I was thinking about making this intro about the British Open, or maybe the Tour de France, or possibly how the Chinchillas managed to commandeer my Tahoe and drive to McDonalds, but after looking at the Maryland Horse Trials results from Saturday, there was really only one option. Sally Cousins won three of the four MDHT Intermediate divisions and placed 3rd in the other division. Sally’s formula is simple: she was the fastest rider on the cross-country in all four divisions and moved up a collective 17 places in the cross-country phase.
With the USEA points from her wins today, and notwithstanding that I was never very good at math, I believe Sally will overtake Boyd in the USEA Rider of the Year standings. Sally racks up her points primarily with wins at intermediate horse trials. By my count she has 46 starts at intermediate this year–easily more than all other divisions combined. The vast majority of those starts either end with a top 5 placing or Sally doing the combined test. For example, one of my favorite horses that Sally Rides, The Robber Barron, has done 11 intermediates this year, 4 of which Sally saved his legs and did a combined test. The other 7 ended in 2 wins, 4 seconds, and 1 third with a total of 8 XC time penalties. Sally’s other intermediate horses such as Joule, Troy, Kestrel Key, and Yukon Denali have very similar records. If there is one thing that you can count on at the east coast events it’s that Sally is probably going to make the time and win the intermediate divisions.
In other Maryland Horse Trials news, the one intermediate division that Sally didn’t win was won by Jan Byyny and Inmidair with 4 points to spare. It’s fun to see Jan kicking butt at a top level again and I can’t wait to see where they go from here.
Boyd Martin and Neville Bados completed a successful combined test today, as planned, and finished the show jumping on their dressage score of 23.2. Boyd said that Neville felt great and they will probably do a gallop Sunday morning to make sure his lungs are perfect for the Fitch’s Corner prelim cross-country next weekend. Then it’s hopefully Millbrook advanced and then Burghley. Boyd withdrew Remington after taking a creative schooling route through the water complex, jumping through it several times for practice.
The reason Boyd and a few other riders decided not to run the full course today is that, much like Stuart Horse Trials, the Maryland ground was hard despite MDHT’s valiant efforts with an aggravator. Half of the top US horses trying to get to big autumn events are withdrawing this weekend due to bad footing while European riders are cantering around events with perfect footing like Barbury. Burghley bound Sharon White and Rafferty’s Rules were just one of the pairs who withdrew before the cross-country.
Buck and Ballynoecastle RM retired after a stop at the Maryland intermediate water complex. Reggie can be really frustrating like that–he jumps around Badminton and then pulls up at Maryland Horse Trials. Buck had a good weekend with his other top horses including top 6 finishes with Titanium and Absolute Liberty.
Danica Moore and Utah B of Canada were named to the red and white Pan Am squad last week and today they finished 4th in the open intermediate B division.
Elsewhere on the Maryland scoreboard, Leslie Grant Law won a training division with a horse named What Law. The O’Connor Event Team had a good weekend in the training divisions with a win for Karen and Lauren Kieffer. Rebecca Howard, Boyd, Diane Zrimsek, and Erin Miller won the other 4 training level divisions.
The prelim and novice divisions run on Sunday at Maryland. In addition to enduring the blistering heat, spectators can look forward to seeing riders such as course builder Tremaine Cooper, Stephen Bradley and Leyland, Lainey, Allison, my former young rider teammate’s *brother Kevin Smith, Annie Yeager, Lauren Kieffer’s Snooze Alarm with a new rider, and many many more.
Stay hydrated Eventing Nation.
