Bonner Carpenter and Impeccable
It was a beautiful and fun day at Rocking Horse. We don’t say this enough, but thanks to all the wonderful volunteers and officials who devoted their Satuday to putting on a great event for the riders and horses. Everything I am writing about in this post wouldn’t have been possible without the Rocking Horse volunteers:
1) Elizabeth Barron and The Graduate picked up a few time penalties but everyone close behind them picked up more. I mentioned this yesterday and I’ll say it again, when a pair wins a 2* in 2010, and then beats several training listed horses and wins an advanced division a few months later, it doesn’t look good for the developing rider program to have passed up on them. I know the developing rider list is technically an application process and no system is perfect, but that’s why we have talent spotters.
1. Elizabeth Barron and The Graduate +5.6 35.0
2. Bonner Carpenter and Impeccable +0 40.9
3. Danica Moore and Dunlavin’s Token +6.8 41.2
4. Buck Davidson and Ballynoecastle RM +17.2 47.8
5. Lisa Barry and Kenzo de la Roque +5.2 49.0
[Full Rocking Horse Results]
2) Bonner Carpenter and Impeccable had the only double-clear advanced ride of the day. There were 10 rides that had at least one stop out of 30 starters. Imtiaz Anees and Interwin were the only advanced pair to fall. They took a swim in the second water after having a less than perfectly balanced approach. Half the riders had double-digit time penalties.
3) Kyle Carter had a surprising stop with Madison Park at the first water. Parker has a history of jumping really big into the water and Kyle gave him a quiet ride but never really had Parker in front of his leg–which is critical for a quiet ride, especially at advanced. After jumping cleanly around the WEG course, there’s nothing to worry about but it was a good wake-up call for Kyle.
Oh yes, I did break out the video camera and walk around the advance course:
4) With highs in the 80’s and sunny, many eventers were breaking out shorts for the first time in 2011. I haven’t seen people that pale since by days as president of the high school chess club. It was a particularly warm day for this point in the season so we saw a lot of FLAIR strips in action.
5) Dunlavin’s Token is a horse to keep an eye on this year. He is a big bold jumper and I was really impressed with him all weekend.
6) The footing was less than ideal. Karen withdrew Mandiba, Buck withdrew one horse from the advanced, and Hannah Burnett withdrew St. Barths from the intermediate. Both Karen and Hannah will be headed to Pine Top on Friday.
7) As you can see in the video, Ballynoecastle, (the second to last horse) was a bit strong for Buck. Obviously Reggie wanted to go WEG speed and the jumps here were not big enough to hold him off. Buck took his time with Reggie and picked up 17 time penalties.
8) Laura VanderVleit’s King Billy stifled going into the second water and broke the support posts on the solid wooden rail. Jon Holling was held on course just a few hundred yards before the broken jump while the course builders quickly and expertly repaired the support posts. Once things were fixed, Jon wisely jumped a training and then prelim jump before continuing onto the water. Who needs frangible jumps when the wood just breaks by itself?
The repairs while Jon and Jos Baco wait in the distance
9) Speaking of Jon, I should say happy belated birthday from yesterday. Jon is one good 4* horse away from being a tremendous international rider for the US. He has the skills, knowledge, and dedication–all he needs is the horse. If I had $100,000 to spend for someone else to ride and I just wanted to be an owner, I’d probably send it to Jon. When he wins a 4* in 3 years, I’ll enjoy the ‘I told you so Eventing Nation’ moment.’
10) Bruce Davidson had a fall in the prelim and injured his jaw, but I didn’t see the fall. Apparently Bruce took a quick trip to the hospital for a cut lip and a few injured teeth, but he’ll be fine–it’s going to take a lot more than that to slow down the Godfather. Bruce has been riding a few younger horses this weekend, all of which look fabulous.
11) There were a few other big falls today, but everyone I saw walked away. One pair that was leading an intermediate division had a tough fall at the last fence. That’s always a tough way to end the day, but it’s a reminder for the rest of us to never ever take that last jump for granted.
Thanks again to Rocking Horse for putting on such a fabulous event and thank you for reading. Go eventing.
