via Joanie Morris and Phillip Dutton Eventing

Ok, well that might be a slight exaggeration. But there have been a lot of great videos posted online from The Fork and here are some of the best from the last 24 hours.

Mystery Whisper FTW, and serenaded by announcer Brian O’Connor:

Is this the year for Will Coleman and Twizzel? [via Joanie Morris and Will Coleman Eventing]

That. Just. Happened.

Click below for much more and I’ll see you after the jump…

(more…)

Tennis?  Really, how hard can it be?

Last May the USOC decided to include Sinead in their April female athlete of the month voting after her wonderful performance at Rolex.  I’m sure they thought to themselves that they were just throwing us crazy equestrians a bone and that a more mainstream sport would easily win.  But then we got involved here at EN and 1,600 votes later Sinead destroyed the field.

We have our chance to have our voice heard again.  This time Phillip Dutton is up for vote for male athlete of the month, and after two CIC3* wins in one month he definitely deserves the votes.  (And adding to the victory– remember that Phillip is making a donation to the Muscular Dystrophy Association for every event he wins this season!)  In this USOC vote, Phillip is going up against sports where gravity does all the work like diving and skiing, vacation sports like water skiing and tennis, and shooting–a ‘sport’ where one tries to move as little as possible.  Of course, this is about far more than Phillip and Mystery Whisper, it’s about making the equestrian voice heard.

Predictably, the USOC has added a few hurdles to democracy since our little Sinead uprising, including making having a Twitter account a requirement for voting.  And of course, the public poll only counts for 10% of the award.  USOC bureaucrats stepped in last year and gave the award to women’s ice hockey instead of listening to us, the lawless masses.  17 year old show jumper Reed Kessler is in the running for female athlete of the month after an incredible performance at the Olympic selection trials–be sure to vote for her as well.

[Vote for Phillip Here, Vote for Reed Here] — Hurry the poll ends at 1pm ET Monday!

Go eventing.

The top of the CIC3* leader board, click for a larger version

Since the typically speedy live scores have been a bit slow coming from the Fork today, I have included photos of a few of the scoreboards in this post. By the way, having dealt with a healthy share of computer frustrations over the past month, that is in no way a complaint, we absolutely love both Event Entries and Eventing Scores here on EN. The advanced B scores are posted online.  [Live Scores]

Go eventing.

Two months ago the eventing and equestrian community was struck with the tragic loss of life when 28 year old Erica Marshall and the promising young event horse Landmark’s Legendary Affaire passed away in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber explosion in Ocala, FL.  Nothing anyone can write or do can fix that tragic loss, but we have an opportunity to learn from what happened and make sure that such a tragedy never happens again.  EN guest writer JER has investigated the incident and writes about her findings regarding the application of the therapy at KESMARC Florida below.  Before I turn the floor over to JER, I want to stress that I personally believe hyperbaric therapy is an excellent treatment for a variety of medical conditions and that it has produced some truly extraordinary results including aiding the well documented recovery of the True Prospect Farm fire horses last year, especially Neville and Catch a Star.  If my vet recommended hyperbaric therapy I wouldn’t hesitate to use it on a horse and the same goes for my doctor recommending the treatment for me.  However, after reading JER’s article I would be considerably more careful about who I used to apply the therapy.  Thank you for writing this JER and thank you of reading.

—-

Photo from Eisaman Equine

An Explosion in Ocala    

From JER:

On February 10, 2012 at 9:21 am, Marion County emergency personnel responded to a 911 call from KESMARC Florida, an equine rehabilitation facility located in Ocala.   There had been an explosion in the facility’s hyperbaric oxygen treatment unit.  Crews worked quickly to put out the fire and shut off the flow of oxygen.  A Lifeflight helicopter arrived to transport 33 year-old Sorcha Moneley, an Irishwoman who’d been ‘observing’ the treatment of a horse in the hyperbaric chamber, to Shands Hospital with serious blast injuries.  The horse in the unit, a six year-old Thoroughbred owned and bred by prominent eventing owner Jacqueline Mars, was killed instantly.

Arriving on scene at 10:17 am, a police officer noted the ‘total destruction’ of the barn area in which the hyperbaric unit was housed.  Then, he ‘observed the body of a white female buried in the rubble of what was once the control room.’

