Liberty wins the OTTB award at Loch Moy!

At Loch Moy I added to my very impressive pile of red ribbons from this year! Both Liberty and Cole were 2nd in their respective prelim divisions. Both of these horses have been on breaks from competing, Liberty taking some R and R after Bromont. Cole's break wasn't as pleasant for him, he's been doing so much dressage that he feared he had been turned into a dressage horse! For him that's his worst nightmare! Fortunately for him (and me) he's still an eventer and all the practice paid off with a very good test, scoring his best score of a 33.5. Next for him is Millbrook Advanced. I'm so happy the his owner Rege Dvorsky and partner Jeanne Leone were able to make it out to see him go. And for the ice and drinks they brought us! Liberty was back on form, hugely enjoying himself in all three phases! Next time I hope to make the dressage a little less exciting tho... He's also headed to Millbrook. Fudge had a rail, which actually cost me my third second for the day. He had to settle with a 5th place ribbon, his owner Tracey did point out that that was one of the ribbons missing from her kids 'Fudge Ribbon Collection', so I'm glad to get them one step closer to the complete set! All that's missing now is a blue one.

By far the best part of the day went to Liberty. Rebecca Greene and Christopher Morris sponsored an award for the highest placed/lowest score Off The Track Thoroughbred. There are so many horrible stories in the horse world of barn fires, barn accidents, trailer accidents, falls and just plain bad luck. One could wonder why anyone would want to do this sport at all. Earlier this year Rebecca lost her two competition horses in a barn fire, both of whom she had trained from the track and into eventing. Absolutely heartbreaking. In remembrance of these two horses she created this award and I'm extremely honoured to have won it with Liberty. It actually came down to Cole and Liberty battling it out as they were first and second. Cole's dressage was better (amazing, has NEVER happened before!) but Liberty was a bit faster cross country. As they are pasture mates, I can only imagine their conversations in the field this week. Liberty will probably think the award is something else we're using to plot his downfall. He thinks everything we do is an attempt to harm him! Cole will spend the whole week exploiting this train of thought. He'll tell him that the plaque we've put on his stall door has listening devices and cameras in it and that we're watching his every move! Anyhow I'm very proud of the two of them, I'm a huge advocate of the off the track horses and I'm lucky to have several really nice ones. Thank you to Rebecca and Christopher from both myself and the owners of Liberty, Jill and Patrick McCuan. I hope to see Rebecca out competing with her new horse soon.