actually allow us.
To, um, allow us to ride parallel to our, a able bodied counterparts. And, and so my rain is adaptive in that it’s, it’s shorter. So it actually, I just hold it in one spot and I don’t have any slack in the rain. And I just have to basically be very tactical about how I’m using it and, and flowing with my hand with the movement while also holding a whip that curves over my left leg.
To give him cues on my left side. So I, I hold a lot in my right hand when Iry it it’s like kind of a balancing act because I have a lot in my hand with the rain and the whip. And, but the [00:29:00] whips gives him cues on my left side that I actually do have something over there since my left leg. Can’t give those cues in, in a fines manner.
Jill Jaracz: What is an aesthetically pleasing walk? What does that look like?
Sydney Collier: And aesthetically pleasing walk, it looks flowing, it looks uphill. And it just looks like you can’t like if I’m gonna put it in layman’s terms, it looks like you just can’t take your eye away. You just wanna keep watching, like you’re not bored when you’re watching it.
You you’re, it’s an interesting walk. And in the horse’s legs, they all move at different times, rather than moving in pairs. You don’t want the horse’s legs to move in pairs at all. You want them to be [00:30:00] relaxed and, but also uphill and engaged. So it’s definitely a fine line in finding those really aesthetically pleasing walk.
Alison Brown: Like a runway walk. They have to have a style to it.
Sydney Collier: Yeah, exactly. It, it has to, it has to just be something that, that other people and the judges don’t wanna take their eyes off of. They’re they’re, they’re so interested by that walk that, that they just wanna watch it for days because let’s get real, uh, a five minute walk test, like that can get long if it’s not a good walk
Alison Brown: how do you pick your music?
Sydney Collier: Oh, that’s honestly, it, it takes a lot of listening to the music while watching the horses, gates, and, and really thinking of what, what clicks. And I’m very lucky [00:31:00] to have a choreographer, Marlene Whitaker, who, who, uh, helped me wait out the music. And she actually choreographed my music to Kung Fu Panda and, and, and she basically made my music, tell my story of, okay, here, it starts out easy.
And then, and then it gets a little bit iffy there with my medical stuff. And then it’s like the grand finale. And, and I’d say, that’s the big thing with freestyles is finding music that really compliments your horses’ gates. And that really compliments your own style. And tells your own story, because if you connect with your music, it’s just so easy to ride it in competition and to, and to practice it and to wanna listen to it a bunch, to get used to it
Jill Jaracz: when you’re testing [00:32:00] music and you’re seeing what the horses gate and how that matches does the horse ever pick up that, Hey, we’re doing music here and I can show you some moves.
Sydney Collier: See, it’s funny because they’ll, they’ll definitely tell you what music they like and don’t, they’ll move to they’ll move differently to music that they don’t like and move differently to music that they do. And like, they’re very, especially, I know RA, he, he, we had some music, we tried with him and he, he was like, not flowing the way he normally does.
And, and we’re like, okay, time to change our music, that time to try a different one. And when we tried out our current music, he was like, yep.
Andy Fleming: Mm-hmm ,
Sydney Collier: that’s the one. Like they, they know they all have their own personalities and they know
Alison Brown: I wanna meet the [00:33:00] horses. Who’s the fan of rap.
Sydney Collier: Right. We’ll see. It’s it’s interesting because so now we actually are allowed to have words in our freestyle, but, and, and some people do, uh, but it’s definitely more geared towards classical and, and versions of classical or, or pop music.
That’s turned into classical songs.
Alison Brown: Yeah. Very much like figure skating.
Sydney Collier: Yeah. Right, exactly. Gotta
keep it a little. Perfect. If you look at me, you might think that might be the kind of music I might choose, but no, that’s just the kinda music I listen to, to gear up for competition. I.
Alison Brown: Simple for him. He likes the
Sydney Collier: classic. Yeah. [00:34:00] All a listens to the cool, calm and collected playlist. It’s funny because I actually have, I have two playlists. I have my one to pump up like a little bit before, and then I ha and then I have my one to listen to closer to when I’m showing. And that one’s like the calm, relaxed, like, okay, this is, we’re just gonna slow playlists.
