Not Mystery Whisper, photo courtesy of our good friend McKenna Oxenden
Good morning Eventing Nation! I hope you had a wonderful Easter with your family and friends. We were treated to an exciting weekend of eventing so let’s jump right in. The Fork was a Rolex preview as always, but this time we were also treated to a London preview for North American pairs. Phillip has clearly found an incredible partner in Mystery Whisper. Two CIC3* competitions in just under a month with an average dressage score of 33.75 and a win both weekends agains incredibly competitive fields. We’ll see them get their spring CCI at Jersey and the USA is definitely looking at a great chance for an individual medal from this pair. Canada can say the same for Rebecca Howard and Riddle Master–they finished in second, on their dressage score, and they head to Rolex on top form. The only other pair to finish the CIC3* on their dressage score was unsurprisingly Canada’s Jessie Phoenix and Exponential. They jumped way up the placings–pun intended–moving up 27 spots over the weekend. The most improved placing throughout the weekend in the CIC3* goes to Rolex bound Amy Ruth Borun and Santa’s Playboy who moved up 32 places by adding just a second to their dressage score.
Oh yeah, and while all of that was happening Arthur found his top form just in time for Rolex by winning the advanced B division on a score of 22.7, just ahead of Manoir De Carneville. Becky had another impressive weekend with Comet in second and Can’t Fire Me in fourth. Icarus was 3rd and Loughan Glen was 5th. Michael Pollard’s Pan Am ride Hanni won the advanced A division with Jon Holling and Downtown Harrison finishing a great weekend in 3rd. Up and coming riders Danielle Dichting and Kate Samuels continued quality spring campaigns finishing 2nd and 4th respectively. And here I have rambled on for two paragraphs about The Fork without even mentioning one horse whose name starts with an “M”. Is Mandiba officially back and better than ever after a CIC2* win? Hard to tell, but he certainly isn’t out of sight and out of mind anymore. The RF contingent took silver and bronze in the CIC2*.
–Six months ago it looked like 2012 was going to finally be the year where there would be room for the USA’s young guns to step up into their own as international competitors. I suppose we have always known that only three spots on the team are up for grabs, but whether you want to call it depth of programs or depth of owners’ pocketbooks, it looks more and more like our team will be rounded out with familiar names in London. Buying top horses for veteran riders is an inevitability in eventing and our team performance will likely be better thanks to the late 2011 acquisitions, but I wonder if our program will be better for it in the long run. That being said, I still expect at least one US rider to earn their pique coat this year.
–I couldn’t write about The Fork without thanking Samantha for a fabulous weekend of reports and insights. Samantha took things to a whole new level for us this weekend despite being sick the entire time. I hope Samantha enjoyed watching a great weekend of eventing as much as we enjoyed reading her reports. Also, thanks to ESJ for giving us the lowdown from Kihikihi. Nothing says “happy Easter” like a 600 pixel tall photo of Christine Bates’ face post-crash.
–The Masters wasn’t the only awesome sporting event hosted in Georgia this weekend. Carl Bouckaert’s beautiful Chattahoochee Hills held a beginner novice through intermediate horse trials. Amy Barrington and Roxie took over the lead in the show jumping after the two first placed pairs pulled rails. Lilly Barlow and Grayboo took the open prelim A, moving all the way up from last place after the dressage. Caroline Quanbeck and Sambuca had a steadier weekend, moving up just one place for the win. I’m sure most every eventing dad at Chattahoochee was tormented by the fact that they were stuck at a horse show just 2 hours away from a Tradition Unlike Any Other, but hey, at least there was the radio coverage, right? [Chattahoochee Scores]
–Two other great USEA events were held this weekend–CDCTA in Virginia and Spring Bay in Kentucly. Spring Bay was the scene of the crime that was my first ever prelim and the reason why the USEA still doesn’t allow me to ride cross-country within 500 yards of a state prison. [Spring Bay Website] CDCTA anchored the Area II calendar this weekend. [CDCTA Website]
–Let’s talk about Rolex, which is now just 17 days away. What do you want from our Rolex coverage on EN? The EN Team will be chatting about this over the next couple of weeks, so please give us good ideas in the comment section of this post. More rambling worst videos ever? More marriage proposal photo shoots? Visionaire’s world renown event coverage? Let us know. [Rolex Entries]
–If you don’t go directly to Horse Nation after reading EN every morning then you, like all of my dressage judges, obviously aren’t cool enough to enjoy excitement, insanity, and awesomeness all wrapped up together. I’m not sure what is going to be posted on HN today or when Leslie and the HN bunnies will get around to waking up and writing something, but when they do you won’t want to miss it. [Horse Nation]
–To everyone who uses our RSS reader, we apologize that the SHN posts are being included in the EN RSS feed right now. We are working to correct this along with 4-5 other little glitches we are still dealing with as a result of the now infamous platform transition. Since we don’t write about SHN much on EN these days, I want to take every possible opportunity to thank Leslie Threlkeld for her hard work managing SHN–if you have ever used the site to sell a horse you know what a brilliant job she does. [SHN]
–I want to give a big EN get well soon to Annie, who took a tumble and will be spending the next couple weeks healing from a broken collar bone. Like all of us, Annie always tries to ride just like Buck. She just tried a little too hard last week. Also, I want to give an EN shout-out to Alexis Wells for hooking the EN team up with two lovely hand-made wool hats–red, white, and blue and everything!
Best of the Blogs: Ying Yang Yo injured his eye to start an up and down weekend for Boyd
And now for your Chattahoochee Hills view interlude:
River Wood Dancer owned by NASCAR champion Darrell Waltrip and Solo Mia hacking at the spectacular Chatt Hills with Lauren Romanelli and Megan Corbett.
And now for your Chattahoochee Hills training level helmet cam interlude, courtesy of eponacowgirl:
And now for your Spring Bay HT video interlude, via Starfire Eventing:
Some Sharon Orange White love from The Fork:
That’s all for now. Get ready this week for the Ocala three-day and much more action around EN. As always, wherever you might be, thanks for making Eventing Nation part of your day. Stay classy Eventing Nation.