Erica Marshall, 28, a Kesmarc employee who’d been operating the HBOT unit for two years, was dead.

At 10:39 am, just over an hour after the 911 call, Marion County Sheriffs put up yellow tape and initiated a Crime Scene Log.

KESMARC is an acronym for Kentucky Equine Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Center.  Kesmarc has operated in Versailles, Kentucky since 1989, under the ownership and management of Kirsten and Harry Johnson.  The Johnsons are also part-owners of Equine Oxygen Therapy, the company that manufactured the unit that exploded in the Ocala facility.  Equine Oxygen Therapy trained the Kesmarc Florida employees, like Erica Marshall, who operated the hyperbaric chamber.

Although Kesmarc Florida continued to use the Kesmarc name, the two facilities were said to have been otherwise unconnected at the time of the accident.  Kesmarc Florida is owned by Main Street Management Services, whose CEO, Robert L. Miller, identifies himself as the ‘owner’ of the clinic.

For the first two years in Ocala, the Johnsons of the Kentucky Kesmarc were listed as managers of KESMARC, LLC in Florida.   In 2010, the company name was revoked and made inactive for failure to file an annual report.  Then in January 2011, Kesmarc South, LLC was formed, and the Johnsons names were no longer listed on the filings.  A July 25, 2011 article titled “Changing the Landscape of Equine Recovery” in the Chronicle of the Horse magazine interviewed Kirsten Johnson about equine rehabilitation and noted ‘KESMARC in Kentucky shares a name with the Florida location but is now a separate entity.’  When contacted by an Ocala newspaper following the blast, Johnson said she had not been ‘affiliated’ with the clinic for ‘quite some time.’

However, Kesmarc Florida’s current Facebook page continues to call the Ocala location the ‘sister facility to Kesmarc KY.’

Kesmarc Florida opened its doors in 2009, promoting its services through its website, by taking out advertisements in equestrian publications, and by sponsoring popular event riders Karen O’Connor and Peter Atkins.  In addition to hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), services included an Aquatred, a swimming pool, an indoor jogging track, and rehabilitative and post-surgical care.  The facility promised state-of-the-art therapies by experienced staff; the website contained blurbs from satisfied clients and noted that Kesmarc’s treatments played a role in the success of ‘multiple’ Breeder’s Cup and Eclipse Award winners.

The Ocala clinic actively, and, it claimed, successfully, pursued the sport horse market as well.  In the Summer 2011 issue of Florida Sport Horse, a two-page feature on the clinic claimed that ‘Kesmarc tripled its business this past year, partially because sporthorse owners are realizing that the services and treatments are not just a luxury for wealthy equestrians.’    (While no price list is available for Kesmarc’s HBOT services, comparable clinics charge $300-$350 per session.)

Or, as the article put it, ‘When elite equestrians such as Karen O’Connor sing the praises of Kesmarc, people listen.’

However, a public records request to Florida state agencies reveals a darker history, one  to which Kesmarc’s clients and celebrity endorsees most likely were not privy.  In mid-2010, the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation opened an investigation into allegations of misleading promotion and unlicensed activity taking place at the clinic.  At the conclusion of the investigation several months later, the DBPR found evidence of ‘unlicensed [veterinary] practice as alleged’ and issued a Notice to Cease and Desist, warning Kesmarc, ‘If you are found continuing to engage in unlicensed activity in spite of our action herein, we will prosecute the matter for the maximum administrative penalty permitted under law ($5,000.00 to $10,000.00 administrative fine per count).’

It does not appear that Kesmarc attempted to comply with that order.  To the contrary, there is compelling evidence that Kesmarc continued to promote its services in the same way, and also of unlicensed activity in the treatment of the horse that died in the hyperbaric chamber explosion.

On  August 31, 2010, following a citizen complaint to the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, authorities began an investigation into Kesmarc’s practices.  The specific concern was that Kesmarc was violating Florida law through its services and website.  According to the DPBR’s report, the alleged violation was Florida Statute 474.213 (1) (A):  To lead the public to believe one is a licensed veterinarian or to perform veterinary functions without being properly licensed.

