Halloween Weekend

Halloween is a great time to dress up and be creative, which is what some of the more ambitious competitors at Loch Moy did. For Amanda Cross the fear they generated had more to do with Atlantis' perception of the Bumble Bee eating the grey horse it was sitting on than theoretical Zombies knocking on the door at midnight! That hurdle passed tho, she competed with great style (including the unscheduled gymnastics to begin the showjumping) finishing second. This event did include a first for me, I'd never heard a starter start a horse with 'Hi Ho Silver and AWAY'! I think this should be the norm... Gibby Booth entered the dressage with a great looking Laney completing the trot work in great fashion and even a seamless transition to canter. Unfortunately the transitions were too early and the penalties cost her dearly. Her cross country was great considering it's their first competition in a while. Kirsten Chicca and Cadet did very well winning after the dressage and show jumping, unfortunately Cadet stopped at one fence cross country, so she has something to work on there.

Beth Sokohl headed to the prestigious Area II championships this weekend on Bucky. After a sizzling cross country round and in a tough division they finished 7th overall. A great job and a good indication they may move up soon.

Next weekend is our last event of the year at Rubicon then it's dressage and show jumping for the rest of the year.

Alex and Jimmie win Waredaca!

After retiring Arrow Alex MacLeod has kept up her incredibly successful with a win on her new horse Railroad Man Jim. As she has been doing all year she beat the professionals in an open division with a clear sj and a couple of time faults xc. Darcy Swain has also kept up her winning form taking home a blue ribbon at the BLM dressage championships.

While these guys were competing I had the pleasure of taking the weekend off to attend the wedding of my good friend, and fellow rider, Dom Schramm. His new wife, Jimmie Holotik, is also a rider and their wedding made a fair dent on the entries at Waredaca Horse Trials with Boyd Martin, Ryan Wood, Jennie Brannigan and myself prefering the wedding festivities to cantering around a field in Laytonsville! Also attending was Nicholas Fyffe who is currently living in Germany. Boyd, Nick, Ryan, Dom and myself spent years competing and training together in Australia and it's been a while since we've all been in the same place at the same time so we took the opportunity to have some down time and a couple of quiet beers.

Next up is for my horses is Rubicon although I do have some students going to VA HT next week.

Another winning weekend!

This weekends winner was Darcy Swain with her wonderful coloured WB, Mozely. Finishing on her dressage score of 26 she convincingly won her class. The only person who could get close to her was Amy Gaynor and Cindy Lou Who with a 30 in the dressage. Clear xc and looking very careful show jumping, a minor pilot error (bypassing fence number 6) kept her out of the placings. However it's great to see Amys hard work paying off with Cindy, she's certainly been patient waiting for her success.

No competitions for me last weekend, I spent the time teaching and planning our winter move. Please express your interest to compete and train in Aiken, SC to Amy by email, amygaynor1@comcast.net.

WEGs and Loch Moy.

World Equestrian Games! The biggest sporting event in the USA in 2010. And what an event it was! I only made it out for cross country day on the Saturday, driving overnight Friday to get there. Well worth the event to watch Boyd, Jock and Paul go around. I honestly think the Boyd and Jock rode the best rounds of the entire day, but I may be biased...... They other round I loved was Peter Atkins riding for Australia. What a great story, called up at the last minute to represent his country when Jester fell sick on the flight from Australia. Obviously the dressage is a work in progress but his cross country was inspirational to say the least!

This weekend I had Loch Moy Horse Trials in MD with Cole in the Intermediate, Ti and Phoebe in the training. All were great in the cross country but need work in the dressage. And with only one event left, dressage is what we'll be practising for the rest of the year. We are also going to be doing a fair amount of show jumping, competing in some of the shows in NC. This is exciting as it means Mario is back jumping and almost ready to start show jumping.