GMHA Festival of Eventing

GMHA Eventing Scene (photo by Eric Swinebroad)

GMHA Festival of Eventing just wrapped up this past Sunday, and what a festival it was! After suffering a complete wipeout last year after being fully flooded, GMHA folks rallied and raised money and worked their tails off to make the facility even better than it was before. The new cross country courses have been a debut hit, and for the first time in a long time, GMHA offered an Intermediate division, which they were very excited about! There were 17 entrants in the Intermediate, including well known course designer himself Tremaine Cooper.

We were lucky enough to have EN friend and FEI Vet Eric Swinebroad on location, and he snapped a bunch of wonderful pictures of competitors, organizers, course designers and beautiful Vermont scenery! Thanks to Eric for all the pics!!

Ashley Adams recently moved up to Vermont to take over Tom White Hill Farm for Geoffrey and Joan Nichols, and I knew she would be just the girl to ask about the weekend. If you’ve ever met Ashley, you know she loves to chat, and more than that, she loves to talk about her horses! Ashley was kind enough to give us the GMHA first-timer’s perspective, and an overall recap of the weekend.

Linnea Ackerman & Bently competing at GMHA this weekend (photo by Eric Swinebroad)

From Ashley:

Hi EN!  When Kate called me to write a recap GMHA, I was very happy to do so!

I am currently riding for Geoffrey and Joan Nichols’ out of their Tom White Hill Farm here in Woodstock VT and Ocala FL.  We are located just about 20 min from GMHA so we trailered in and out for the weekend.  I have never been to GMHA before and when we pulled in, I saw the BEAUTIFUL xc jumps and got that “giddie eventer high” instantly!  The first thing that caught my attention was how organized the volunteers were.  Everyone knew what their job was, they knew where the riders needed to be and when, and they always gave us a heads up when needed.  Not to mention they all were so nice!

The dressage arenas were on great footing and had nice warm-up.  I had 2 prelim rides and a training ride.  Cooley Dawn Raid, who is owned by TWH, is just starting his prelim career and the other horse I had was my own Corbin.  He too is still a bit green at the level and they both put in respectable tests, scoring in the mid to low 30’s.  When I got all of my dressage tests, I realized I could have used them as dressage lessons!  They were so spot on.

The Show Jumping was also on footing and ran on time and was very well stewarded.  My prelim horses put in nice steady clear rounds and I had a green rail on Pepperpot.  It is great fun to ride the young ones around as they move up…I come out of the arena like a proud parent!  As I walked back to the trailers past the stabling, naturally I was chatting with anyone around that wanted to talk, and I took a peek inside the barns.  They are a groom’s dream! They have great sliding doors, mats, and a very nice overhead in front of all the stalls, and they had enough trash cans!! Sometimes it’s the little things that make the difference.

TD Jim Gornall

The XC was on Sunday and I had another early morning with my training horse, OBOS Pepperpot, going first.  Once again the parking people met Geoff and I at dawn with smiles!  The courses were just amazing.  The GMHA XC upgrade project committee, Laurie Hudson, Susan Merle-Smith, Jamie Fields and many more, had clearly done well!  The footing was perfect all day.  After the first 20 horses had gone out, I saw the grounds crew, (shout out Bruce, Jamie, Ben, Chris!) out with blue stone and such at the water crossing and the fences needing it.  Overall the courses were riding very well.  They were big enough, asked fair questions, but were challenging and the terrain set you up well for all the questions.

With the green beans I often judge courses on how my horse feels afterwards.  If I think that they gained confidence as they went, then I give the course a thumbs up!  This is exactly what happened at GMHA and  I felt that way about all the courses.  I even had a mis-communication with my little Corbin horse early on, he just never locked on to a skinny question, but by the end I felt like I could have pointed him at the skinniest of angles and he would be eager to deal with it.  The lower levels asked very good balancing questions and that was exactly what the Pepperpot horse needed!  He is a great XC horse and it was nice to have questions like a little ditch and wall, turning questions, down hill combinations, up hill combinations and good gallop fences even at training.

The trailers were parked along the gallop lanes after the finish, and me being me, I chatted and cheered for everyone that came across the finish line!  I saw smiles all day and the phrase, “it all rode great!”.  The course changes and the fence fixing all went over seamlessly.  I think they took at most 15 min between each division, which is almost unheard of!  I saw Molly Hutchins, the Event Manager/Secretary, running around with a book-bag full of waters for the staff and volunteers, looking very similar to a camp counselor!  Overall I cant wait to go back to GMHA!  Molly, Mary Hunt, (Exec. Director), and their team did a phenomenal job.  It was a great course and event to find out where my horses need work and make sure they are on the right track.

Geoff, Joan, and myself are going over to Ireland soon to look for more future eventing champions, and GMHA is a going to be a great place to take the new babies, and these slightly older ones as well!  Moral of the story….Go to GMHA! You and your horse will love it. They also have a great concession stand which is a heavy hitting factor in my book!

Cheers!!
Ashley and Tom White Hill

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