EN guest blogger Jon Holling is having a great weekend at Millbrook, including being placed 4th in the intermediate B division on his Pan American hopeful Downtown Harrison. Jon was kind enough to send us a brief report from the XC at Millbrook.
—-
From Jon:
It is a fantastic day here at Millbrook Horse Trials. The amount of effort put in by Louise Merriman and her crew is truly staggering. I had the opportunity to run my horse Downtown Harrison around the intermediate track this morning before the advanced division got started. I must say it was a very challenging track but the horses all seemed better for having run around it.
There were several Pan Am horses in both the Intermediate and Advanced divisions trying to get one last prep before Richland Park. When the Advanced kicked off, the big guns came out, some of whom will be using this as their last run before Burghley. Most notable was obviously Boyd and Neville. I got to watch them at the first few combinations and it was fun to see. It looked like they had not missed a beat and it was cool to see what a partnership they obviously have together.
While there was some trouble in places on the course it didn’t seem to be at any one particular fence and was mostly run outs or just simply green horses and riders missing lines. Kyle Carter also had a good trip around on Madison Park. Again it is fun to watch the pairs that have so much experience together go out and make what was a very tough track look like a schooling round. Interestingly one of the biggest concerns the riders had yesterday was a double set of skinny cabins at fence 17A and B. I saw Karen O’Connor out with course Designer Tremainne Cooper yesterday discussing the fence in depth. I believe the second fence was shifted slightly and I must say I did not hear of one problem at the fence. As the Chair of the Professional Horseman’s Council it is great to see the rider representative program working so efficiently. Thanks again for reading and thanks Eventing Nation for keeping us all up to date on the happenings all over the world.