I learned very early on. Okay. You can’t listen to like the rap songs right before you’re going into the ring because then I just gone and I’m like, ah, , let’s go.
Alison Brown: gotta keep, gotta keep it simple. Gotta keep the, the heart rate down so that LA stays, stays calm as well. I’m sure. Cause I’m sure he senses, oh yeah. Your emotions.
Sydney Collier: Definitely horses. They, they definitely do. They, they sense how you’re feeling, how [00:35:00] your day has been. And like, that’s, what’s so unique about equestrian competition is that it’s not like a bike.
It’s not an inanimate object. There are another living being, so they could wake up being grumpy or they sense exactly how you’re feeling. And you really have to learn how to channel exactly how you’re feeling into constructive energy going towards competition. And I feel like that’s what, uh, 2020 has really been an asset for me.
In terms of has been really working on my mental fortuity and really working to improve my own mental game, just going towards selection trials and, and hopefully eventually Tokyo,
Jill Jaracz: what sort of things have you been doing to improve your mental game?
Sydney Collier: [00:36:00] So I’ve been doing a ton of visualization actually.
Like, just because this summer there were months where, okay. Competitions were scarce and I was just here at my apartment and training with a here at home and I work with a sports psychologist and she she’s like, okay, just cause you’re not. Able to be in the competition arena. It doesn’t mean your brain can’t be in the competition arena.
And visualizing has really been an asset to me. It just with the game delay and with COVID 19 and all of the current situations, I’ve also been meditating and I’ve been, uh, working on really fine tuning my brain, just in terms of my routines in terms of really [00:37:00] ironing out things that previously I may have overlooked just from either a lack of time or a lack of awareness.
And, and I’ve also been taking the time to really get super fit and, and work on my own on nutrition.
Jill Jaracz: Let’s talk about fitness for a minute. Some people might say, well, you’re sitting on a horse. What kind of fitness do you need? So what, what kind of fitness do you need to be able to ride at that level?
Sydney Collier: A lot, like honestly, I, I have to be as fit as all.
And, and especially what’s important is, um, my cardio work, my core work and in my time in the gym is a total asset to me in the saddle because I’m able to work on. The fine motor movements that I might not be [00:38:00] able to in the saddle without negatively affecting LA and, and really, um, being able to really focus on my gym time and my fitness in 2020, and also right now has it’s like ignited a passion in me for adaptive fitness and, and I really aspire to be as fit as all and as a rider, because as you said, people might not think that the rider has to be as fit as the.
But it’s a big asset to you if you are, because your muscles really work better in the saddle and translate better in competition, if you’re fit. And if you’re really focused on how your body works off of the horse,
Jill Jaracz: how course, how long before competition time do you have to start [00:39:00] preparing?
Sydney Collier: So I I’ve actually worked very closely in conjunction with my sports psychologist to really fine tune my pre-show routine.
And I’ve gotten it to two hours before I ride where I have to literally shut down tunnel vision, not allowed to like. Interact with anyone. I just put on my noise, canceling headphones and I listen to my music and I actually draw out my test. I visualize, and I start slowly getting ready at, at the two hour mark because I am so extroverted that if I don’t take those two hours, I found that I literally, I, since I feed off of the energy of other people so much being an extrovert, I [00:40:00] would go into the ring all like, ah, I’m so excited.
and with dressage, it’s, you’re allowed to have that excitement, but it has to be a channeled focused excitement or else your horse feeds off of it in a negative way. If that makes sense. So it’s taken a lot of fine tuning to really know what it takes on a competition day for me to be successful for Ali, but we’ve gotten it down to a, a really good program to where I I’m just consistent about it.
And I can just own my program for competition days and for days leading up competition.
Jill Jaracz: Is there anything else we haven’t talked about in that would help it better as, as spectators and fans? That’s
Sydney Collier: a good question. I would [00:41:00] say really the thing to look for is from a layman’s perspective is the relationship between the horse and the rider, and is the rider making it look effortless.
