Indoor Eventing Finals

Tonight is the second and final round of the indoor eventing at The Royal Winter Fair in Toronto.  Jessica Phoenix and Exploring have the lead in the competition because they won Friday night.  I want to give a shout out to Good Crop Services which is the title sponsor company of the indoor eventing and apparently a big supporter of horse sports in Canada.  Saturday’s round starts at 8:45pm ET and The Royal is offering free live online video although registration is required.   

Link: Free online live video, Friday standings

1. Exploring and  Jessica Phoenix
2. Roundabout and Penny Rowland
3. Steel Commander and Holly Payne
4. Donaghan and Waylon Roberts
5. War End and  Will Coleman
6. Crown Talisman and Doug Payne

Doug Payne was kind enough to send me a quick email from the event:

I wish everyone out in EN could come see this firsthand, what a blast! I don’t know one rider that came off course without a huge smile on their face. It’s an amazing logistical feat. They set up the entire course and we complete our course walk in 15 mins. This means 12 jumps total are brought into the stadium including 6 XC jumps (a bank, triple brush, skinny logs, coops and a carved pig) they must have 25 people working on this all at once. Sally Ike is the course designer this year. As always she has designed a great track. 

Will and I were talking, and both of us agreed that its really a great thing for these horses. Not only that they benefit from the experience on course, but also from the other worldly atmosphere. Aside from a packed hockey stadium, the warm-up is in a tiny room. You have to avoid hitting your head on piping or beams on the ceiling not to mention the support columns or the full restaurant and bar along the one edge of ring. People are everywhere! It’s not often especially for a younger horse that you can expose them to anything like this. It’s going to be an annual fixture on our calendars!   ~Doug

A photo of the 10 minute course change from Cheryl D.