After a long but incredibly scenic drive through the state of Montana I arrived at Rebecca Farm wednesday afternoon, and immediately noticed the stark difference. Surrounded by mountains, the actual venue is surprisingly flat, fantastically green thanks to an aquifier and constant watering during the past six weeks, and of course, no cowboys (sigh) but a slew of top class eventing horse flesh to feast my eyes on, along with their riders, coaches and grooms of course.
Kyle Carter on Madison Park and Sandra Donnelly on Buenos Aires
Ronald Zabala-Goeteshel working Wise Equestrian Mr Wiseguy
Phillip Dutton rides Ben, owned by Team Rebecca, in the Advanced
I fulfilled my Montana ambition to see a bear, many times over, while walking the course!
The jumps are beautiful, and I was lucky enough to bump into course builder Bert Wood on my way round, who stopped working for a few minutes for a brief chat,
and his favourite jump,
Bert’s faithful companion, Jaeger, looking spry for seventeen years young.
I think the Jurassic Park complex, dreamed up by Jerome Broussard, is my favourite,
although how you can you resist this jump sponsored by Kerrits?
As Bert said, this would be the most fantastic place to do a three day event in the old-fashioned style, and the training three day here this year is an opportunity to learn as much as possible from the considerable talent amassed here for the week. Karen O’Connor gave the competitors a lesson in how to trot up your horse correctly wednesday afternoon ahead of the vet’s inspection this morning. David will give the Training Three Day riders a steeplechase lesson today, Phillip Dutton will be walking the cross country with them and Max Corcoran will be teaching them all about the ten-minute box. Max also told me that Mandiba is on his way home to Virginia, was on the flight that afternoon actually; Dr Christiana Ober had a look at him after the Test Event in London – his ribs are mended, he has a callus on the outside, they’re all looking forward to having him home and he’ll start his rehab on arrival.
The final xc fence for all the sections
There are some beautiful show-jumps here to rival the cross-country, and course designer Richard Jeffery is going to talk us through some of them today, and with five dressage rings and three show jumping rings in action this weekend, and the trot-up starting at 8:30am thursday, it’s high time I wrapped this up and started preparing for an early start. Thanks for reading, Go the Treasure State and Go Eventing!