Like do the horse and the rider look like they’re working together to make the test look beautiful. And that’s really what dressage is all about is the relationship between the horse and the rider and in making, I mean, and then there are all of the outside factors, but good is all about that relationship and about and about making it look its best in your five minutes in the, there, there was one other thing I forgot to mention about a, he actually, so he actually is blind in one eye, just like me, what?
Jill Jaracz: Okay. [00:42:00] Which, which eye. His
Sydney Collier: his right eye. So, so he is blind in his right eye. I’m blind in my left eye. So together we, we have one good pair of eyes and, and we, so his show name is all in one. So we’re literally all in one.
Jill Jaracz: So what did was your, because you didn’t compete with LA in Rio, right? That was a different horse, right?
Sydney Collier: Yeah. That was a different horse.
Jill Jaracz: And was that horse fully had full vision?
Sydney Collier: Yeah. Yeah. That horse had full vision.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. So what’s that transition to working with a horse with full vision, to working with a horse that’s blind to one.
Sydney Collier: See, it’s interesting because he, he makes it easy. He’s not spookier on one side than the other.
He’s not, he, he doesn’t, um, make it [00:43:00] difficult. Like it’s not really something that we have to fixate on in, in training, just in that he, he is basically like any other heart. He doesn’t let his vision change anything in our training. So, so that’s pretty interesting, like, but it’s just kind of an interesting dynamic because sometimes there’ll just.
Be something that I’ll look back on my video and I’ll be like, oh, that makes sense. Because of his vision. And then, I mean, I can’t use his vision as an excuse, so then I have to, you know, go back and do it better. The next
Jill Jaracz: is it, is it when you look at the video go, oh, okay. So he is seeing X, so that’s not the direction we need to go or that’s so this is how we’re gonna compensate for it.
Sydney Collier: It’s [00:44:00] it’s kinda, it’s kinda like, I, I just have to be vigilant about not. Letting his vision be a crutch for me, or be an easy excuse or out for me, not doing things correctly, if that makes sense. Like, like I have to hold my own self accountable for. Okay. It could be his vision, but in reality there things that I need to do better,
Jill Jaracz: that’s also, you know, I could think that’s kind of a fun challenge too, in a sense.
I mean, it it’s, it’s like a pu and you, you, you got the 5,000 piece puzzle to put together. Right.
Sydney Collier: But it’s, it’s interesting because it doesn’t really affect our training or our relationship. Like he, he is just like any other horse and he doesn’t let it make him bitter [00:45:00] or he doesn’t let it make him, like, he doesn’t let it.
Give him excuses just because he can’t see on one side, he, he, he is always, always just, you know, the same, the same consistently awesome horse, which, which is pretty uniquely great about Ali we’re we’re literally all in one.
Alison Brown: fantastic.
Jill Jaracz: Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much, Sydney. You can follow Sydney on social at Sid’s Perque and she, her website is Sid’s perque.com.
We will have links to all of that in the show notes. Sydney is competing at on June 17th through 20 at the Tryon C P E D I and final Paralympic observation event in hopes of qualifying for her second games. Very excited for her. It was, it was just, it was so interesting to learn about dressage and, [00:46:00] you know, I, we know it’s one, it’s like a twizzle for me.
But I respected a whole lot more. So thank you, Sydney and good luck. We’ll be cheering for you.
Alison Brown: Welcome to shook Stan.
Jill Jaracz: It is time to check in with our team, keep the flame alive, our roster of past guests, and, uh, we cheer for them and see what they’re up to. First up Mallory Erford swimmer is competing in the tier pro swim series in Indianapolis it’s it’s being held, uh, the 12th through the 15th.
She has entered in the 100 meter freestyle and 100 meter fly.
Alison Brown: We had talked about this earlier author. Roy Towa is on Brazilian TV, but now the video is available. So we have a, we will have a link to that in the show notes.
Jill Jaracz: Uh, Jenny F our boxer announced at project she’s been working on for a while. It’s called the me.
You can’t see, and it’s, uh, aims to bring more awareness to mental health issues. It’s produced by Oprah and prince Harry. [00:47:00] So, you know, she could have let that one.
Alison Brown: She, she knew how to keep it tight there.
