Nate Chambers holds on to the Fair Hill lead

Even though there were a couple of serious falls on Saturday, it is important to remember that the cross-country at Fair Hill was filled with many strong performances.  The latest that I have heard about Sharon is that the doctors feel she may have fractured her hip.  We will have more information on Sharon, JB’s Star, and Jennifer Simmons as we get it, but this post will focus on Saturday’s positive moments–of which there were many.

Link: Fair Hill CCI3* XC results

(1) Nate Chambers had an absolutely clutch performance to finish on a double-clear and hold his dressage lead in the CCI3*.  Nate was held on course for a long time following Jennifer’s fall but kept Rolling Stone active during the hold and was sure to jump a warm-up fence before starting back on his course.  I expected Nate to be clean and fast, but he showed true toughness today.  Jennie was helping Brian announce for part of the day and commented that Nate has said before that he wanted to be the Tiger Woods of eventing.  Nate showed some of Tiger’s mental toughness, but, as Jennie said, Nate doesn’t want to be too much like tiger.

(2) Hannah Burnett and St. Barths picked up where they left off last year in the CCI2* and dominated the CCI3* cross-country course.   “Nike” made the course look easy on all the parts that I saw and the pair finished comfortably within the time.  I will certainly not bring up the fact that Hannah had a sticky moment at the final fence of the show jumping last year, and I trust that their round tomorrow will reflect the perfect round they had up until the final jump last year.

(3) Please hold your amazement in check when I say that Phillip went double-clear on Fernhill Eagle and moved up to third.  Another Saturday at Fair Hill, and another top three for Phillip.  Phillip is within a rail of Hannah and within two rails of Nate.

(4) Michael Pollard and Wonderfull Will had one of the best looking rides of the day.  They smoked around with just 2.4 time penalties and moved up from 15th to 5th.  Will looked as focused and settled as I have ever seen him with Michael.  This pair deserves some good luck this year and we wish them the best EN Karma for tomorrow.

(5) Cruise Lion may not have had the best form over this jump but he and Bruce got some of the biggest cheers of the day.  The crowd was larger than last year, probably due to the excellent weather.  I wish the crowd had been a bit rowdier, but the crowds around the water jumps were making noise all day long.

(6) Jane Sleeper and the super-jumping mare UN jumped from 25th to 9th with a double clear.  All in all, there were 7 double-clears on Saturday in the CCI3*, which is impressive considering such a tough course.  

(7) There were 15 riders who had at least a stop on the CCI3* course out of 33 starters.  The issues were spread out pretty evenly throughout the course and Fair Hill always rides tougher than it looks due to the environment and the terrain.

(8) Buzzterbrown was out and about with his camera today, so we can expect his awesome videos soon.

(9) As expected, the Fair Hill volunteers did a marvelous job today.  The volunteers were very knowledgeable and told the crowd exactly where they needed to be at road crossings, etc.  I’m glad that the weather was better today, especially for the sake of the volunteers.

(10) I just got word that JB’s Star was taken to the New Bolton Center, so we can be sure that he is in absolutely the best hands in the entire veterinary world right now.

We will have more from Fair Hill later this evening.  Now more than ever, go eventing.