Jon Holling is Area IV’s coach at Young Riders and he was kind enough to send us this report while taking a quick break from the Kentucky heat wave. Thanks for writing this Jon and thank you for reading.
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From Jon:
Greetings from sweltering Lexington Kentucky, since you already have the scores from today’s Dressage in John’s earlier post I will do my best to provide the fascinating details of the day. The only additional news from the dressage today is that Lexi Scovil was proud to announce in her list of accomplishments that she survived eleven months as a working student for Holling Eventing. Great job Lexi those people are seriously heartless task masters.
Our team rode their tests and then we immediately walked the course before the heat got out of hand. It really is unbelievably hot here right now. You can actually feel the heat radiating off of the ground in the stable area. The good news is that the forecast is showing that Saturday will be significantly cooler with a chance of showers. At the very least it looks like we should have some cloud cover. The ground jury has a plan if the heat does stay to remove a loop from the track. This means that the riders will be measuring minute markers with and without the loop in question. It is great to see that they have planned ahead on this and can make a smooth transition that all of the riders will be prepared for if needed.
The course itself is beautifully presented and looks like it will be an excellent test for the horses and riders. The first thing you notice on the two star track is the fourth fence which is a big ditch brush that will require the horses to be jumping confidently from the start. The coffin later in the course will likely be influential as well. It is a big vertical in then a short one down a slope to the ditch followed by two strides to a skinny brush. In addition to these two fences it looks to me that one of the most influential jumps on the two star track will be the double corners. The setup fence is a narrow rail followed by six strides to a double set of corners on a big three strides. I would expect horses will be jumping this combination in five or six between the first two fences and then three or four between the corners. If you make it out to watch this would be where I would hang out. There is plenty to do on David O’Connor’s course I expect the standings to move around quite a lot on Saturday. I will be back tomorrow with more, right now I am running out the door for a dressage school on Downtown Harrison.
