Heather Gillette was held on course for just a few moments with Our Questionnaire
The CIC2* and intermediate divisions rounded off a safe, smooth, and quick day of cross-country here at Red Hills. As far as I know, the longest hold on course was a 3 minute pause to repair a frangible log. Familiar names from earlier in the day rose to the top of the CIC2* division. Marilyn Little-Meredith jumped up from 4th to 1st with one of three CIC2* double-clears. Kadi Eykamp and Double Rivers Really Cool had a good round but dropped from 1st to 2nd with 8 time penalties. Phillip and Gran Banks popped up from 10th to 3rd with a double-clear. 8 rides, 0 jumping penalties for Phillip today.
–Just 3 of 26 starters in the two-star had problems on course. Alexa Kim Perkiel took a heartbreaking tumble at the final water after having a refusal and then working very hard to get Apres Ski over the log into the water. Selena O’Hanlon and her Pan American Games horse Foxwood High moved into 4th and Jennie Brannigan is 5th going into the show jumping with Indie.
–Young Caroline Martin is riding three horses at Red Hills and she rode Petite Flower to an impressive 6.4 point lead in the open intermediate division. I also want to give EN sponsor Horse Quencher a shout-out for their support of Caroline. Alexandra Green and On The Margin are in second and Lexi Scovil rounds out the top three with Sky Show.
You CIC3* Press Conference Notes:
–Michael Pollard said that Icarus felt great and easily galloped around the course. Michael also said that Hanni was very honest and galloped really well. Hanni had more time than Icarus not because of a speed difference but because he took more time to set her up between the fences.
–Allison said that (counter-intuitively) Arthur tends to do well with twisty courses where he has a lot to look at. She said that she lost some time setting him up for the jumps but that otherwise she was very happy with her ride.
–Marilyn Little-Meredith explained she was really pleased with Rovano’s performance around the terrain. She mentioned that both terrain and water are relatively new for her so she learned a lot about both of those around Red Hills today. She said that of all three of her rides today she was most impressed with her 2* horse, RF Smoke On The Water.
–Phillip explained that one of his tools to save time is letting the turns set the horses up–riding jumps out of the turns is something that Phillip is brilliant at. When asked about how he prepares for riding so many horses throughout a day, Phillip said that one thing he battles is complacency–if things are going well there might be a tendency to not prepare as much in front of the fences.
–Phillip said of Mystery Whisper “I was very impressed with him today. He’s not a huge jumping horse, but he’s easy to ride…He’s very soft an easy to jump and he doesn’t get strong.“
The horse inspection starts at 7:30am ET tomorrow morning, which is going to feel like 6:30am because of the clock change tonight. You stay classy Eventing Nation.
