Today we have a very special view from a horse submission. This photo was taken by Boyd’s super-groom and assistant rider, Caitlin Silliman, as she was hacking Remington in Chantilly, France earlier today. Remi will receive 20 liters of fluids later this evening and will board a truck first thing Sunday morning to make the 12 hour drive to the Pau CCI4*, where he will meet with Boyd. Thanks to Caitlin and Boyd for keeping us updated.
The Pau website seems to rival the WEG site in terms of obscurity and difficulty to understand, but I have included a link to the site and draw list below. There are just under 40 entries to Pau and Boyd is the second to the last competitor.
We bring you part four of Jenny’s adventure as a working student and EN guest blogger. Jenny has ambitiously decided to spend the next year as a working student in Lexington, Kentucky. And yes, I promise Jenny explains the picture in the blog. Thanks for writing this Jenny and thank you for reading.
I am a huge scatterbrain and went one week longer than usual to write my next post because life has been so incredibly hectic these past three weeks! My last post was right after the eventing at WEG, and every second after I pressed the send button to John has been packed with excitement!
I’ll start off with a silly story that ended with me sporting the pirate- look for a few days… Since we were going to be at Fair Hill for a whole week, I decided that on my last day off before we left that I would ride Molson so that he wouldn’t get too fat while I was gone. This particular day happened to be rather windy and within .02 seconds of entering the ring, a large sandstorm erupted and decided to invade my eye. Now as a rider I know this happens all the time, and with other things too, like fly spray, horsehair, hay, etc. However, this sand decided to scratch up my cornea so that I couldn’t even open my eye, not even after Andrea and I went inside and tried flushing it out. The next step was to try to get to an eye doctor, however being out of state made it impossible for me to go anywhere except an ER to be covered by my insurance. Thus, the wonderful Andrea drove me to the ER to get looked at, and I came home with lots of goodies, including a sweet eye patch!
Luckily, my eye healed before we left for Fair Hill, and so the adventure began. The trip up to Maryland went quite smoothly and we arrived only to find out we were encroaching on the largest stinkbug territory known to man. Now I don’t mean just a few here and there, I mean a full infestation. When we tried to bring down the blue tarps on the side of the stabling area, it was like Armageddon only with millions of stinkbugs! We had nightly examinations of all of our sleeping bags to make sure we weren’t sharing our sleeping quarters with any unwanted creatures. Fortunately I was able to concentrate on a few other things besides the unusually large population of stink bugs, such as watching some of the best riders in the country compete on some very talented horses. I was in complete awe while watching Clark Montgomery warm up his horses, and I’m still drooling over how quiet his hands are… ah, envy… I also watched in amazement as Megan competed her two polar-opposite upper level horses, making the challenging XC course look easy as pie on both of them! I was also lucky to go on the course walk with Megan and Bonnie Mosser and learned how to attack a 2* course. Needless to say, I learned copious amounts during our week in Maryland, and truly enjoyed every moment of it. All of the volunteers were super nice, and I even made friends with one of the ring stewards during dressage, as Megan spent some extra time in the ring due to her ring blowing away (literally) in the middle of her test! After a great week, our ride home was far from easy. With only a few more hours left to go, the truck decided it was going to break down and we had to pull into a gas station for a few hours until Megan’s father and one of her loyal boarders came out to rescue us! Thank goodness for friends and family at 3am!
Last week was one giant blur, as my stress level increased tenfold when I came home to a lame horse. With the drought and hard ground, it seems Molson has a big crack in his hind heel, and after calling in a billion favors from our vet and farrier, we made him perfectly comfortable. After a few more days of soaking and packing his foot, he should be just fine! While I would never wish lameness on my horse or any horse for that matter, this does seem to be perfect timing since I am fortunate enough to have developed carpal tunnel syndrome in both of my wrists. The culprit? My loving horse’s large head that I have to hold while riding. The answer? More dressage lessons to make him lighter! (The chiropractor suggested no more riding, I responded with laughter) Megan rode him a few weeks ago and joked that it was her bicep workout to prepare for Fair Hill… however now I am realizing that it is becoming a problem and must work harder to make my horse carry his own darn head!