Florida law states that ‘no person may practice veterinary medicine in this state unless the person holds a valid, active license to practice veterinary medicine.’  At the time of the complaint – and right up until the day of the explosion – Kesmarc did not have a veterinarian on staff or an affiliated supervising veterinarian, despite the Notice to Cease and Desist issued some fourteen months before.

Some of the services touted on Kesmarc’s website would seem to fall under the Florida definition of veterinary practice.  Indeed, the very term ‘equine sports medicine’ implies a veterinary connection.  The DBPR investigators’ report cited phases used on Kesmarc’s website, phrases like ’24-hour postoperative care’, ‘nursing the critically injured’, and ‘comprehensive rehabilitative care.’  One section of the website stated: ‘Kesmarc seeks out the world’s top specialists in all fields of equine medicine, including orthopedics, internal medicine, infectious diseases and general practitioner.  By working with so many of equine medicine’s “best and brightest”, Kesmarc has gained an abundance of knowledge and expertise in equine rehabilitation.’

More disturbing was Kesmarc’s description of its DERBY Internship Program.  The goal of the program was ‘to let students experience the world of equine veterinary medicine, equine rehabilitation and equine veterinary nursing firsthand’:

Duties expected of our interns include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Daily administration of medications and supplements
• Assisting veterinarians as required (for radiographs, ultrasound, scoping, etc.).  Although we do not have a veterinarian on staff, we have multiple veterinarians performing different procedures on a daily basis.
• Supervised operation of Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber treatments (only available to interns committing more than three months)

Under Florida law, administration of medication to animals requires some level of supervision or direction by a licensed veterinarian.   The administration of ‘anaesthesia or tranquilizers’ requires the immediate supervision’ of a licensed vet.  ‘Immediate supervision’ is defined as ‘a licensed doctor of veterinary medicine is on the premises whenever veterinary services are being provided.’  At Kesmarc, horses were routinely sedated before entering the hyperbaric chamber, yet there was no vet on site, not according to Kesmarc’s website, nor according to owner Miller, who, in an on-premises interview with a DBPR investigator, stated specifically that a vet was not present during HBOT sessions.

But Miller also told investigators that ‘90%’ of the horses receiving treatment at  Kesmarc were ‘owned’ by the facility.  He repeated that claim in a letter to the DBPR dated October 1, 2010:  ‘As I have explained to you, nearly all of the horses at our facility belong to us.  For those not owned by us, they are brought to the facility under the care of their own veterinarian.’  He added, ‘We do have very knowledgeable people on our staff, including interns who are in veterinary school.’

The letter concluded: ‘We want to cooperate, and if there are any further questions, please feel free to contact me.  If you determine our procedures need to be modified, we will do so.’

Yet, even after the DBPR sent a letter to Kesmarc’s attorney, Willa Fearrington, outlining relevant sections of Florida law regarding the practice of veterinary medicine and suggesting a review of her client’s website, there is no indication that Kesmarc made any changes in how they promoted or conducted their services.   As one of the sponsors in October, 2011 of the USDF Region 3 Championships, Kesmarc’s promotional materials used the same language that was cited in the DBPR’s earlier investigation.  Kesmarc’s current Facebook page (cached here) still calls the clinic a ‘world class equine sports medicine facility’ as well as identifying it as the ‘sister facility to Kesmarc KY.’

But once a Notice to Cease and Desist has been issued, the DBPR does not usually do any follow-up, unless they receive a subsequent complaint of unlicensed activity.

The operation of the HBOT chamber by unpaid, uncertified interns is deeply troubling.   While HBOT is an accepted medical treatment for conditions like burn injuries, anemias and decompression sickness, a hyperbaric chamber is a medical device that is not without some very serious risks to the patient, the operator and to anyone in the general vicinity.  The Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS), the governing body that accredits treatment facilities and certifies practitioners, maintains a database of accidents (PDF) involving HBOT.  During the years 1923-1998, 83 human fatalities occurred in monospace chambers (like the one in Ocala), most of which were caused by fires in the unit.  There have been more recent fatalities as well, including one in Broward, Florida in 2009 in which a four-year old boy and his grandmother were killed when a chamber exploded.  The boy, who had cerebral palsy, was from Italy, where HBOT is strictly controlled due to the risk of fire.

