Advanced Dressage from Millbrook Horse Trials

Boyd battled through the horrific weather to provisionally lead the Advanced on a 29.1

With 50 competitors in this weekend’s Advanced horses trials in Millbrook, New York, the division is quite possibly one of the most competitive of the year. Horse and rider combinations range from experienced duos returning to the top of the sport after some time off, to knowledgeable 4* pairs getting back into the swing of things after Rolex, all the way to quite a few Advanced first timers.

[Live Scores]

Lainey & Al, who performed beautifully to sit in 2nd place overnight

I watched the first half of the division compete this afternoon, starting at 11 am. The arenas at Millbrook are set away from the rest of the grounds, and accompanied by lots of flags, banners and tents. You are not permitted to school around these arenas prior to competing in them, and thus there were quite a few combinations who fell victim to the spooky atmosphere. If you think Advanced horses are brave about everything because they leap over absurd obstacles on cross country, think again. Banners are terrifying!

Boyd obviously did a pretty good job with Trading Aces, as he currently leads the class. I thought that Oscar looked right at home in the ring, and didn’t really seem to fuss about anything. Lainey Ashker, who sits in 2nd, had one of my favorite rides of the day on her beloved Anthony Patch, whom she is delighted to have back at the Advanced level after some time off earlier this year.

Diana Burnett & Shigatzi, 3rd place overnight

I saw many tactful, professional rides, and I also saw a few that I knew the riders were just itching to get over with. Advanced test A is quite long, and you spend a lot of time in the ring, and especially at the walk. Several riders got lost going into or going away from the halt-rein-back movement, and there was more than a smattering of errors in the scores.

Kim Severson & Fernhill Fearless, tied for 4th place

Another notable test was ridden by Kim Severson on Fernhill Fearless, or Sparky, who is returning to Advanced after a year and half without a horse competing at this level. Kim rode her usual immaculate test, and despite the fact that Sparky isn’t notorious for his dressage work, she scored a nice 33.8 to sit in 4th place overnight. Watch out for that pair on XC!

Buck Davidson & Mar de Amor, tied for 4th

Buck was in the ring only twice today, as he scratched one of his entries. Don’t worry, he’s got three more tomorrow. All of his horses turned out polished, professional tests. I have never seen Mar de Amor in person, and I was pleasantly surprised with his test. He’s not the biggest striding horse, but he really did try quite hard and Buck rode him really well.

Sharon White & Wundermaske, 6th place

Sharon White looked quite polished on Wundermaske, or Patch, who sometimes has a distaste for the work in the dreaded rectangle, but really held it together today and showed off his fancy moves, scoring a 34.7 to place 6th. I thought Doug was going to really have to wrangle Crown Talisman into working through his spookiness today, but he did a fantastic job of keeping Tali together to score a 35 and they sit in 7th overnight.

Doug Payne & Crown Talisman

The weather devolved into sprinkles, and then showers, and by the end of the class, it was positively pouring. Allison Springer, Colleen Rutledge and Boyd Martin got the worst of it. I wasn’t even sure Boyd could see where he was going at the end. Luckily I was able to escape the drenching rain under a tent and continue to take pictures….until I had to ride my motorbike back to the stables and almost crash multiple times due to the fact that the rain was blowing directly in my eyeballs.

Booli Selmayr & Castle Diamond, currently the highest placed first timers

I really enjoyed watching some of the first timers do their tests, and I have to say that they were doing a lot better job than I did on my first Advanced! Some of them were quite competitive, with the best first time duo being local rider Booli Selmayr on her own Castle Diamond, who I learned actually just started competing above Preliminary this year. Congrats to Booli who did a really excellent job on her first Advanced dressage test!

There will be more Advanced dressage starting at 7:30 EST tomorrow morning, but sadly I won’t be there to take pictures because I’ll be busy making sure my white pants stay white, and memorizing my test a few extra times.