I am running out of time and energy now, but I must explain the picture. Basically, I was lucky to catch a ride on one of Megan’s clients’ horses for Midsouth Team Challenge since Moo was out, and went XC in a full lion costume. After the past few weeks, it was exactly what I needed to just have some fun and let loose a little! Personally, I think costumes should be required for XC, it’s way more entertaining!
I don’t know about you, but one thing I have really missed lately on Eventing Nation is my weekly dose of Visionaire. Vis is unquestionably one of Eventing Nation’s most talented writers and I am always helplessly jealous of her posts. Unfortunately for all of us, a new major promotion and marriage have taken up most of Visionaire’s time lately so she forwarded along a rider profile for me to post on her behalf. Thanks for submitting this Catie and thank you for reading.
Your Name: Catie
Age: 31
Location: Burlington, MA, but I ride in Hollis, NH with my trainer
Age, breed, pertinent info: 7 year old chestnut thoroughbred mare that I just recently partnered with as a ‘project’. She’s been out of work for a couple years while she had a lovely colt, so she’s rediscovering having a job. Grinds her teeth during dressage, but she’s all ears when it comes to jumping.
Level currently competing: I did beginner novice this summer with my previous partner, but now I have Fiona and competition is on the back burner until next year when she’s fit and ready to go.
Short term goals this spring/summer: Get her out to some shows and start getting her some experience. Cross rail division, here we come.
Year-end goals: Get Fiona going comfortably with her dressage tests, and get me fit enough to be comfortable with riding my project six days a week. This means more mountain biking when I’m not at the barn.
Overall goals? A training three-day. I’ve always wanted to try the long format.
What’s the best thing you’ve learned recently? That sometimes a horse can be a wonderful, wonderful horse, but they are just not the right horse for you. And when that happens? It’s not fun for anyone involved. My previous partner was a wonderful saint of a horse, but our personalities clashed. He needed to be pushed to everything, and I got frustrated that I was always kicking. Now I have a TB that needs her brakes reinstalled. She’s no packer, but I’m having a lot of fun.
Also, do not jump a ditch like it’s a liverpool. Your trainer will explode. I know this first hand.
Favorite eventing moment/story? I was visiting my trainer in Aiken and we were schooling cross country. She set up a full course for us that looped all around the property we were schooling at. I had just converted from hunter/jumpers recently, and as I was cantering briskly along, sizing up the cordwood that was next on course, it suddenly dawned on me. My trainer couldn’t see me. It was just me and the horse powering along. We cleared the cordwood and went galloping up the hill and I just started giggling. It was such a rush. In the h/j world, I always had someone right there, especially if I was jumping. Even showing, there were hisses from the rail.
It was probably the first time I had jumped something without a trainer in my twenty plus years of riding.
As I mentioned yesterday, I have been dealing with a family situation at the hospital for the last 32 hours. My wonderful Mom was admitted to the UVa hospital early Thursday morning, but, while any trip to the hospital is serious, it seems like things are looking up and we should be able to go home soon. As always, I’d like to give a huge thanks to the EN Team for stepping up and providing some great posts that we have published and will publish over the next couple of days.
–Meanwhile, the CCI2* and horse trials at Chattahoochee Hills start today. Clark Montgomery has a chance to make it two CCI2* wins in a row between Fair Hill and Chattahoochee with his ride Cyrano Z. Clark works out of Chattahoochee Hills so he will be defending his home turf. Jonathan Holling has two horses entered in the CCI2*. There are 17 horses starting the CCI2* dressage today.
–These last few horse trials of the autumn season are often a good chance for the professionals to ride their younger horses and the pressure is on everyone to have a good experience going into the winter break. The Virginia Horse Trials and Team Challenge is being hosted this weekend at the beautiful Virginia Horse Center. There are some interesting entries in the VHT intermediate. Kelli Temple is taking Axel Rose out for another event after he was very naughty at Fair Hill. Phillip has two horses in the division and his vet, Kevin Keane is riding Fernhill Flutter in the same division.Ahsley Adams is running her Rolex horse Vaunted also in the intermediate.
–The ESDCTA Horse Trials is running at the Horse Park of New Jersey this weekend and is running training through starter levels. Link: ESDCTA scores. The only other USEA sanctioned event of the weekend is the Briar Fox HT in Kansas.
–In other news, I am pleased to report that Remington arrived in Chantilly, France last night. Remington will spend two days recovering from his flight in Chantilly and will be grazed and ridden by his groom Caitlin. Boyd will fly into France on Sunday.