Jill Jaracz: Exactly. So she is on the first and second episodes and talks about her struggle with O C D the show premieres May 21st on apple TV.
Plus
Alison Brown: Chloe Kim and Alex Diebold were named to the 20 21 22 us snowboard team
Jill Jaracz: author. David Davis wrote an article for the defector website called hockey’s cold war was the summit of two photographers careers. We will have a link to that in the show notes
Alison Brown: and finally team USA. Mom, Sheri Vare has retired after 22 years with the us O P C and a couple days after she announced her retirement, she was honored with the city of Colorado Springs spirit of the Springs award.
I don’t know what she’s gonna do with herself. She’s had like thousands of kids for all these years. Well, now she’s take care of all the athletes.
Jill Jaracz: She’s just gotta catch up with them now and see all the grandkid, you know, Good
Alison Brown: for see all the grandkids
Jill Jaracz: good for her. [00:48:00] She’s done so much for the us O P C and so much for the athletes and has had a great impact on them.
So she will be missed. I’m sure.
Atlanta 1996 History Moment: Blaze, the Paralympic mascot
that sound means it’s time for a little history. It is the 25th anniversary of the Atlanta, 1996 Olympics. So every week we’re looking back at some of the stories from these games. It is my turn this week. Very excited, excited about this. So I thought, you know, because we talked about para dressage, I thought that would be the obvious thing to talk about this week, especially since para equestrian made its debut at the Atlanta 1996 games.
And I started looking at, yeah, I know. Right? And then I saw that the athletes rode UN borrowed horses. And I said, that is a rabbit hole. I don’t have time for a rabbit hole this week. So I thought, oh, we haven’t talked about the Atlanta Paralympics yet. When, where do we like to start mascots?
Alison Brown: We love [00:49:00] mascots.
Jill Jaracz: So
Alison Brown: our entire show started with a show about mascots.
Jill Jaracz: That’s right. And plus you for all of you who go back and, and do are complete list with the show. I’m, I’m very impressed.
Alison Brown: Not even I do that.
Jill Jaracz: So the mascot for the Atlanta Paralympics was a Phoenix named blaze. Blaze was created by Trevor stone. Ivin of urban productions in Atlanta.
Trevor is no stranger to Olympic artwork. He had produced art for three Olympics, so he did K’s press kit and posters for lake Placid, 1980. He did K’s posters again for LA 1984. And then in 1996, he did some posters and t-shirts for Atlanta’s Olympics. And he was a finalist in the Olympic mascot competition.
His entry was Peter peach nut across between a peach and a peanut two of George’s big crop. You have a look.
Alison Brown: I [00:50:00] don’t even know what to say. I mean, it’s sort of like all of a sudden Izzy becomes understandable in that context.
Jill Jaracz: I, I don’t know, but, but, uh, Trevor does not have kind things to say about Izzy that’s for sure.
But,
Alison Brown: well, I’m not sure his peach nut
was that much of an upgrade
Jill Jaracz: but, uh, Trevor kind of got the last laugh because he created blaze. The Phoenix blaze was deliberately not disabled. Previous Paralympic mascots had been disabled, but they wanted to show overcoming adversity. So the Phoenix rises from the ashes again and is glorious and much like that.
You, you find that in para sports. So the origin story of blaze was written by author Betsy Duffy, who is also from Atlanta and, you know, a long time ago, uh, on a planet far away called PRA there was a radiant Firebird and he lived alone and he possessed the [00:51:00] spark of the games. Time passed on and his great glow began to fade.
And when it was down to one final spark, he took that spark from his heart and put it into a magnificent egg to wait until others rose up who were ready to share the, that same love of the games. And after a thousand millennia in the time we call today that egg hatched and another Phoenix emerged, and it was more radiant than the original Phoenix.
And he heard the call from the other side of the universe of people who also had the same spirit he did for the Paralympic games. So he flew to this small blue planet called earth traversed around. And found his new home in the city of Atlanta where he could share the eternal spirit of the Atlanta, Paralympic games with [00:52:00] everyone.
Alison Brown: So it’s an alien.
Jill Jaracz: No, it’s a Phoenix from another planet. Okay.
