Either large bushes or knocked over trees, photo with permission of of Leslie Threlkeld
Good morning Eventing Nation and welcome to Wednesday. My how I have missed the Wednesday morning news and notes. Coren and Annie love the Wednesday morning post so much that they have been taking them from me lately, but I managed to steal today’s. It’s hump day so let’s get going…
–The European Eventing Championships are the same weekend as the Pan American selection trials at Richland Park. The dressage Europeans are being held in Rotterdam, Netherlands, this week and the competition starts today. The latest eventing entries have been announced, with 14 countries now set to compete, including the powerful British squad, although Germany isn’t messing around with WEG champions Michael Jung and La Biosthetique Sam entered. I am rooting, as always, for Lithuania. [Latest EC entries]
–We have written about this before, but it’s so cool that we might as well mention it again. Clear your calendars–Burghley.tv will offer free on demand coverage of every single Burghley ride during the competition. A short registration will be required, but other than that, you’ll be able to follow all of the Burghley action from your computer. Until then, Burghley.tv has several cool videos including the course walk with Uncle Mark that we have linked to about 7 times and much more. [Burghley.tv via EventingUSA]
–As a quick recap if you missed the news from Tuesday, we confirmed that Alexandra Slusher withdrew from the Pan American Games short list and learned that Sharon White and Refferty’s Rules as well as Will Coleman and Obos O’Reilly have also withdrawn. In addition, Buck withdrew Titanium from Burghley due to Buck’s hectic schedule over these next few weeks.
–Unfortunately, it wouldn’t surprise me to see a couple more North American horses withdraw from Burghley, whether due to the inevitable last minute injuries or even perhaps the high travel costs. I suppose it is a bit late for this discussion, but, having seen the Burghley course, if I had an Olympic quality horse at least a part of me would be wondering if it would help or hurt my Olympic chances to run that horse around the biggest track it has ever seen and probably ever will see. Sue Benson’s Olympic course is going to be really tough and a clean round at Burghley would look beautiful on an Olympic resume, but jumping around a three-star this autumn and being sound next summer will probably be good enough to make the US or Canadian team. That being said, I put more weight on the Olympics relative to the big four-stars than most riders. For example, I would unquestionably rather get a bronze medal at the Olympics than win Burghley, but I think a lot of riders entered at Burghley would disagree with that.
–Just to give you a feel for what the riders are thinking about Burghley right now, I got a joking text from one Burghley entrant on Tuesday saying “Do you think I’m nuts to park my car on the edge of the sunken road and practice for the ditch and hedge at Burghley?”
–Our latest award for people going straight to hell goes to thieves who took 20,000 Pounds (the money, not the weight) of tack from a 13 year old girl’s yard in Hampshire, England. If that wasn’t enough, they also stole a kitten from the tack room. [Horse and Hound]
–EN’s own Leslie Threlkeld had a tornado at her farm a few days ago. Fortunately no one was injured and it made for some awesome photos. [Leslie’s blog]
–As a follow up to our post about the FEI yellow cards Monday evening where we mentioned a report in the Chronicle about Tamra Smith’s yellow card, Sally O’Connor sent me an email with her perspective on the incident. As the official who gave Tamra the yellow card, Sally wanted to make it clear that she discussed the matter at length with the entire Ground Jury and the TD and they agreed Tamra should be issued a yellow card. Sometimes officials don’t have a choice about giving a yellow card. In this case they did and while there will always be two sides to a story, it is reassuring to know that so many officials were involved in the decision. Now that’s all the yellow card discussion I can take for at least another week.
—Best of the Blogs: Crossing the Channel goes by faster with Hamish along for the ride
–A bunch of great USEA events open this week, including Greenwood, Tryon Riding & Hunt Club, Morven, the Colorado Fall CCI* and T3DE, the University of NH Horse Trials, Jump Start, and Northwest Equestrian HT.
–I want to give a special shout-out to our friends at the Jump Start Horse Trials, who are encouraging early entries by offering to put in a drawing, any entries postmarked on August 16th, 17th, or 18th. The drawing will be for a free entry to next year’s competition,and a free helmet. Additionally, any entries postmarked this week will get a free t-shirt. Can’t beat that.
–Keep the fundraising going for our good friend Kyle Carter on his way to Burghley here.
–Today’s TOTD item is cotton britches at a great price, only available until noon. [TOTD]
That’s all I got for now. Admittedly, it isn’t much, but how about I show you a video of dogs using silverware and we’ll call it even? Thanks to Robin from World Equestrian Brands for sending us the video:
As always, wherever you might be, thanks for making Eventing Nation your home for eventing news, ridiculousness, and commentary each and every day. Stay tuned and stay classy Eventing Nation.