–Finally, 60 Minutes will be running a feature on the super mare Zenyatta on Sunday evening. They will be featuring Zenyatta’s preparation for the $5,000,000 Breeders Cup Classic race in early November–Zenyatta will be the favorite in that race. Check out hidden camera footage of her training:
Just an hour after I published the post late last night I found myself in the hospital for a family emergency which explains the long gap in post times. But, things seem to be sorting out and it’s a welcome break from pacing around the hospital to get to write for Eventing Nation with some good eventing news–and there is only good news in this post. I haven’t slept in 30 hours, so, as always, please forgive the typos.
Remington landed safe and sound in Amsterdam Thursday morning. Remi traveled perfectly, landed with excellent vital signs, and bounced right onto the transport truck for the next leg of his trip to Pau. Remington is now en route to Chantilly, France with super groom Caitlin. Read more at Boyd’s blog.
There is also good news from the riders involved in serious falls at Fair Hill. In Wednesday night’s live blog I mentioned that I had spoken with Sharon on Wednesday and Sharon is recovering well from her pelvis injury at home.
Jennifer Simmons is also recovering well from her concussion at home in Texas, according to the COTH.
When I was talking with Sharon, we mentioned that while a tough fall and injury is always horrible, a tiny silver lining is that the timing of falling at Fair Hill gives her time to recover while her horses take a break. We look forward to seeing both Sharon and Jennifer back in action this coming spring.
As much as I love democracy, I absolutely hate the last few days before an election. We are five days away from mid-term elections here in the US and that means that our televisions, mailboxes, and radio stations have been taken over by absurd political hate mongering. According to political ads here in central Virginia, voters can choose between the vampire form of a reincarnate Saddam Hussein or the werewolf who likes to arm mentally unstable senior citizens and then eat them for dinner. When I think about what could happen if both parties halted attack ads and donated the money to charity instead, it makes my head spin. Talk about wishful thinking…
The FEI presidential election is on November 5th at the FEI general assmbly in Chinese Taipei. Nancy Jaffer has written an article for EquiSearch in which she interviews David O’Connor about his decision to endorse Henk Rottinghuis and run as Henk’s second VP. The article points out that this is the first time a standing FEI president has been challenged for reelection, and that the FEI presidency has been held by royalty for over 50 years–sounds like time for a change. Two big catalysts for opposition to Princess Haya are the NSAID’s voting, approval, then retraction mess and the McLain Ward and Sapphire disaster. When Nancy asked David if the US would be hurt if Henk loses because David supported the opposition, David responded by saying “it’s hard to speculate.” I take that to mean: get ready for mandatory Arabic dressage letters.
Elsewhere on the inter-web, Horsetalk has published a more general overview of the FEI election. In that article, the other challenger to Princess Haya, Sven Holmberg of Sweden says that he considered David for his position of 1st VP, but said that both of his VP candidates “must be without even the smallest possible conflict of interest at any time.” Obviously, there is a lot of political maneuvering going on behind closed doors. But, if HoImberg is elected, he says that David will represent North America on Holmberg’s Executive Board.
My knowledge of the FEI is mostly limited to my personal experience. I could write about FEI stewards blatantly refusing to answer simple questions about rules or the FEI press office not returning emails about procedural questions, but instead I’ll just make the point that I support anything to change the culture of arrogance that seems to drive every decision made by the FEI in the past 12 months. As I understand it, each one of the 133 FEI member nations has one vote in the presidential election so the entire election will probably come down to how a group of tiny countries with about 140 horses total between them decide to vote. That’s all I can write about politics for at least 24 hours. —-
Let’s look at some other news and notes from around Eventing Nation:
As we mentioned in the Wednesday night live blog,Oliver Townend will be the keynote speaker at the USEA convention in Arizona this December. Oliver is an unquestionably brilliant rider, but he has shocked me in the past with his horsemanship decisions, such as running Carousel Quest at three four-stars in less than 5 months, and I think there were many better choices. That said, there’s nothing that female US eventers seem to get excited about more than talented, handsome, and self entitled European riders. As is tradition on EN, we link to a certain absurd video every time we mention Oliver Townend.