Alison Brown: It’s an alien bird.
Jill Jaracz: All right.
Alison Brown: Well, it’s very pretty though. We’ll have to post a picture of this. It’s it’s quite beautiful in the colors and the,
Jill Jaracz: yeah, he is very colorful. His colors are, if you wanna talk about colors, uh,
Alison Brown: yeah,
Jill Jaracz: pure. So we got some cold
Alison Brown: vaults.
Jill Jaracz: No, no, no, you don’t. Oh, you have some pure purple, some Phoenix, yellow, some blaze red, some feather green and raspberry. So if, uh, it, you know, if you’re a graphic designer like listener Don or listener Milo, those are Panton violet C. Pantone 1, 2, 3, 5 C 4 8 5 C 3, 2 0 C and 2, 4 0 5 C.
Alison Brown: Okay. The rest of us will call this Cobal turquoise, yellow and orange but it is quite beautiful.
I have to say it’s he looks a little angry, which I would be if I’ve flown across the universe.
Jill Jaracz: Mm [00:53:00]
Alison Brown: I’d be a little tired. I might want a, a peach nut as a snack.
Jill Jaracz: We’ll we’ll let you know what he snacks on. Just hold on. He’s eight foot three.
Alison Brown: Oh yeah. He
Jill Jaracz: weighs 15 pounds. His weighs.
Alison Brown: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
He’s eight foot three. And he weighs 15 pounds.
Jill Jaracz: Just a bird man. They have thin bones. He’s gotta fly. Okay. Uh, his, his wing span is eight foot six. His chest is 69 inches. And his beak is 20 inches long from front to back.
Alison Brown: He weighs 15 pounds.
Jill Jaracz: Yes. Right. He in, he eats, uh, vegetables, fruits and grains. He can see more than two years into the future.
His range, his flying range is worldwide except Antarctica, but he Roos solely in Atlanta and his lifespan. Well, he’s an undying spirit. His faves, his favorite foods are peanut butter and salsa [00:54:00] sandwiches, egg rolls with ketchup and sweet and sour spaghetti.
Alison Brown: That is cultural abomination.
I mean, no wonder he only weighs 15 pounds who could eat any of that.
Jill Jaracz: His hobby is collecting hats from around the world. Like TA’s Berets baseball caps,
Alison Brown: keep his head warm.
Jill Jaracz: And his favorite pastime is hanging out with 4,000 playmates who I believe would be the para athletes of. The Paralympics.
Alison Brown: Well, as long as he’s not sharing his absolutely revolting food creations with them, I guarantee those were not served in the village in Atlanta.
Jill Jaracz: Right? So blaze was chosen because he was a symbol of renewal and perseverance and determination. And because of the significance of the Phoenix as a symbol for the city of Atlanta [00:55:00] and that alone made blaze very popular. And so they real, and the organizers realized that he had the potential to bring in a lot of money.
So previous Paralympic mascots had generated less than a million dollars in sales, but it was thought that blaze had the potential to bring in 25 million. And that was really important because there was a question of how they were going to pay for the Paralympics. Now, D do you remember when. Scientists found that aunt colony that went from like Spain to Italy, I think maybe in the odds?
Alison Brown: No.
Jill Jaracz: Okay. So there’s this really long ant colony through Europe. And I, I didn’t wanna go down a rabbit hole, but I entered the ant colony with this story.
Alison Brown: You’re about to make my head hurt. Aren’t you?
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Right. So I found this article in the journal of legal aspects of sport, uh, the articles by Mary whom and, and, uh, Ted Fay.
[00:56:00] And there was a little legal dispute over ownership of blaze. Blaze was going to have its ownership within the, the Paralympic committee. Blazes ownership was going to be transferred over to the us disabled athletes fund. But the us O C said, no, no blaze is a Paralympic mark. And we own that because we own the rights to the Paralympics, but.
The Paralympic organizing committee had been very careful about how they treated blaze. So blaze kind of stood alone. He was not often with the Paralympic logo or the Paralympic wording. He even had his own type face galaxy, if you’re curious.
Alison Brown: Cause he came from outer space.