For humans, the UHMS lists fourteen approved uses of HBOT and cautions against any ‘off-label’ applications.  Medicare and most US health insurers will only reimburse for treatments for those fourteen conditions, and HBOT chambers are FDA-approved and licensed and regulated via state agencies.  Health Canada will grant a medical device licence for hyperbaric chambers only for the UHMS-approved conditions.  The Health Canada website states that HBOT is ‘generally safe, as long as the chamber is properly installed according to municipal and provincial regulations; operators and attendants are properly trained; and a certified hyperbaric physician is either on site, or can be reached easily and quickly.’

Unlike in human medicine, the use of HBOT for animals is largely unregulated.  Kesmarc promoted HBOT for a whole host of maladies, not all of which are on the UHMS-sanctioned list.  HBOT, the website said, was ‘useful’ in treating ‘breeding difficulties’, ‘low libido’, ‘low sperm count’, ‘post-colic surgery’ and ‘compromised immune system following disease exposure, traumatic surgical or traveling experiences.’   As Dennis Geisler, DVM and director of hyperbaric services at the University of Tennessee’s Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences told a reporter for the magazine DVM 360,   “In the animal world, since we don’t have third-party pay, we can treat a lot of different problems.”

Landmark’s Legendary Affaire, or ‘Tux’ as he was known, was a six year-old Thoroughbred who had evented to the Novice level.  That much is known about him.  Accounts differ on why he was undergoing HBOT that day.  The United States Eventing Association website quotes Stonehall Farm manager Sue Clark as saying the horse was in for a ‘general wellness treatment in preparation for the upcoming eventing season.’  Sorcha Moneley, the ‘observer’ injured in the blast, told sheriff’s investigators that he was being treated for Equine Protozoal Myeloenchephalitis (EPM).

Both of those things can’t be true, and neither is an approved medical use of HBOT.

The Marion County Sheriff’s report on the explosion, issued on February 16, 2012, is a harrowing read.  It’s the brief, tragic narrative of a doomed, agitated horse trapped in the chamber amid sparks and flames, of Erica Marshall crying as she tried to shut the unit down, of Sorcha Moneley running for help, finding herself thrown to the ground, choked by the hot air that ‘took her breath away.’

This was a situation that no one would ever wanted to find themselves in, and it was a situation that no one present – human or equine – should ever have been in.  In the MCSO report, Sorcha Moneley told investigators that the chamber had been malfunctioning recently.

… she was aware that there were some problems with the valves on the chamber leaking.  She stated that (clinic manager) Leonora Byrne had contacted that facility in Kentucky requesting that they send an engineer to look at the chamber.  Ms. Byrne had contacted the Kentucky facility on more than one occasion and was told that they would send someone when they could and for the time being the chamber could be manually operated to maintain the desired pressure.  Ms. Moneley said she was aware of some heated emails and arguments between Ms. Byrne and the Kentucky facility concerning the hyperbaric chamber.

When interviewed by the sheriff’s investigators, Leonora Byrne did not mention any knowledge of the chamber’s malfunctioning nor did she mention those ‘heated emails and arguments.’  She also stated that the horse had not been sedated prior to entering the chamber that morning which contradicted Moneley’s statement that the horse had been sedated.

This is critical information because, as previously mentioned, Florida law prohibits the administration of tranquilizers without a supervising, licensed veterinarian present.  Furthermore, the Notice to Cease and Desist from 2010 ordered Kesmarc to discontinue and remediate any unlicensed activity.  If what Moneley says is correct, Kesmarc was not complying with that order.

The horse was also allowed into the chamber with four steel shoes on his feet.  Although early reports said the horse’s shoes were covered over with tape or Elastikon, Moneley said the shoes were uncovered because ‘the inside of the chamber is lined with a protective coating making it unnecessary to take (sic) or cover the horse’s shoes.’  Tux, when agitated, kicked out at the wall of the chamber, dislodging a metal lid at the rear of the chamber and striking a spark.  Whether tape would have helped in that situation is unclear but it appears that horses were routinely put in the chamber without any covering on their shoes.  This would never be allowed in a human treatment facility, where metal objects are banned from HBOT chambers.  The risk of fire is just too great.

