First Event for a New Eventer!

Saturday Jackie debuted at her first horse trial (second competition ever), with her fabulous pony, Bomber. Once again, we enjoyed the fantastic facilities at Loch Moy Farm in nearby Adamstown, home of the Maryland Horse Trials.

The weather was outright fickle on Saturday, going back and forth between rainy and stormy to hot and sunny. While we got poured on all morning, the sky finally cleared up for good while Jackie and Bomber were warming up for dressage. (Left: Bomber is not so sure what he got himself into)

Jackie, who has been working very hard on her dressage, rode a lovely test. Her show jumping was also very good. The best part of the day, though, was cross country, where she cantered around confidently. She had one small problem, when she momentarily lost her way, didn't quite get straight to the fence and ran past it. Otherwise, her round was great, and, proving she is truly an event rider, exclaimed after crossing the finish, "I want to do it again!" (Right: Amanda walks show jumping with Jackie and her sister, Lexi)

We are sure she and Bomber will be joining the "big guys" at the recognized events soon!

Well done, Jackie and Bomber!

Seneca- (Mostly) Fun in the Mud

The week leading up to Seneca was wet and stormy, causing the organizers to cancel both the preliminary and intermediate divisions. With good reason! When we arrived on Saturday with Vernon for the training, we found the beautiful course at Bittersweet Field muddy and wet. They had already removed fences from the course, and removed a few more as the day went on. It was a beautiful day, though, and the majority of the footing was quite good.

Vernon put in a nice dressage test that was scored rather harshly, but found jumping out of the deep footing in show jumping unnerving. Amanda decided to call it a day, choosing to save her young horse's confidence for another day. It is never easy to withdrawal, especially when a nice cross country course awaits you, but we always rather err on the side of caution, especially with young horses like Vernon.

On Sunday, the footing was much better and our three beginner novice pairs all put in fantastic dressage tests. Kendall and Cass won the dressage in their division with a 28.4, while Julia and Indi were just a couple of places behind in third. Alfie and Curran were well up the order, as well, in a competitive open division.

Show jumping also went very well, with the girls both jumping lovely, smooth clear rounds, and Curran and Alfie having one rail. The organizers did a great job with the footing in show jumping by tamping down divets and moving jumps to keep horses from jumping out of churned up footing.

Cross country went mostly well, although everyone had silly stops caused by rider errors. However, everyone finished the day happy, proud of their horses, and excited for the next event!

No pictures, this time. Amanda forgot the camera.

Spike, where's the rest of your flysheet?

This is how we found Spike this morning when we went to bring him in.

This is the remnants of his new flysheet. It was put on him for the first time last night. Hope it was a good party, Spike!

Amazingly, a few minutes later, this is exactly how we found Alfie, too! his flysheet was a week old.

Rubicon- Some Days Just Aren't Your Days

You learn quickly enough in the sport of eventing that some days are great and some days just need to be forgotten. Unfortunately, our Rubicon weekend could stand to be forgotten!

The week didn't start out great when Vernon pulled a shoe, did some damage to his foot, and was foot sore until Thursday. After some debating, it was decided that it was better to regret not taking him than regret taking him. So, Vernon got left behind on Sunday morning.

Zeke and Alfie were both ready and able, and their owner and rider Curran was looking forward to getting back out on Zeke (who missed most of the spring season with a broken jaw) and riding his young horse for the first time. Things started out well enough with Zeke, who did an ok dressage test. Curran and Zeke put in probably their best show jumping round to date, jumping clean in sticky, slick footing. Everyone was high on Zeke's remarkable show jumping performance, but sadly, it didn't last. Rider error ended in elimination. Zeke and Curran made the long walk of shame back to the trailer.

Alfie was up next and in between some very naughty shenanigans, did a stellar dressage test! Yay, Alfie! Show jumping went back and forth between brilliant and naughty, but ended well with a few jump penalties and some time. Unfortunately, Alfie didn't want to play once down at cross country, and made his opinion known loud and clear when he deposited Curran on the ground in front of the first fence. The walk of shame was walked once again.

Thankfully, Curran has an eternally positive outlook, as well as a wicked sense of humor, so while the day certainly did not go at all as planned, he was able to find bright spots. Zeke, who is notoriously hard to show jump, just about jumped out of his skin. And Alfie proved that he is very capable and gave his "dad" his best dressage score to date.

The icing on the cake was a driver side tire on the trailer shredding about five miles from the barn on the return trip Sunday afternoon. Thankfully, we know the road very well, and were able to limp the rig down the road another half mile to a wider shoulder and long straight away. Having the tools to get the job done helped make the job go quickly and smoothly, and we were back on the road in short order. Needless to say, everyone was very glad to be home on Sunday afternoon.

And while the weekend was forgettable, we are excited at what seems to be a new and improved Sundown! Sundown had gone away for a couple of months, for the purpose of finding him a new job and hopefully getting him sold. Well, he couldn't quite settle in the new job and the market being bad sent him back home. He has been doing great flat work at home, and on Monday afternoon quietly hacked out with a large group of horses without any thought to some of his old antics and meltdowns. Something about his time away from home seems to have given him a new outlook on life. We're very excited to see if maybe we finally have the horse we saw in him two and a half years ago!

Next up, Seneca!