Pumpkin carving eventing style, courtesy of JH
Perhaps it’s the chill morning air, or maybe it’s the fact that the sun sets at 6pm, or maybe it’s just the 7 pounds of Hershey bars I ate last night, but it feels like today is the beginning of the end of the 2010 eventing season. Early November is a time when many eventers are hanging up the competition spurs and getting ready ready for winter. But, we still have Pau, Adelaide, the Galway CCI3*, and a few more horse trials on the calendar before it’s time to start talking about the USEA convention and the winter season. Let’s take a quick look back at the results from this weekend.
–Down in Georgia, Elizabeth Barron and The Graduate finished up a clutch weekend performance with a double-clear show jumping round to win the Chattahoochee CCI2*. I say clutch because Elizabeth was leading the dressage ahead of Becky Holder, Clark Montgomery, and Michael Pollard–three excellent riders–by less than one point. All three of those riders finished on their dressage score and, with no room for error, so did Elizabeth. 6 of the 17 Chatahoochee CCI2* starters finished on their dressage score. Compared to just two horses out of 56 finishing the Fair Hill CCI2* on their dressage score it seems like riders may have a chance to pick between two slightly different types of two-stars next year for late autumn, which is really useful depending on where your horse is and what your goals are for the next three-day.
–Jon Holling ran away with the CIC1* and won by nearly 20 points in a field of five horses. Although I didn’t go to Chattahoochee this weekend, I have heard great things from the riders. This is yet another fantastic contribution to US eventing from Carl Bouckaert to give us another CCI2* late in the year.
Link: Chattahoochee Results
–The Virginia Horse Trials had an excellent weekend, as always. Phillip Dutton won the open intermediate with Mr. Snuffleuffagus by adding just one rail to his dressage score of 38. In the intermediate rider division Kaitlin Spurlock and Expedience added just 1.2 penalties on the weekend to their dressage score and moved up from 6th after the dresage to win. There were no double-clears in the intermediate at Virginia, mostly due to those hills making for some challenging time.
Link: Virginia Results
–Jennie Brannigan had a great weekend at the ESDCTA Horse Trials in New Jersey this weekend with wins in both training divisions. Link: ESDCTA Results. The only other USEA event of the weekend was the Briar Fox HT in Kansas.
–Finally, I want to mention that out friends at the Horse Radio Network are starting a new live morning radio show today. The show is called Horses in the Morning and starts each day at 9am ET and will be a live, fun look at the horse world with callers, guests, and fun conversation. The HRN is pioneering online radio for horse people and live radio is their next brilliant step. You can also listen to a recorded version of the show. Listen in at: www.horsesinthemorning.com
We will have much more from what will surely be an exciting week on Eventing Nation soon, including a Zenyatta video break, but until then here is video from Buzzterbrown of the 2010 OCH Team Event.
Go eventing.