The MCSO report also gives conflicting information about Moneley’s role at Kesmarc.  Manager Byrne said that Moneley ‘was here to observe the chamber and its inner workings due to the fact that she was from the European theatre and that there were no public hyperbaric chambers situated in Europe.  It was her hope to open her own chamber somewhere in Europe.’  On her Twitter account, Moneley identifies herself as an ‘Equine Physiotherapist’ with a special interest in ‘the use of Hyperbaric Medicine for recovery and rehabilitation of the Equine Athlete.’

When interviewed at Shands Hospital, Moneley told sheriffs that she was staying in a home provided by Kesmarc on the property but denied being paid for her work.  But an OSHA investigator told police that ‘he had spoken with the owner of the property and was advised that she in fact was receiving cash from the facility; however, due to her visa restrictions, she is prohibited from gainful employment in the United States.’

On the website for Veterinary Hyperbaric Oxygen, the company that used to be known as Equine Oxygen Therapy, which manufactured and sold the malfunctioning chamber that exploded in Ocala, there’s no mention at all of the Kesmarc accident at all.

Speaking on behalf of the chamber manufacturer, part-owner Kirsten Johnson, one-time manager of the Ocala facility, told DVM 360: “All of the veterinarians that own hyperbaric chambers have been contacted by the company,” she adds. “They own those chambers … and so are we making recommendations? Is everyone on heightened alert? Of course we are. Have we made any demands? No.  We are being responsible and we are moving forward in a responsible way and all the information we have and we can give, we’re there for them and we’re supporting everyone.”

Hagyard Equine Medical Institute took a different approach.  Hagyard shut down their hyperbaric unit after the Ocala incident in order to to ‘conduct an extensive review of safety protocols and procedures with the chamber’s manufacturer.’  On February 27, the Blood-Horse reported that the unit was back in service, with “additional features” installed in the chamber to enhance “our stringent safety protocols.”  Perhaps this is what should be expected from a renowned veterinary clinic whose hyperbaric medicine director, Dr. Nathan Slovis, DVM, and safety officer, Lynne Hewlett, are both  UHMS-certified as both human and veterinary hyperbaric technologists.

But Hagyard is the exception rather than the rule.  Speaking to DVM 360’s Rachael Whitcomb, Dr. Dennis Geisler acknowledged the lack of standards, and said he was working to set up a veterinary hyperbaric medicine society and also to establish a certification program for technicians.  Meanwhile, he said, veterinary HBOT was on the increase, with small animal veterinarians buying reconditioned human chambers for their practices.  “I don’t even have a handle on how many of those are around.  There are quite a few.”

Warning: Some of the information in the below report is not for the faint of heart

[via ACMEventing]

It’s impossible to mention the Ark this weekend without remembering Willpower. Go Willpower.

I have had the pleasure of knowing Boyd and Silva Martin for a long time, but I have to say that I never expected to read what I did on their blog this morning.  It’s all the rage these days for equestrians to switch disciplines.  From eventers such as Dough Payne spending time fine tuning their show jumping skills in the world of grand prix jumping to the high profile emergence of Marilyn Little-Meredith in the upper levels of eventing, crossing over into disciplines has been shown to not only work but work in a big way both from a publicity and competition results standpoint.  But the very real possibility of Silva switching to eventing and taking over the ride on Neville is both incredibly exciting and a real stretch.

In some sense, the conversion would make perfect sense.  Silva has competed Neville at the lower levels before, and she rode Boyd’s Adelaide 4* horse Brady Bunch around a two-star in 2005 after just two prep runs.  Silva obviously has incredible dressage skills so it would be a perfect combination to pair her with one of the most consistent eventing jumpers of all time.

There’s no doubt that Silva taking over Neville’s ride is a risk for US high performance eventing, but everything I have seen and heard about Otis suggests that he is already rivaling his stable mate for a team spot and of course Boyd also has Remington.  The timing is precarious and of course the word right now is “we’ll take it competition by competition and see how it goes.”  But reportedly the pair has received special permission to compete at the Fork and, with an advanced run, a CIC3* at Jersey, and the Bromont CCI3*, who knows if London might be possible.  Don’t worry folks, Silva received US citizenship a couple of years ago and Boyd tells me she will definitely be riding for the red, white, and blue.  We all know that Neville is a cross-country machine and the real question is what could he do sitting on a 21 going into the weekend?

[Boyd’s blog, Photos of Neville and Silva training]

Go Silva.

