We’ve been so spoiled with these excellent videos from Galway Downs, courtesy of Frankie Thieriot of Athletux and Bright Horse Communications. Frankie has a great interview with Buck in the video, and he speaks about the family’s history with Petite Flower. Bred by Buck’s father, Bruce, the mare then went to Caroline Martin, Buck’s student and a close family friend. Buck took over the ride this year to move the mare up to Advanced, and she proved just how good she is with a win in the CCI3* at Galway Downs. I bet we’re going to see this mare make an appearance at Rolex this year, and as a huge advocate of mares, I can’t wait to see her tear it up at Kentucky. Go Buck.
Jolie Wentworth and Goodknight came very close to stealing the win from Buck, and they finished just 0.5 penalties behind him for second place. They also jumped double clear in the show jumping, and Jolie said Ari is extremely careful in this phase and hates to touch poles. While they’ve had what Jolie called a bit of a rough summer — although I have to give them a shout out for going all the way to Germany and completing Luhmühlen this year — it seems this pair is back on track now, and she indicated in the video that they’ll prepare to make the trip to Kentucky next spring to tackle Rolex.
I’m also thrilled for Liz Halliday-Sharp, who originally hails from nearby Fallbrook, Calif., and came home from England to contest HHS Cooley’s first CCI3*. Liz jokes in the video that she’s struggled with picking up two time penalties in her show jumping rounds, and David O’Connor make it very clear that she needed to make it around without any time. Cooley jumped beautifully — as you’ll see in the video — and they delivered a double clear round to finish the weekend in third place. Liz said she was able to reunite with friends she hadn’t seen in 20 years thanks to the trip to Galway Downs; eventing really is one big family.