Speaking of the live blog, it was brilliant fun and thanks to everyone who joined us. Lainey unexpedtedly sent me a message that she was viewing the live blog and so we brought her in as a spontaneous guest. Lainey handled questions from readers with poise and it was nice to have her join us on what must have been a very disappointing day for her. She mentioend that FEI rules against steroids had prevented a traditional injection of Al, which meant that the vets had to use the slower acting and ultimately too slow acting IRAP. Also, so far I have only received one angry email from a high ranking, fun-killing, eventing executive for revealing too much information in the live blog, which we will just say is below average.
David Epstein wrote an excellent article on concussions for Sports Illustrated that points out that even minor head trauma can have serious long term consequences. I have fallen off a horse so many times and hit my head that…what was I saying?
At the time of posting this, Eventing Nation has 1,999 Facebook fans. Someone please go to our fanpage and suggest that your friends like EN so we can break the 2,000 mark. The link is in the sidebar. Yes, I am that neurotic if you didn’t already know.
Please join me, Coren, and Annie tonight as we chat about all things eventing and of course there will be non-eventing topics as well. It has been a busy past few days around the eventing world with David making his FEI presidency endorsement, Al scratching from Pau, Remington shipping off for France, and Chattahoochee Hills getting ready to start this week. On top of it all, Oliver Townend was just announced as the keynote speaker at this year’s USEA convention. Please join in on the conversation with your questions and comments and I’ll do my best to keep us on topic.
In what might be the start of a new EN tradition, we have scheduled a live blog for 7:00pm tonight. It will last for about 30 minutes and, like last week, I will be joined by other members of the EN team. We’ll chat about the past week, look ahead to the upcoming three-days, chat about Halloween costumes, and I’m sure much more ridiculousness will ensue. Gather your friends, family, cats, dogs, small domestic rodents, and horses, and join us at 7:00pm ET. Go eventing.
Riders, Horses, and Grooms of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of Eventing Nation are upon you.
After receiving fluids last night, Remington left True Prospect Farm early this morning for a drive to the JFK airport in New York. The horse will fly JFK to Amsterdam Wednesday night and arrive in Amsterdam Thursday morning. Remi will then be driven about 5 hours to Chantilly, France, where he will have a two day rest to recover from the flight. Remi will hack and graze in Chantilly. Bright and early Sunday morning Remington will leave for the 12 hour drive to Pau.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely.
All in all, Remington will spend 5 days en route to Pau and my guesstimate is that he will spend about 35 hours actually riding in vehicles during the journey. Of course, Remington will be cared for by the best in the business throughout the trip. Boyd will be flying into Paris, and from what I hear, the main concern with the French strikes for the trip is that they might impede the travel into Paris. But, with a little luck, everyone should get to Pau safe and sound by Sunday evening.
Click here for an approximation of the trip from Amsterdam to Pau, via Chantilly (B).
I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory! Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.
“It is with my utmost apologies that I have to withdraw my entry from Pau CCI****. Just last week a slight lameness appeared and was diagnosed as acute arthritis. Unfortunately, due to the timing of the event, steroids could not be injected…and the irap was not as effective as we’d hoped. Therefore I cannot send my horse across the pond knowing he is not 100%. I’m very sorry for the last minute decision and I hope you all understand. We will live to fight another day and win another four star. Thank you again.”
I respect Lainey for making the decision to save “Al” for another day and I feel really bad that yet another top US horse has had bad luck at the last minute. Eventing Nation wishes Anthony Patch a speedy recovery and we look forward to seeing him at Rolex this spring. I have a lot of respect for Lainey for explaining the situation to her many fans in a simple yet straightforward manner. Our attention turns now to Remington who is the only US horse still traveling to Pau. Remington left True Prospect Farm a few hours ago for the JFK airport.
Today’s news and notes are brought to you by people in China with way too much time and money on their hands. Please contain your amazement that our friends in China have embraced yet another bizarre trend, but dyeing dogs like wild animals is all the rage in China these days. I suppose we can justify posting the photos as Halloween costume ideas.
Looking at the week ahead in eventing, the three major items of note in the US are the Chattahoochee CCI2*, looking ahead to the Galway CCI3*, and the departure of Remington and Anthony Patch for France. The horses are scheduled to leave on Wednesday, and there are signs that the French strikes are waning. The latest word is that all systems are go for the trip.
