The lone USEA event of the weekend and, despite the Hopper tragedy, Saturday at Pine Top was marked with some great triumphs. After making her EN debut covering the Aiken training sessions, eventer and long time friend Kate Samuels is competing at Pine Top this weekend and was kind enough to send us a report from Saturday. Kate is kind enough to share a few thoughts and photos with us from the sessions. Kate is a fellow Charlottesville, VA based eventer and rides the fantastic horse Nyls du Terroir. Thanks for writing this Kate and thank you for reading.
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Michael Pollard and Jos Calfun getting it done in the advanced
From Kate:
Pine Top this weekend was mostly defined by the tornado warnings and the huddling under shelters during the massive thunderstorms on Friday afternoon. Some of our bravest riders were actually completing their dressage tests during lightening and pouring rain. I was personally walking my cross country course and got stuck in the worst of it, and literally couldn’t see where I was going because the rain was so thick and intense. After everybody hid in their trucks and trailers for about an hour, we emerged slowly like timid gophers from our safety zones, peering around to see the flooded parking lots and the carnage of blown tents and extraneous debris throughout the show grounds. At that point, there was only the second half of the Intermediate competitors left to go, so we trudged on, with a few delays through the afternoon, to finish Dressage for the day. Cross country was wisely cancelled, and moved to Saturday. Due to the weather, some of the dressage tests were uncharacteristically….interesting…from some horses. There were a lot of unhappy customers, a few bucks and a handful of rueful smiles. After sitting six hours in the trailer huddled down from wild storms, I can tell you that my horse was not completely ready to play the dressage game, and he was not alone!
Show jumping for the Advanced started at 7:30 on a bright and windy Saturday morning. The course was quite twisty and involved a lot of technical questions off rollback turns, and caught a few people out. There were a few clear rounds, but a lot of unlucky rails here and there. The warmup actually held up pretty well, after all of the rain, it was quite good footing. The Pine Top crew did an amazing job of gathering volunteers to get the newly added divisions up and running, and everything went quite smoothly. The show jumping in both Advanced and Intermediate went smoothly, with only a few unfortunate rounds, but most everybody looked good. The course included quite a fair share of big oxers, two triple combinations, two skinny jumps, and more than it’s share of rollback turns! This really tested everybody’s controls and ability to jump off of turns and out of stride. It rode wonderfully!
Phillip Dutton and Mighty Nice
Cross country was held about three hours after show jumping, which was an unfortunate situation for me, because I was under the impression that it would immediately follow show jumping! Thus, I spent the first hour of my time at Pine Top begging for a show jacket and a nice helmet that didn’t have my colored silks! Luckily I found a hat big enough for my head, and a jacket to fit. This break in the schedule enabled me to watch some Advanced cross country, which was great!
Selena and Colombo
Obviously, the people who did well, did well. Michael Pollard continued his domination on all of his horses. Becky Holder looked solid on both of her twin greys, and Jan had a great double clean round on Syd Kent, a personal favorite of mine. There were quite a few lovely rides from the “unknowns” of the day. I saw a lot of rides that were beautiful. The course was a solid first Advanced for most people, like Pine Top usually is, it combines a few big fences with a lot of technical combinations, and the overall effect is a true test for the level. I have to give a shout out to the two best rides of the day: for Courtney Sendack, who completed her first Advanced clean with her partner of 13 years Will Ya Love Me, who is a 14.1 hand connemara pony!! My second pick for best ride is Arden Wildasin who had an amazing first round at Advanced with her horse Totally Awesome Bosco, and I’m sure she’s thrilled with him!
The only black point of the day was the loss of The Grasshopper. We were all so sad to hear of Megan’s loss and although there’s nothing we can say to bring him back, Megan knows that we are all thinking of her and Hopper’s entire family.
I didn’t get the chance to see much Preliminary or Training, but my report on Advanced and Intermediate is: two thumbs up! As always, we eventers prevail through the most ridiculous of weather and situations, and kick on! Our ability to adapt and our resilience is unparalleled and I saw a lot of grins throughout the antics of some wild horses. Sometimes, you just have to appreciate your horses opinions and agree that you’d rather not be riding in the pouring rain either! Now, I’m off to figure out how to get my white breeches white again, and to spend all of tomorrow both dry AND warm!