I want to give a million thanks to Kate Erickson for being our connection to west coast eventing during this great weekend at Galway.  In true EN spirit, Kate did double and triple duty this weekend including the test ride for the CIC3* and an 8 hour drive home before beginning this post Saturday night.  I also want to give a big congratulations to James for a great weekend that will hopefully get better today with an advanced win, Galway couldn’t have a classier champion.  Good luck to all of the competitors finishing up the horse trials today at Galway and all around Eventing Nation.  Please click the link below to see many more photos from Kate.  Thank you Kate for the great recap and wonderful photos and thank you for reading!
—-

CIC3* champions James Alliston and Jumbo’s Jake

From Kate:

Okay, so what did I say about that perfect California weather? Well, it looks like my future certainly lies in fields other than that of weather forecasting, as Cross Country Day for the upper level divisions of the spring Galway Downs horse trials dawned cool, overcast, and misty, and remained that way throughout the day. While it certainly was not the bright and sunny skies of Friday, the weather was in many ways perfect: quite cool without being too cold to ride comfortably, and with nice even lighting that meant that shadows and glare weren’t an issue all day.

After a relatively smooth Preliminary division first thing in the morning, the first real tests of the day came in the Intermediate horse trial division. Ian Stark’s large and old-fashioned course certainly proved quite the challenge, resulting in numerous stops and a few ‘unseated riders.’ One of the most difficult combinations on this track was 4AB, a double of progressively larger and airier downhill square oxers that came quite early on course and seemed to catch a few of the greener horses by surprise. At the end of the morning, the veteran pair of Julie Ann Boyer and Rumor Hazit maintained their dressage lead on the strength of a clear round with just a handful of time penalties, while James Alliston moved up from 5th to 2nd with a double clear.

The CIC2* seemed to run relatively more smoothly than the Intermediate, though there were still a few problems scattered around the course. Most notably, Kaitlin Veltkamp, who had been lying in 2nd overnight, had a heartbreaking stop at the same 4B that had caused so many problems in the horse trial division, to drop to 7th overall. Katherine Groesbeck rode a smart double clear to secure the win, while Teresa Harcourt and Bonza Twist of Fate moved from 3rd to 2nd with just 0.4 time penalties.

James and Parker II lead the advanced

The Advanced horse trial, like the Intermediate, proved quite difficult, with half the starters picking up at least one stop. Additionally, no combinations came home with fewer than 4.8 time penalties. Dressage leaders James Alliston and Parker II maintained their position by picking up just 10 time penalties, while Jeanine Allred and Snap Decision II moved from 4th to 2nd with the second fastest Advanced ride of the day.

In the CIC3*, it was a display of dominance by James Alliston, who piloted Jumbo’s Jake and Tivoli to 1st and 2nd, respectively. These two horses are polar opposites–Tivoli being hot and explosive and Jumbo’s Jake looking like he could at any moment get almost too casual–so it was a real testament to James’ good riding that he produced such lovely clear rounds out of both of them. Barb Crabo and Eveready II moved up to 3rd with a speedy round, while Jolie Wentworth and Killian O’Connor, who had been 2nd overnight, produced a clear but slow round to drop to 4th.

[Live Galway Scores, Many More Photos from Kate]

Giving some scale to the CIC3* trakehner

I unfortunately had to pack up for the long drive home after the CIC3*, and so missed the CIC*, but the top 8 placings after dressage and show jumping all remained unchanged in that division with Barb Crabo and Over Easy coming home as the wire-to-wire victors. Overall, Galway Downs provided, as ever, an exciting kick off to the FEI season on the West Coast. Go eventing!

James Alliston and Jumbo’s Jake lead the Galway CIC3* after the show jumping

From Kate:

After a day of warm weather, sunshine, and fierce competition, the first two phases of the Galway Downs CIC are already complete, with only cross country left to go. Dressage ran in five arenas for nearly eight hours today, from Novice all the way up to CIC***.