In sad news, two US teenagers died in recreational riding incidents over the weekend.
John Vancy at the Eventing Safety website has written a great article on the Mim NewEra Clip System frangible safety technology. These jumps use a breakable clip to make rails and tables collapsible and present an alternative to frangible pins and logs. We also appreciate the shout out from Eventing Safety last week.
Mims in action:
In a bit of an odd media moment, the Chronicle has just posted a news article that the Pan Ams are being run as a two-star next year. I say “odd” because, as the article says, “the decision was made at the FEI’s 2008 General Assembly.” The news is two years old and riders have been aware of this and planning accordingly since, well…2008. In other news, Rolex will in fact be run as a CCI4* this spring.
In international news, the world mourns the death of Paul the octopus on Tuesday. Paul is world famous partially for his correct soccer World Cup predictions, but mostly for his EN short list predictions. Paul died of natural causes.
I’m not sure if there is anything that has been more exciting for eventing fans over the past year than the emergence of helmet cams. I suppose that, like everything, helmet cams will eventually become old news. When that happens hopefully then everyone will start using the helicopter from Rebecca Farm. But, for now, helmet cams are still awesome and we will keep posting them.
Here is a helmet cam from this weekend at the Waredaca open prelim, uploaded by Buzzterbrown
Here is helmet cam footage of the AEC prelim course, uploaded to Youtube over the weekend. Thanks to JK for the link to this video, which I believe was also posted on the COTH Forum.
Eventing Nation’s UK connection and guest writer, aka lec, recently sent me an email mentioning that she was planning to attend a clinic for eventers on the proper technique of how to fall off a horse while minimizing the risk of injury. Every clinic I have ever been to has been about how not to fall off, but the topic had ‘Eventing Nation’ written all over it and I asked lec to write a clinic report. This is just a report on lec’s experience at the clinic not any kind of manual on falling so Eventing Nation’s vast legal staff has advised me to ask everyone not to try the methods in this report at home. So, only try them at work and the barn. But seriously, consult a trained and certified falling professional before attempting any of these techniques. Thanks for writing this lec and thank you for reading. —- Just another day at the barn
From lec:
In eventing a great deal of things are trained and coached for but one of the things that we tend to try and avoid is falling off and practicing falling off. I was recently lucky enough to embark of some falling training and found it really useful so thought I would share it with Eventing Nation.
I apologise in advance about the photos but the shutter speed is not quick enough and the light was fading. We used an outdoor arena for this training. Anywhere can be used as long as the landing is soft. Start off slowly and very low down so you do not hurt yourself.
Neil our trainer is a judo expert so has been taught to fall correctly. He demonstrated an impressive leap into the air and fall onto his back that we all gasped at and hoped that we would not have to copy. Neil is also a horse rider and feels that every rider should be taught to fall correctly. Neil says riders that are scared to fall off will get injured more as they hit the floor rigid. The more relaxed you can be about falling off the better it is for you. Jockeys are taught to fall correctly by being pushed out of a moving vehicle but luckily we were dealing with kinder methods than that!
The most essential part of falling off is that ideally you want to land on your back. The reason is that your back has the strongest muscles and your internal organs are all protected if you fall like this. Ideally you will fall absorbing the impact on your shoulders and upper back.
We started on our knees and then you crouch over with one hand touching the floor. This hand is the one you do not write with. You then tuck your other arm by your side look under the elbow of the arm that you are supporting yourself on and do like a forward roll. Do this a couple of times until you feel confident. By looking under your armpit/elbow you are making sure your head and neck are tucked in. You are aiming to roll into a ball and land on your back with your arms outstretched.
Note the looking under the elbow and the outstretched arm
The aim is to practice every day. It has been proven in sports science that something practiced over 1000 times will become ingrained into the memory and so that if you do find yourself having a fall the brain will automatically kick in and you will land better.
Interestingly one of the discussions we had in the arena was that those who were not worried about falling off had ridden as kids and had fallen off a lot. This practice of falling off lots was ingrained and because they did not worry about falling off they often walked away from some nasty falls. The riders who were more worried about falls were those who were adults and had only really started riding later in life. They said through this training they felt more confident and were soon flinging themselves around on the floor with gusto.