Jill Jaracz: Right? Right. So the us O C says, keep saying, oh no, no, no, no, no.
Those are still Paralympic marks. We will own those after the games are over. And APAC [00:57:00] says, you think so we are going to Sue you for that. So, you know, I didn’t really wanna set a precedence for this segment, but the, where, where it gets to the point of we’re gonna Sue you, the article ends and the article’s published in 1995.
And I, I figured that in 25 years we’d have to have an answer to this. And I did a little sling. And ended up talking with Andy Fleming, who was the president and CEO of the Atlanta Paralympic or organizing committee. And so I want you to take a listen to this.
Andy Fleming: So the Olympic committee, because of the, their ownership over all its March and designations, uh, marketing agreement with the year and has argued the years and [00:58:00] this seventies that, um, uh, ownership of Paralympic terms and designations, although, uh, that wasn’t clear, uh, completely clear in us law or other places.
When we were hosting the, but any case, uh, the Paralympic organizing committee signed marketing agreement over the, that would control the use of the Paralympic terms and, uh, logos in March for the purpose of our games, our games being the six Paralympics. So as the games evolved and, uh, we developed the, our own mascot, uh, the us O C assert they had, uh, [00:59:00] rights to, uh, market laser control, use of the blaze mascot in perpetuity.
And, and it was it’s common, uh, for Olympic organizers to after their games are over in the Olympic organizing committee, finishes its business and essentially goes outta business’s, always the plan, typically their mascots with their games. However, with the Paralympic, uh, mascot, we had developed a program with one of our licensees to develop the bla character, to live beyond the games and to become a cartoon figure anywhere.
There’s a lot of work put into developing the character and a storyline for a car kids oriented cartoon series that would, you know, present in that light and also, [01:00:00] uh, present as sort of a. Beacon of hope if you will, for kids with disabilities to see that the, the figure there could be a transformative figure and a lot of value in that.
So essentially the dispute that we got into with the C was over the use of the lays mascot after the 96 PA base were over.
Jill Jaracz: Right. Cause cause some of the things I was reading was blaze was a better mascot than Izzy, especially in terms of markup credability and it seemed like the us O C wanted to make sure it got a piece of the royalties.
Andy Fleming: Yes. And, and it also, it was that it was financial financial aspects, but also it was control. Wanted to
control the future use. Well, first of all, it wanted bla to go. [01:01:00] After the 96 games, because that’s, um, the way the S C has always had always worked with its local organizing committees. So for the C was kinda a notebook, low brainer. But from our standpoint, those of us who saw the Paralympic games, being the springboard to developing sources of support and greater awareness in the United States, Paralympic saw great opportunity, had great opportunity, meaningful source of the movement going.
So we were looking at it as sort of a watershed moment for, um, the Paralympic moving in the United States. And at that time, when we were going through all this, the us C had not yet. Taken the role that is subsequently taken in its development of the Paralympic movement in the [01:02:00] United States. It was an question, uh, at the time that we were going through this dispute.
So when the amateur sports act was redone, if you will, in 1998, then a lot of the things that had been put into movement in the early nineties and through the Paralympic games, six of the things that were developing there came to fruition with the passage of the amendments, to the amateur sports act in.
So after, at the time, the position of the Paralympic side was O C was exerting control and ownership over, um, everything having to do with the Paralympics, but not providing any. Support in exchange or very little support in exchange. So in that environment, [01:03:00] Paralympic,
Jill Jaracz: and because blaze is still used, I’m, I’m guessing you won that part of the argument.
Andy Fleming: It’s a very difficult time. We, we had a marketing agreement with THEC. We did not accept the’s assertion assertion, that it would control the use of once the games 96 games were concluded. And so we, uh, actually sued the us O C in order to get a court to determine essentially what our marketing agreement meant.
For the, uh, the use of the term going forward. And that came down to the, the very final days of going back and forth with [01:04:00] decided not to pursue their interest in the controlling the terms. So it agreed to the, excuse me, the Blaise character could be controlled by the Paralympic organizing committee, which then, uh, by then had created the successor organization, um, called us disabled athletes fund and to sports, to serve as the repository for the character going forward.
