Good morning Eventing Nation and happy Presidents Day. For our US readers, Presidents Day was originally known as ‘Washington’s Birthday’ to honor the birthday of our first president. However, as with anything our government attempts, the holiday is complicated by the fact that it never actually falls on Washington’s birthday–Washington was born on February 22nd, and the third Monday in February falls between the 15th and 21st. Being early is an EN first for birthday wishes, so I suppose we should count our blessings. Now for your Monday news and notes:
—Jan Byyny’s return to eventing continued in wonderful form this weekend with a win in the Paradise Horse Trials Open Preliminary A division aboard Why Not. Jan and Why Not finished on their dressage score. Phillip Dutton, who was tremendous in helping Jan’s program and horses while she recovered, finished second and third in that division. Everybody from the Aiken crew was out at Paradise. Jennie won the OP-B aboard Indie, developing B list rider Arden Wildasin took the top two places in the JYOP, and Candace Tribe won the Preliminary Rider division aboard Catalina. [Paradise Scores]
–All the way across the purple mountains and fruited plains, James Alliston and Boston won the Open Preliminary at Ram Tap. The 2010 Rolex pair Kristi Nunnink and R-Star competed HC in that division as well. Dana Chase and Aerolite moved from 9th to 1st to win the preliminary rider division. [Ram Tap Scores]
–All the way back in Florida, the lower levels completed the cross-country at Rocking Horse on Sunday. EN’s own Annie Yeager placed 2nd, as did Leslie Law. An intermediate horse I rode for 7 years and recently sold is obviously happy to have a new young rider (who is clearly more competent than myself) and placed 4th in the training level. [RH Results]
–If you were busy at a horse trials on Sunday, Samantha wrote an article about Jock Paget’s WEG horse Clifton Promise being for sale. Looking at the Clifton Promise sale, the good news here is that, unlike the Henny and Sam dabacles, the owner and rider seem to be completely on the same page. One big reason for this is that Jock will of course be continuing his employment with Clifton Eventers and they have already sent him three new horses. Clifton Eventers is very much a business, and if you ride for them you have to be ready to accept that.
–The more exciting news that Samantha reported is that Blyth Tait is quietly making a comeback and has moved to England to train. Blyth is perhaps one of the most decorated international competitors in the history of eventing with two team and two individual World Championships, and an individual Olympic gold. If Blyth and Mark Todd can be ready to go in time for the Olympics, it’s hard to not make New Zealand instantly one of the favorites. And before anyone goes playing the age card, Blyth is just 49 years young.
–Diana Burnett has written a Canadian training session report from earlier this week for Ecogold. We’ll see Diana, along with most of the other US and Canadian team riders at Pine Top this coming weekend. Here’s a quick excerpt from Diana’s blog:
“Tuesday was jump day and it was great!! We started with the raised pole to a vertical, then moved on to a single oxer, where David was making us focus on getting deep to make the horses work (especially Manny). We followed this by putting a course together. The most difficult line was a large square oxer, 5 forward strides to a triple (oxer 2 strides to oxer one stride to vertical). We did this line both directions. This is the type of line that Manny likes to take over in and then jump flat, so we usually end up adding strides. Not on this day!!” [Ecogold blog]
–The US training sessions resume today in Aiken. The pressure will be on the riders to show Mark how well they practiced his suggestions from the first training sessions. On Tuesday some of the riders will be cross-country schooling with Mark.
–Our EN Point Two contest closes sometime today, I think around noon, so be sure to enter–you can’t win if you don’t sign up. [Enter Here]
—The British Horse Society promotes riding without horses [Horsetalk]
—‘Clever Hans’ cited in drug dog experiment [Horsetalk]
—It was not Rodrigo (Pessoa’s) day [On The Line]
—Best of the blogs: Dressage in a juming saddle
–This almost deserves it’s own post, but Horse and Hound has written about two horse sports that I have never heard about before–Horse Surfing and Horse Boarding. I think I should let the videos explain:
and…
[videos courtesy of the British Horse Surfing Association]
That’s all for now. We will officially be converting Eventing Nation into ‘Horse Surfing Nation’ for the remainder of the day so stay tuned for all of your horse surfing news, commentary, and ridiculousness. Wherever you may be, thanks for making Eventing Nation part of your day. Go eventing.