Neil also said it was easy to recognise riders who had been trained to fall properly and he believes Zara Phillips has been taught very well as has walked away from some crunching falls. Particularly her fall at the Burghley mushrooms a couple of years ago.
Brooke Baugher won the Waredaca training three-day division C over the weekend and was kind enough to write about her experience for Eventing Nation. I have known Brooke for many years and watched her develop into an excellent young rider under her coach Emily Beshear, who owns and operates Brickland Farm in central Virginia. Jade Cooling, one of Emily’s working students, took the fabulous photos that are included in this post. Thanks for writing this Brooke and thank you for reading. —-
From Brooke:
The Training Three Day was an awesome experience. I don’t think that I have ever had so much fun at an event in my life! The week was, although very busy, a really cool learning experience. Looking back, there is plenty of room for improvement, but I wouldn’t change anything about how it turned out!
We started off the week with our first horse inspection after attending a very helpful seminar with guest speaker Eric Smiley, who provided all of the competitors with a lot of great information and laughs throughout the week. After finding out I was the last competitor to jog, Gilly and I settled in and waited for the other 40 competitors to finish their jogs (all successfully). After jogs it was off to hack around to roads and tracks course!
Wednesday was dressage day, and I was pretty pumped because Gilly had felt great the night before. My trainer, Emily Beshear, came up to help us out with the warm up and made sure we were 100% ready to go in the ring. It was our first time in a big arena, and it was really nice. The test felt pretty good, other than a few movements, and I ended up with a decent score, even with two points taken off for talking in the ring… After dressage, I took care of Gilly and went out to walk the cross country course with Emily.
After walking the course with Emily, I walked it again with another student from Brickland, Jade Cooling. As we walked around, we talked about what the following day was going to be like, and she hit the nail on the head when she said, “I’m not even nervous; mainly because I have no clue what tomorrow is going to be like.” For all of the first time Three Day competitors I think it rang true.
Emily tending to Gilly on XC day
At the start of cross country day, we started by getting together a muck tub full of things that Emily had put on a list for us the night before. Her “brief” list included over 20 items that we may have needed. I headed out to the start of phase a wearing not only my regular cross country gear, but also two watches on my left arm and my whip watch. That morning, Emily had also written the optimum times for each phase on my right arm. I was set. Gilly and I easily came in within the time limit for phase A and stood (or attempted to stand) waiting impatiently for the start of the steeplechase. Gilly was pretty revved up for the steeplechase and after coming in under the time limit by about 20 seconds we left for phase C. I can’t say we did much walking and recovering…he wasn’t really going for it. We came in a few minutes early to the 10 minute box, but Gilly was barely tired and we were both pretty excited for cross country! The course rode really great, and even though there were a few errors on my part, Gilly took very good care of me and we made it within the time limit. Needless to say he got many well-deserved carrots and A+ treatment after!
The last day of the competition meant one more jog. Gilly got a quick clean up and then got an all clear for the stadium jumping. I came into stadium in second place, the top three places less than a point apart. I felt really ready to tackle the course. The third place competitor put in a great round, leaving us with no room for error. But, Gilly was a trooper as always and put in an A+ round, and left all of the rails in the cups! As we stood outside waiting, I was told that the competitor in first pulled a rail; I was immediately congratulated and many high-fives were exchanged. The highlight of the week for Gilly, I believe, was getting to lead the victory gallop after impatiently waiting through the awards.
The week was amazing! The entire competition was very well run…thanks to all of the organizers for putting the Three Day on! Also, I think I can speak for Jade and I when I say that without Emily we wouldn’t have done as well as we did. After helping her students to win the Three Day two consecutive years and three years all together, Emily easily earns the title of “best trainer” in my book!
I’m going to be honest, when I first saw this news my first reaction was to wonder is ‘Rottinghuis’ a verb or a noun. But then suddenly I remembered several articles I had read on The Carrot supporting a distinguished Mr. Rottinghuis in the FEI presidential election, to be held later this year. Looking back through The Carrot’s archives, I found this post about Rottinghuis’ platform, and another article about Rottinghuis being awesome.
So, I guess it would only make sense that US gold medalist, Canadian silver medal coach, USEF President, and, most importantly, good friend to Eventing Nation, David O’Connor has endorsed Henk Rottinghuis in his challenge to HRH Princess Haya for the FEI Presidency. David has agreed to serve as Rottinghuis’ first vice president if Rottinghuis wins. Check out Rottinghuis’ website for more information on the candidate and his platform. Sven Holmberg of Sweden is also in the running for the presidency.
