A totally not guilty very naughty pony. Photo by Sarah Smith.
Winter is the season of dirt road hacks and trots for me, because ring work for months on end drives both me and my horse totally insane. However, if you trot down the road in the dressage saddle, you can practice some shoulder in, haunches in, a little bit of leg yield back and forth, and today I experimented with some extended trot. I was pleasantly surprised to find a new gear in there! Sometimes your horse just grows up and gets stronger and you don’t even realize it until you test something out, and it’s a great feeling.
U.S. Weekend Preview:
Full Gallop Farm H.T.: [Website] [Entry Status]
Galway Downs Winter H.T.: [Website] [Entry Status]
Rocking Horse Winter I H.T.: [Website] [Entry Status] [Ride Times]
News From Around the Globe:
We hope you’ll join the EN team on Patreon! We created a Patreon dedicated to our superfans who want to connect with our team and our work here at Eventing Nation. Sign up by Valentine’s Day and we’ll even send you an EN Yeti mug or wine tumbler (pick your poison!). You’ll get access to a private Facebook group just for our patrons, special content and perks, and much more. Click here to learn more!
Amy Dragoo is sharing her COVID birthday with us all, with 40% off all her pictures! Don’t miss out, it’s for 24 hours only, and you can now indulge in all your favorite amazing photos from an incredible photographer. Even if you didn’t get out much last year, you can still buy photos from any year, any event, any horse. [AK Dragoo Big Bday Sale]
Vandyke has been crowned your 2020 6-yo USEA Horse of the Year. Owned by the Rico Syndicate and ridden by Allison Springer, Rico came from Karen Dixon in Ireland, and lives up to the Irish cross country reputation. Allison says that his dressage sometimes leaves something to be desired, but he’s still young, and nobody is more suited than Allison to fix that phase. [Vandyke is 6-yo USEA Champion]
Check out the new details on the British Young Horse Championships slated for this fall. Running from September 29th to October 3rd, on the Osberton Estate, the event will host the Four-year-old Showcase, Five-year-old CCI1*, Six and Seven-year-old CCIS 2* and 3*. With the aim of bringing the championships format together the dressage for the Five, Six and Seven-year-olds will run on the Thursday, with cross-country taking place on Friday, rounding off with the show jumping for all three age groups building to a fitting reverse order climax on the Saturday. [BE Young Horse Championships]
Curious about the new USEA leaderboard point system? We had some questions too, but luckily we’ve got more clarifications. Check out this article to answer all your queries for all levels about how points will be tallied from now on. [Leaderboard Point System]
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