So it came down to, it came down to 11th hours, but the final acquiesce to, to the position that those of us who working on the Paralympic side had a throughout the, this period of.
Jill Jaracz: Wow.
Andy Fleming: It never went to court. So therefore it never went to court. It, uh, came very close.
Jill Jaracz: So yeah.
Alison Brown: Oh man. So much. Litigiousness
Jill Jaracz: right.
Alison Brown: And so unnecessary.
Jill Jaracz: Right? Right. So Irwin [01:05:00] who had, who had designed blaze and was bitter about, uh, not getting the Olympic mascot. He ended up getting the last laugh in all this because Izzy was not as popular in mascot as the Olympic committee would’ve hoped, but Blaise still exists and is a working mascot.
He’s the mascot of Blaise sports America, which is, is, uh, Andy said is the legacy organization of the Paralympics from Atlanta 1996 and is, uh, one of the most recognizable symbols of disability sport in America. And you can still see him regularly. Uh, blaze sports. Georgia has a specialty license plate in the state of Georgia.
So you might see blaze driving around on a car, maybe wearing a little. Bere from his collection.
Alison Brown: How are them? Peach nuts.
Tokyo 2020 News
Jill Jaracz: Got a lot of news from Tokyo, cuz we’re 70, some days out [01:06:00] from the games at first off, uh, TBO was supposed to go visit Japan and be at the torch really in Hiroshima, but he opted not to go because Japan is still in a state of emergency. That state has been extended pretty much through the end of may. So, uh, it’s affected the torch relay.
Uh, in many ways there are four legs where the relay has been taken off of, of public roads in different prefectures. Some of these prefectures are looking and this goes from May 17th through the 24th. And some are looking to have events where they have the torch in a confined space, or they have torch bearers who don’t run or they’ve run around a little square and they can still have their moment with the torch.
So, uh, that’s a little frustrating for the torch organizers I imagine, but, uh, it’s tough to be
Alison Brown: expected. I mean, we knew this torch relay was not gonna. Off without a hitch.
Jill Jaracz: Exactly.
Alison Brown: So
Jill Jaracz: Paralympic torch relay update. We said a [01:07:00] few weeks ago that there was going to be a ceremony at SA Miha, where there was a massacre at a care facility for people with mental disabilities and some of the relatives of the victims of these stabbings, uh, voice opposition for this event.
And, uh, said that, uh, it was unacceptable to use that site as a festival event. So the Paralympics have opted not to have a ceremony there.
Alison Brown: You have to respect the families though.
Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Several host cities have CA canceled training programs. Uh, the Kyodo news said at least 31 municipalities have called them off.
And that affects teams from the us, UK Belize, Russia, and East Timor. Right now, the Kyodo news we’ve talked was this last week where we talked about the, the upper over the organizing committee.
Alison Brown: Yes. That, that they were taking all the [01:08:00] nurses. Now they’re taking all the doctors,
Jill Jaracz: right? So they had, uh, asked for volunteer doctors, they needed 200, 280 applied.
But when you think about it, it’s the doctors on staff will be orthopedists and dentists, not, not
Alison Brown: people who are generally gonna be treating COVID.
Jill Jaracz: It’s good that they have the interest. So hopefully that gets them. What they need. A vaccine rollout is still slow in Japan, but plans are to have the entire elderly population vaccinated by the end of June.
Speaking of vaccinations inside the games reported that the Brazil Olympic committee is taking the IOC up on its offer to have, uh, vaccinations. So they will have athletes, officials, and media who are going receive these vaccinations. And they’ve also shipped a whole bunch of their PPE, cuz apparently all the delegations are going to be expected to bring their own PPE with them.
And they shipped off all their equipment that needs to go to Tokyo. So like [01:09:00] the boats and weightlifting equipment and other, other kinds of training equipment that they need or big equipment for competitions and that it was 20 plus tons of stuff, which included the PPE
Alison Brown: and Brazil is not exactly a. A huge delegation,
Jill Jaracz: a lot of test events are happening.