Thanks to our very own Katie Lindsay for the heads up on this story. Go eventing.
The story of the weekend in North America is the success of the long format events at the Midsouth Team Challenge and the Waredaca Training Three-Day. We have been writing about the long format events as a wonderful educational experience and a tremendous amount of fun since the beginning here at EN and I am very excited to see that they had such success this weekend. On Monday we will hear from a T3DE rider, but until then here are the news and notes from a great weekend of Eventing.
(1) At the Midsouth CCI* short format held at the Kentucky Horse Park, Kristin Rozycki and Full Circle finished on their dressage score of 47.2 to take the victory. Kirsten Bjorge won the prelim three-day with Life Is Good. The prelim three-day only had 6 starters and a trend that I have seen is that the training three-days have way more entrants than their prelim counterparts. The T3DE at Midsouth had 34 starters and Erin Branigan of Canada won that division with Tiger Lilly on an impressive 34.7.
(2) In the prelim team challenge at Midsouth, the “Best of the Bluegrass” team lived up to their name with the win. The “Oh Canada!” team did not find the same success that the Canadian team had at the Horse Park just a few weeks ago and finished the weekend in 6th. For full individual and team results from Midsouth, click here.
Video from the Midsouth show jumping:
(3) The training three-day at Waredaca wrapped up on Saturday with Nicole Coffey and Contortionist winning the A division, Dawn Beach and Sudden Ecliple winning the B division, and Brooke Baugher and Smoke Signal winning the C division. In true eventing form, the three riders only added 4 penalties total to their dressage scores over the weekend. Link: full T3DE results
(4) In the Waredaca Open Prelim-B division, Phillip placed 6 horses in the top 7 of the division.
(5) Turning to eventing news from France, Andreas Dibowski placed first and second aboard Mighty Magic and FRH Butts Avedon respectively at the Mondial du Lion CCI2*. WEG bronze medalist Andrew Nicholson placed third aboard Quimbo. Canadian Lindsay Pearce was the only North American competitor at the event and finished an impressive 15th in the CCI2* with her mare Saniki. Lindsay is a good friend of mine and has written occasionally for Eventing Nation, I am glad to see she is having a great time working with her coach in England, Lucy Wiegersma. I traded emails with Lindsay’s Mom who wrote “It was a fantastic event with huge crowds up to 10 deep at favorite fences like Le Cottage – a huge drop shaped like a house roof with a skinny chevron brush at the bottom! Ooh-la-la!!!” Link:Mondial results
(7) One trend I have noticed this year is that team challenges and training three-days have been incredibly popular. This is something to keep in mind as we look to grow eventing and I expect to see more of both formats in the near future. Go eventing.
While everyone else across Eventing Nation is enjoying competing at events or frolicking through sunny autumn fields aboard their steeds today, I get to spend the afternoon doing one of my least favorite things–clipping. It happens every autumn: I delay the inevitable for as long as possible by using lots of blankets, but eventually the horses get too fuzzy and need to be clipped. Sure, rubbing an over sized pair of loud vibrating blades over a 1,200 pound animal is no fun, but the worst part about clipping is that the hair gets everywhere, meaning that you have that constant itchy feeling for the rest of the day. And, if you happen to be a perfectionist like me, then the clipping process takes twice as long trying to remove those hateful clipper lines. Another one of my favorite clipping moments is when your blades suddenly go completely dull when you are 95% done, and hair is everywhere. Good times.
So help me out Eventing Nation–do you have any special tips or tricks for clipping? Some people have suggested clipping while the horse is wet to avoid inhaling tons of hair, but the dampness makes the hair stick together and the clipper lines get worse. What are your suggestions for helping the horse to grow back a sleek and shiny coat? Personally, I’m going to see if Omega Alpha can make a supplement to keep horses growing hair at the perfect length all year long. Go eventing.
Earlier today we linked to live video feed of the Mondial du Lion CCI2* in France because watching cross-country is awesome even if there is a loud French announcer in the background. I also think it is really interesting to compare XC courses from different countries. Thanks to Pegasus 4444 for uploading the Mondial videos.
