But I thought you said there were only going to be 6 horses galloping this morning? That was the plan as I heard it up until Friday night, but the decision was made to also exempt TruLuck from the XC. This decision made the list of gallopers 7 horses long–Truluck, Woodburn, The Foreman, Bobby, Ballynoecastle, Neville, and Remington.
I got up early to watch the gallops at dawn and–sure enough–7 horses ran up that hill. Phillip led a group of his three up the hill, then Buck followed with his two, and then Boyd rode Remington and Neville each himself. I recorded all of the gallops in the video below, but I missed Boyd’s gallop on Neville because I was chatting with someone and didn’t get my camera turned on in time.
Recall that all the US short listers went to Richland except for Connaught and Truluck. The Foreman and Woodburn went to Richland were inspected on Monday after Richland and then the decision was made to exempt them from the XC at the AECs. The point is that unlike the six other horses that galloped this morning, Truluck has not been recently examined by team vets following an event where he ran XC. Another consideration is that Truluck has not competed since he placed 3rd at Rebecca Farm in July. All that being said, I have no doubt that Phillip and Truluck would run clean and fast at the WEGs, and the other thing to think about is that it’s big bad Woodburn all the way right now.
As you would expect, there are some riders who aren’t happy that some short listed horses didn’t have to run XC on Saturday and others did. Such concerns are of course to be expected, but I can sympathize with the sentiment regarding horses that are proven on XC. That being said, it’s a moot point now and the key is to get everyone show jumping well tomorrow. The advanced show jumping starts at 8:45am ET Sunday. Go eventing.