The CIC*** division firmly belonged to James Alliston and Jumbo’s Jake, who led throughout the day after laying down a fluid dressage test followed by a crisp double clear show jumping round. They lead second place Jolie Wentworth and Killian O’Connor by over five points heading into tomorrow’s conclusion. Jolie is on a bit of a recovery mission here after falling at Twin earlier in the season, and will be hoping for a good run tomorrow. Alliston also lies third on Tivoli in that horse’s first three star attempt. The show jumping did not prove overly influential in the CIC*** division, with the top three placings remaining unchanged after the first phase; Barb Crabo and Eveready were the biggest movers of the division, bumping up two places to 4th on the merit of a smart double clear.

In the CIC**, by contrast, Joe Lombardo’s large and twisting track proved much more substantial, with the top eight positions all shuffling to some degree and with double clears proving extremely hard to come by. In the end the only two riders able to produce clear rounds–Katherine Groesbeck and Kaitlin Veltkamp–moved up to first and second, respectively, with dressage leader Teresa Harcourt and Bonza Twist of Fate moving down to 3rd with three rails.

[Live Galway Scores]

Scores in all divisions are still extremely close, however, meaning that Ian Stark’s imposing tracks will certainly provide an exciting conclusion tomorrow. Riders in the FEI divisions will compete in reverse order of merit, meaning that all the pressure will be on the final combinations to maintain their leads. The weather looks like it will, in true good southern California, continue to be perfect, so it’s going to be an awesome day to go eventing!

Debbie Rosin and The Alchemyst are 5th in the CIC3*

John Michael Durr and Warrick (8th CIC***)

Katherine Groesbeck and Oz The Tin Man are 1st in the CIC**

If you are viewing this, then you should give yourself a pat on your back because you are now viewing the new and improved Eventing Nation. The design team chinchillas went through painstaking efforts to ensure that this new version looks almost exactly the same as the Eventing Nation that you know and love. However, I assure you that in terms of ability to handle traffic, functionality, convenience for the writers, stability, ability to grow moving forward, and comment spam protection we have taken a huge step forward that will allow us to focus purely on bringing you all of your eventing news and ridiculousness. Movable Type served our purposes in 2009 as a tiny rambling blog with one post per day, but after several site crashes, a completely overloaded spam filter, and countless frustrations for the EN Team including inexplicably lost news and notes posts at 1am, we have made the leap to WordPress. The transition took weeks longer than I hoped. Thursday will go down in EN lore as a day of infamy, but the worst part of the transition is behind us. We will be unleashing a few new features on EN over the coming weeks and I’m excited to spend more of my time back writing for EN rather than dealing with a website migration.

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I couldn’t write a post like this without thanking the many members of the EN Team, and that extends out to each and every contributor to Eventing Nation from commenters to the tipster who sent us that video of Nat VC dancing to our guest bloggers and particularly the writers who work so hard each and every day to contribute to Eventing Nation. Last, but very not least, I want to extend our many thanks to our sponsors as well–Cavalor, Devoucoux, Dubarry, Flair, Horse Quencher, John Nunn’s family of companies including Nunn Finer and Tack of the Day, Omega Alpha, Pennfield, Point Two, SmartPak, Success Equestrian, Tipperary, and World Equestrian Brands. Our sponsors pay the bills that keep the EN compound lit and the Chinchillas warm through the long cold winter and in turn the Chinchillas keep us all sane, or thereabouts.

Go eventing.

The only and best way to introduce this video is to say that it was submitted by the one, the only, the epic, and EN’s very own Meg Kepferle.

From Meg:

Well southern pines has come and gone. It was a sticky….and soggy weekend for a lot of people, but as usual the competitors party was a fabulous time.  While frantically limping around with two sprained ankles this weekend, I was approached by Southern Pines local and eventing guru Sam Smithson who promptly introduced himself to me and demanded more eyewitness reports.  For those who are unfamiliar with eyewitness reports, they originated in 2010 when I was working for Doug Payne and Chrissy McBride was working for Sinead.  Add us all in a trailer, sharing a polo barn and a few Landshark beers with one overused Sony camera…and Eyewitness Reports were born. And while they all were not necessarily EN appropriate, they were a big hit. So after a long hiatus, a true fan has demanded more. And who am I to deny the people of what they want?

So, I present to you the first of hopefully many eyewitness reports of the season.

Go eventing.

OK, maybe not really.  But you may have noticed some technical difficulties today on EN, and that is because Armageddon is finally here: the site is switching servers, and life as we know it is ending.  I think.