William and Bay My Hero – currently 10th
Andreas Ostholt and So Is Et – currently 4th
—-
Here is steeplechase video from the Midsouth Prelim Three-Day at the Kentucky Horse Park from Saturday:
Good luck to all the competitors on Sunday for the show jumping and go eventing.
With just five USEA sanctioned events this weekend, it is a relatively quiet weekend here in the US. Or, I should say it is the quietest weekend we will have until mid November. I have clipping on my agenda for this weekend which is always a lovely process.
In a service that would do ESPN proud, the CCI2* at Mondial du Lion in France is providing complete free online streaming of the XC. Due to the time difference, the streaming will only be available until around 11:00am ET. Link to the video courtesy of Pegasus44.
Rumors about the sale of eventing world champion La Biosthetique Sam continue to swirl and the latest reports suggest that the horse will be bought for a British team rider. In a Horse and Hound article from Friday, Michael Jung’s brother Phillip is quoted as saying “it looks like Sam will get sold to a sponsor of the British team for 2 million pounds.” Michael Jung’s family owns 40% of Sam and Sabine Kreuter owns the other 60%. Phillip Jung explained that the family has a contract with Ms. Kreuter to allow the Jungs to make the decisions regarding Sam’s training which expires at the end of the year, and Kreuter now seems inclined to sell the horse to the highest bidder. Anyone who has followed high profile public negotiations knows that any public statements by any involved parties should be taken with a grain of salt.
Of course the Jungs would like to keep the ownership in Germany, which would likely allow Michael to keep the ride and Phillip said that the Jung family was willing to buy the horse for 1 million pounds. Which British rider would get the ride is even more up in the air than whether the sale will happen, but names like Mary King, Nicola Wilson, Piggy French, Zara Phillips, Oliver Townend have been thrown around. In my mind, Zara is the one who stands out from that list as desperately needing a top 4* horse because Toytown has proven very tough to replace. Obviously, with the 2012 games approaching, British owners will be especially excited about buying a horse that can win the gold at home in two years. Go eventing.
These days the eventing season is 11 months long and we still have one month to go in the 2010 season. Over the next three weeks there will be three-days of every level, including the Midsouth CCI* in Kentucky this weekend, the Chattahoochee (GA) CCI2* and the Galway CCI3* in California next weekend, and then the Pau CCI4* the following weekend.
The Galway CCI3* (Nov. 4-7) in particular stands out to me because it represents the tremendous growth of west coast eventing in the past couple of years. In its first year, the Galway three-star has seventeen entries–over half the number of Fair Hill entries.
Both Titainium and Arthur are entered and, while I don’t want to belabor the comparisons to Fair Hill any more than to point out positives for Galway, that is two more short listers than Fair Hill. Jennie Brannigan is shipping the lovely Cambalda out for his first CCI3*. Buck does a lot of teaching in California and Jennie is of course from California. Galway also has several of the west coast Rolex 2010 horses entered, including R-Star, Ballinakill Glory, and The Alchemyst. Nearly half of the Galway field is four-star horses.
Update: Speaking of large entry numbers, Jenna was kind enough to point out in the comment section that the T3DE has a 37 entries, which is a fantastic showing for that format. Waredaca is also hosting a T3DE in Maryland this weekend.
One of my biggest questions with Galway will be the difficulty of the cross-country. This spring we commented on the apparent ease of the Galway CIC3* and some of the west coast horses struggled at Rolex. Ian Stark is the course designer so I expect the course will ride like any Ian Stark CCI3* course–big and tough. I am particularly excited to see several of the best horses from the east coast take on the west coast contingent on their home turf. In the words of the great Ian Stark: go FORWARD!!!
Well friends, it’s nearly Halloween and that means it is time to get your Lady Gaga costumes ready decorate pumpkins. Stephanie, an EN reader, has decorated her pumpkin to look like the super-mare Zenyatta. I’m not sure the cotton earplugs are racing legal, but I can see the resemblance for sure:
Hey there good lookin’
What’s next, a Woodburn pumpkin? How about a Biko pumpkin? Go eventing.
With just five USEA sanctioned events this weekend, it is a relatively quiet weekend here in the US. Or, I should say it is the quietest weekend we will have until mid November. I have clipping on my agenda for this weekend which is always a lovely process. 
