The only USEA event this weekend is a big one–Pine Top in Thompson, GA. Pine Top combines good footing and the perfect date to attract almost all of the top east coast horses to the advanced division. There are over 50 advanced horses, including 3 US WEG horses (Mandiba, Neville, Paddy). The Canadians are well represented with Port Authority in the advanced, and Exponential and Riddle Master in the intermediate. Will Faudree’s Pawlow, and Will Coleman’s Nevada Bay and Twizzel are all also in the intermediate, so it’s good to see that both Wills have their top horses back in action.
There are nearly 50 horses in the Advanced A division and just 4 horses in the Advanced B division because the divisions are divided by dressage test and apparently only 4 riders wanted to ride advanced test B, making test B less popular than rain on Rolex Saturday. We have mentioned this before, but it’s worth noting that you don’t see Phillip’s top horses like The Foreman and Woodburn because they are taking it easy this spring in a year without any major international championships for the US. I’ll be out at Pine Top on Friday when the advanced divisions will do all three phases in one day. [Pine Top Entries]
Now for some quick news and notes:
—Morning Update: The Canterbury horse trials scheduled for this weekend at McLean’s Island, in New Zealand, was canceled this morning due to New Zealand’s massive earthquake on Tuesday. [Horsetalk]
—Badminton: Ben Hobday ups the ‘look at me’ factor
–Thanks to our good friends at the Paulick Report, which is one of the largest horse racing websites in the world, for linking to Samantha’s wonderful Zenyatta article. Samantha has been getting some incredible interviews lately and, from the look of her schedule over the next week, it doesn’t look like that is going to change. 16 months ago I never would have imagined that Eventing Nation would have received exclusive access to Zenyatta. In other Zenyatta news, she was bred to Bernardini on Wednesday. [Paulick Report]
–We have a few behind the scenes business changes coming to Eventing Nation that will help us to be better at serving our readers–more on those over the next few weeks. One change is that we are expanding our partnership with Cavalor and I will be helping them as best I can with social media development and marketing outside of Eventing Nation. Another development is that I wrote a short article for the new and improved Eventing USA magazine. Assuming they don’t fire me for any number of valid reasons, including delivering my article by carrier Chinchilla, I will be writing regular short pieces for the magazine in the coming months.
–The California USEF training sessions start today. Like the first ones, Tiana will be keeping Eventing Nation posted on all the training session coolness. The Royal Oaks sessions are open to the public and their schedule is here. I have been beating this drum for a while, but I don’t think west coast eventing has ever had a stronger group of horses and riders than it does this year. Tiana is just one of several California riders who is one good weekend in April away from breaking into the big time.
—Facebook now has shopping. Unsurprisingly, I learned about this from Ecogold [Ecogold’s Facebook]
–Two horse shows have been canceled in the wake of New Zealand’s earthquake [Horsetalk]
–The USEA now has news and notes for membership details [USEA]
–So does British Eventing [BE fresh]
–Former UK event rider Claire Lomas has given birth to a baby girl named Maise. Claire was seriously injured in a freak fall at the Osberton Horse Trials in 2007. She is still undergoing rehabilitation from that accident but the Horse and Hound says she is determined to walk again. Congratulations to Claire and her family! [Horse and Hound]
–Absurd Headline of the Day: Atomic Kitten and rugby player star in international polo event [H&H]
—Best of the Blogs: The Air Up There
A video for all the horse husbands (the horse part starts at 1:30) [via Regarding Horses]
That’s all for now. Stay tuned throughout the day for all of your eventing news and commentary. Wherever you may be, thanks for making Eventing Nation part of your day. Go EvEnTiNg.
