In honor of the recent eastern rainstorms, because nothing is worse than white socks and a muddy warmup. Photo by yours truly.
Yesterday a Somali terrorist group decided to get creative, or perhaps is just running low on over-zealous recruits and cash. Instead of using a car, human, or some other traditional terrorist vehicle for an attack, they improvised. By improvised, I mean they grabbed whatever was closest, which happened to be a donkey. They proceeded to strap their bomb to what I can imagine was a very disgruntled animal then sent it wandering in the general direction of a checkpoint. Rookie mistake. Luckily for all parties involved the bomb failed to detonate and the donkey lived to fight another day, but maybe not in the name of a terrorist cell.
While hopefully nothing THAT exciting will happen over the next couple of days here in the US, we do have some big events going on that deserve some recognition. It’s cross country day down in Georgia at the beautiful Poplar Place Farm where there are some big names competing in the FEI divisions. Clark Montgomery leads the CIC** on Reignman (get it??) and Nina Ligon leads the CIC*** with Tipperary Liadhnan. Heather Morris sits in first in the Advanced with First Mark and NAYRC gold medalist Devon Brown continues her winning tradition in the Open Intermediate. Finally I want to give a special shout out to my very best friend Mariel Eckert who is competing her horse Tridium in his first ever Preliminary. She brought him up from novice and I’m so proud to see him finally putting on his big boy pants after all her hard work.
While my heart is clearly at Poplar this weekend there are plenty of other great events happening; stay tuned for more coverage as the weekend progresses. Ok I’m done, here are the links.
Twin Rivers Fall HT [Times and Scores]
Poplar Place Farm September HT [Scores]
Otter Creek Farm Fall HT [Times, Scores]
Stone Gate Farm HT [Times and Scores]
The Middleburg HT [Times, Results Page]
Stoneleigh-Burhnam School HT [Website]
Flora Lea Fall HT [Canceled]
Update: Poplar XC Course Photos, Twin Rivers Friday Recap
Interested in being the “Assistant Eventing Manager” at the London Olympics? Get your application in before October 2.
While we’re on the subject of the Olympics, yesterday the FEI announced the London Ground Jury for Dressage after a blind drawing. They also announced the Ground Jury for the Reem Acra World Cup Final. Really jealous that dressage gets such cool sponsors. Riding cross country in a wedding gown can’t be that hard, right?
More good news for the donkeys: A portion of a wild Hawaiian herd called the Waikoloa Nightingales have been flown to a new home in California after their survival was threatened by drought.
Kyle Carter’s Poplar dressage review
Six horses have been seized from a “debris filled pasture” in Connecticut
Best of Blogs: Team CEO’s Preview of Otter Creek HT
Video Break: Marilyn Little-Meredith and RF Easy Going making the Plantation CIC*** look easy (that’s my last pun for at least three posts, I promise)
Peace, love, and carrots. Go Eventing.
