We had a very busy Father’s Day at S.H.E.!
We took four horses to compete at the Bucks County Horse Park Horse Trials (Pa.), and I’m really starting to enjoy competing quite a few in one day. If you have not such a great ride on one, you don’t have time to overanalyze—you just get thrown onto the next horse and kick on!
There is no way I could have gotten 12 competition rides done successfully without a dynamite pit crew, and I have to say my team is on fire! Every time I came back on one horse the next would be standing there perfectly turned out. One of the girls would grab the horse I was on, and Meg was literally throwing triple pinneys on me while Olivia was reading me my dressage test on her iPhone… I have got to get that dressage test App! So a huge shout-out goes to Megan, Sarah, Delsey and Olivia.
My two sale horses, Belvedere and Ian’s Zone, had no jumping penalties and good dressage test placings, putting them both in the ribbons. I also catch rode Wendy Furlong’s Jazz Blues, and barring one steering miscommunication, we had a good result. I’m really excited about JB—he’s an excellent jumper (like his relatives Classical King and Jazz King), and Wendy has decided to let me compete him for a while to see how far he wants to go in the eventing world.
I also rode D-Lux, a new, exciting prospect, in his first event. We’re hoping to syndicate him so I can keep the ride. He scored a 25.7 on the flat, which was amazing… He was a little concerned about the red and white flags (which could indicate danger!), the natural log jump with florescent flowers (which obviously did not make sense) and the fact that his buddies weren’t coming with him, but after fence 1, all that was history. From fence 2 on he was in a class of his own and showed all the intelligence and star quality to be a real world-beater.
Next on the agenda is the Horse Park of New Jersey, where Outfoxed and I will debut as a new team in the preliminary, and the babies will all compete again. Then I’ve been incredibly lucky to receive a grant from the U.S. Equestrian Team to fly to London to watch the Olympic Test Event. I’m really excited!
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Team USA is to treat this opportunity as a way to familiarize ourselves with the train system and the underground in London and get a feel for the venue. We’ll stay in hotels with an American roommate, get accreditation to get into the barns and walk the cross-country. The test event is a CIC**, so the jumps for the Olympics will be much different, but it will be a huge advantage to know what the turf and terrain feel like as well as the atmosphere we hopefully will be competing in next year. I’ll fly out the Saturday evening after competing at Jersey.
It is all very exciting. I feel like one of those crazy people that love going to school! Every day, I’m a student and a teacher. For every one thing I teach a young horse, they teach me two things; every jump I jump on the older horses I get to confirm my knowledge by repetition. And every opportunity I receive from Team USA, I’m embracing with eager eyes and a hunger to excel.
I’m proud of my friends that went to compete in Germany last week at Luhmuhlen. The result may not have been ideal, but the only way to learn is to make mistakes and to TRY, TRY, TRY again. We will be successful as a country because we have the hunger, the heart and we will not give up. GO TEAM USA!
Sinead
