Photo by Leslie Wylie.
After the swell of Sunday show jumping excitement at a three-day event, things tend to quiet down quickly. Riders load up their horses and head home, spectators head out and vendors pack it in, leaving just a few folks from the show office and maybe a lone journalist sipping on a bottle of leftover wine she found in the VIP tent.
A few words of closure before I go pass out completely:
– Bromont is an amazing event. This was my first foray into Canadian eventing and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
Especially test-driving this sweet Jaguar convertible.
The venue is beautiful, the hospitality is unmatched and, this week at least, the weather couldn’t have been more cooperative. It has all the trappings of becoming a destination event for riders and spectators alike.
Bromont has been working hard to attract and keep support — this year Jaguar/Land Rover signed on as the presenting sponsor — and they’re doing it right, giving them high visibility and loads of love in return. I was talking to the Jaguar rep at the end of the day (while we were speeding-racing out on the back roads) and he was over the moon about the response they’ve gotten at Bromont this week. We need to keep that ball rolling.
That’s one expensive judge’s box. Photo by Leslie Wylie.
– Being a championship year, Bromont 2014 was a relatively quiet event. Some heavy-hitters are off pursuing other agendas, like Luhmuhlen next weekend, but that just means the field was wide-open for some lesser-known horses and riders to show us what they’ve got. It was awesome to see Jessica Phoenix and A Little Romance, a horse that EN talent-spotted a year ago, win the CCI3*, and Buck Davidson, Lauren Kieffer and Ryan Wood put their up-and-coming horses on the map with top-three placings in the CCI1* and CCI2* divisions. To me, watching talented but less experienced horses prove their mettle is much more exciting than watching horses that we already knew could perform dominate the field. It’s like seeing into the future.
When Buck starts calling a horse “Little Reggie” you know it’s serious. Buck Davidson and Be Mine. Photo by Leslie Wylie.
– I feel like I’ve rambled on a lot this week about “fighting for it.” And I don’t just mean kicking like hell before a scary cross-country fence — I’m talking about the instinct that keeps you going when you have a bad fence, or a bad dressage test, or a bad event or even a bad year.
Take Lynn Symansky, for example, who won the small CIC3* division on Donner. She had to fight just to get here, and then fight for it in the saddle as well, this being her first event back after her fall at Jersey Fresh. “I usually think I’m good with my mental game and nerves, but it definitely tested it a lot,” Symansky said when she stopped by the media tent after her ride. “There was a lot of pressure. My horse is a good cross-country horse and I know that, but still, after you have something happen it kind of dries the ice in your veins.”
We were all glad to see Lynn push through it, and her show jumping round was one of the loveliest of the day. There’s “tough,” and then there’s “eventer tough,” and Lynn certainly qualifies as the latter.
Lynn Symansky and Donner. Photo by Leslie Wylie.
I’ve still got a few Bromont odds ‘n’ ends to roll out in the next couple days but, for now, I’m signing out. Thanks for sticking with us all weekend — it’s been real. Allez Concours Complet!
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