Roxy schooling the water at the Kentucky Horse Park
Yes, yes, it's been far too long again since we caught up with Allie Knowles to find out how her two lovely six year old mares, Komik and Roxy are doing. Most of that is my fault completely, but in the meantime Allie has also been fairly busy posting the best North American dressage score at Rolex on Last Call, and had a fantastic ride cross country there as far as the sunken road, she told me. Fergie, aka Last Call is in good form and enjoying a holiday in her field at home in Paris, Kentucky. Allie is more fired up than ever after her first taste of the big time, "It was so much fun out there, I was just bummed that it ended early." Allie explained that Fergie is an extremely careful horse, and after an odd jump at the big ditch and wall where she thinks Fergie perhaps misread the question, as she was on a great distance to it but Fergie smacked her hind legs pretty hard on it, she stopped at the next jump, the Sunken Road, and Allie elected to retire. Fergie's autumn plans are still up in the air at the moment, but Allie laughed and said she's positive that a diet will be in her immediate future as "her ribs have disappeared!"
Komik schooling at the Kentucky Horse Park
Both mares went out last weekend at the MayDaze Horse Trials - Komik in the Preliminary Division, which by all accounts was an extremely tough cross country; for example, two houses on the two mounds that they use for Rolex out by the sunken road, at fence 5, a coffin that used to be a three star question, and with the early morning start times the shadows and low sunlight was compounding the problems. Unfortunately, the usually unflappable Komik seemed genuinely confused, and after a couple of stops at different fences Allie called it a day on her. Roxy was in the Training Division and finished on her dressage score. Allie and I talked about her weekend, and how she decided to move on from it.
Having watched Allie school them both I made a mental note to myself that if I ever wanted a babysitter I should call her - she has the patience of a saint! Is there anything more frustrating in the world than a super-talented chestnut mare being....a chestnut mare? (Perhaps only my daughter!)
Many, many thanks to Allie for sharing everything with us as part of her journey with these two talented horses - I'm not sure if she ever realised quite what she was signing up for when she agreed to do this for us, but I know that we're all extremely appreciative of her insights and honesty as she tackles these typical problems. If you have any particular training questions for Allie please leave them in the comments below and we'll address them in the next installment. Thank you as always for reading/watching, and Go Eventing!
