Behind the scenes at the award ceremony
Danielle Dichting and The Graduate jumped double-clear to maintain their lead in the intermediate division of the American Eventing Championships. Danielle led wire-to-wire by adding just 1.2 XC time penalties to her dressage score and she won by an impressive 5.2 points over the talented field. Dani lives and trains just north of Atlanta, Georgia and she is coached by Julie Richards. Her win continues a great weekend for Georgians, with Becky’s win in the advanced and Jenny Caras’ win in the prelim. Jenny also trains with Julie. Dani’s Intermediate win is all the more impressive considering she placed 10th in the Advanced earlier today with Tops.
Holly Payne and Santino reclaimed their second place from dressage with a double-clear. Buck Davidson moved down one spot with No More Rocks with a rail at the last as the only blemish for an otherwise excellent round. Justine Dutton and Abecca were the only intermediate pair to finish the weekend on their dressage score and they were rewarded with moving all the way up from 24th place into 5th. Special intermediate shout-out to Rick Wallace, Mike Huber, and Jessica Bortner-Harris for being several of the 10 pairs to show jump double-clear in the division.
That concludes show jumping today from the AECs. The Beginner Novice divisions are riding cross-country until around 6:30pm tonight. We will be back tomorrow with the Novice and Beginner Novice show jumping.
Go eventing.