So, uh, they had test events for diving, volleyball, athletics, and para athletics. For the most part, they went off without a hitch. The diving test event had one team official who tested positive ahead of the time ahead of the event. And they’ve put that person in quarantine right away, but no other outbreak of COVID has been reported or discovered yet.
Interesting thing about athletics, which we might see. I w I was not sure how this is going to play out for Tokyo, but, uh, Mondo, who is the supplier for athletics equipment, like hurdles and the pole vault [01:10:00] bars and that kind of stuff. They have created light emitting diode technology that will allow these things to light up.
That will enhance the viewing experience, both in the stadium and on television. So it would be like, oh, lanes are going to light up because a track event’s gonna happen. Or the pole vault uprights will light up because, uh, pole vault is competing now and you would be able to know like, oh, these are where things are happening and where I can direct my attention.
And the lights had the ability to change. Like, so it would be gold, silver and bronze. And there’s also red and green for like this jump cleared, this jump, not cleared. They can show things like disqualifications and, uh, it looks like it’s gonna be pretty cool. So I don’t know how much of that is going to be at Tokyo.
Although they said there might be some, but [01:11:00] look for it in athletics events coming up next year. Cuz I bet it it’ll be full force for 2024.
Alison Brown: I’m ready for a gold light, a gold circle of light that, you know, just beams around you when you win. Like you’re a Saint ,
Jill Jaracz: uh, team GB has released its kit. Did you see this?
Alison Brown: It has pin stripes.
Jill Jaracz: I love pin stripes. I have never seen kit with pin stripes before. I wonder if that’s gonna be more of their opening ceremonies,
Alison Brown: right? It was more that
Jill Jaracz: forming
Alison Brown: ceremony
Jill Jaracz: to it. Oh, that could look sharp.
Alison Brown: I know sharp is a pin Stripe
Jill Jaracz: and finally, Tokyo 2020s. Uh, put a fan zone section on its website.
- Very excited about this. It’s got little magic moments. There’s trivia game. They’re also going to have racks and a fantasy section. So you can put [01:12:00] together a Fanta. They’re gonna do their whole fantasy Olympic games. You can put together a team, you can have a little league and play with your friends.
So we will do a team, uh, uh, keep the flame alive league. And once we know more, we will share that with you, but
Alison Brown: right. That’s not coming out until July the league information. Okay. But the fan zone site bits of it are up and running, but the league isn’t coming until July, but there will be a shook list on league.
Jill Jaracz: I’m so excited for that.
Alison Brown: And I will lose you never
Jill Jaracz: know. You never know.
Alison Brown: I am so bad at fantasy sports. If you ever wanna fan win a fantasy sport, play against me. And if you become a Patreon member, you can hear how bad I am in Patreon sport, because what was it? Last month? We had the bonus audio of me losing miserably.
Jill Jaracz: Oh yeah. With, uh, the mascot madness. Oh
Alison Brown: yeah. Yeah.
Jill Jaracz: You never know. This could be your year. Could be your year.
Alison Brown: Okay.
Jill Jaracz: So I think I’m gonna start working on my [01:13:00] brackets and my dreaming about my fantasy team. Now sounds
Alison Brown: like a good use of time.
Help us find your people!
Jill Jaracz: Exactly. Uh, thank you again to our Patreon patrons. If you can’t do Patreon, Hey, tell a friend about the show because it always helps us to find more people.
Uh, we love finding our people and we really appreciate all of you who do listen and are part of our friends because. You make the Olympics and Paralympics so much more fun to watch that will do it for us this week. Let us know what you think about para dressage. And I’m talking to you. Listener Patrick, as you were excited about this
Alison Brown: email us@flamealivepodgmail.com.
Call or text us at (208) 352-6348. That’s 2 0 8, flame it we’re flame alive pod on Twitter and Insta and keep the flame alive podcast group on Facebook.
Jill Jaracz: Join us next week when our guest will be air rifle, shooter, shinny, Thrasher. So as we go out to music by Archdale. [01:14:00] Thank you so much for listening and until next time, keep the blame alive.
Closing Music
Alison Brown: I don’t wanna snack alone. I wanna snack with Ty.