Good Morning Eventing Nation! It’s sure been a busy week here on Eventing Nation, what with the Pan Am short lists being announced, the infamous Chronicle thread about the Rebecca statue topping the forums for the majority of this week, and now the NAJYRC firing away in Kentucky. Whatever your plans are for the weekend, I hope they involve plenty of shade and cold beverages– the heat wave of last week may have waved goodbye for a couple days, but it’s certainly saying ‘hello’ again.
There are only two other USEA Horse Trials braving the heat this weekend, and they are:
Horse Park of New Jersey Horse Trials [Ride Times]
Stoneleigh-Burnham Summer H.T [Website]
John published a post last night about the EN guest blogger contest, which all of you of course know because you’ve spent the last 12 nighttime hours refining and honing the first post that will lead you onto eternal EN greatness. Because I’ve been stabbing around in the dark at this whole writing thing for about the past year or so, I thought I’d give you some helpful hints to make your experience slightly easier:
1. Make good use of gramar. Nothing’s worse than getting a lesson from your math major boss about the correct use of prepositions, or even worse, about correct spelling.2. John wasn’t lying when he said Coren was a stalker, so I’d think twice before sending that mugshot photo.3. You’re going to need some thick skin, as it’s about as necessary to the job as a laptop and internet connection.
Ok, now it’s time for some news:
Rebecca Howard posted on her blog last night, but this time to share the news of one of her students, Joelle Baskerville’s, great performance in her two star dressage test at Young Riders. Rebecca coaches the Canadian young riders team, and is very much loved by the Young Riders she leads. Her coaching, as with almost everything else she does, is thorough, thoughtful, and effective, and almost always produces the results. [RH Blog]
Doug Payne is spending the week at HITS Saugerties for some jumping practice. In his blog last night, he said, “I can’t overstate how great it is to be able to concentrate purely on jumping. In the three days here, we’re jumping half a season of jumping rounds if we were eventing.” How true that line is, we as event riders are constantly refining each of our three skill-sets, trying to keep them all equally polished and effective. The job of doing so is much easier when you can go somewhere like Saugerties that is been designed to do exactly what you need to practice. Oh, and Doug also mentioned in his blog that he has gotten a grant to go to Blenheim this fall! [Doug’s Blog]
Toytown, Zara Phillips’s 18 year old campaigner, will be retired at Gatcombe Park this fall. Toytown has had a long career spanning through European and World Champion titles with Zara aboard. She said about the retirement, “Toytown will enjoy his retirement hacking out in the Gloucestershire countryside and grazing at home on the Gatcombe Estate.”
It isn’t all butterflies and roses trying to get to the AEC, and in the case of Suzanne Adams, the trip won’t happen at all this year due to four broken ribs and a collapsed lung. The good thing about the AEC is that it’s here to stay and there will always be another year. [USEA]
Click here to check out the Burghley entries. The newest addition to the list is Sinead and Manoir de Carneville, which raises the total number of American horses going to compete at 10.
Best of the Blogs: Lillian is heading to Ireland
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That’s all for now, Eventing Nation. Have a great day, I’ll see you soon.
