Bromont, Quebec—June 5

“I didn’t actually come here to prove I could do circles; I came here to get him going back on the cross-country after a very disappointing Rolex,” said Selena O’Hanlon after her dressage test with Foxwood High, which placed them at the top of the leader board at the Jaguar Land Rover Bromont CCI*** on a 46.7.

O’Hanlon is rerouting from the Rolex Kentucky CCI****, where she and the 12-year-old Canadian Sport Horse gelding (Rio Bronco W—Evita II) were eliminated on a wet and muddy cross-country course that caused several experienced pairs to fault.

While cross-country is first on her mind this weekend, O’Hanlon was thrilled with “Woody’s” test—his best score at an FEI event to date.

Selena O’Hanlon and Foxwood High put in the best FEI dressage test of their career to sit in first in the Bromont CCI***. Photo by Lindsay Berreth.

“It certainly is icing on the cake! I tried to do the same routine—I circled the [race] track in walk and then I went up and down the hill over by the start box because I think it’s really helpful getting their backs up and their hocks underneath them,” she said. “Then I went to warm up a tiny bit around the big ring and when I came to the last warm up, he was quite tense because there were some people in the ring. He was anxious because I think he noticed the cross-country jumps. So I was a bit concerned. I thought he might be tense, and he just went to work.”

O’Hanlon, Kingston, Ontario, credited Canadian Chef D’Equipe Clayton Fredericks with helping her keep her cool and ride Woody through his tension.

“Clayton was there thankfully and he said, ‘Just get into him. You know how to do this; don’t run him around, and drive him over his back.’ He really started to work through and feel good so when I went into the ring, I decided, ‘We got this,’” she said.

O’Hanlon has walked Derek Di Grazia’s track and considers it to be quite a test, but she’s planning on taking her time to make sure Woody has a confidence-building round. He’s in contention for Canada’s Pan American Games (Toronto) team, which will be announced on Monday.

“There were a lot of corners out there! I saw Lauren Kieffer walking it and she said, ‘Boy, this is a big three-star course! There are a lot of corners…I hope I don’t have a corner problem!’ And I waited a minute and she said, ‘I’ll find out at the end if I do!’” she said with a laugh. “Definitely at fence 20 I think I’m going to take the long route; I didn’t have the greatest confidence-building ride at Kentucky and I haven’t been able to do anything in between, in terms of competition, so it’s a bending line, a big watery ditch brush to an angled hedge to a corner and normally I would love to give it a go and I wouldn’t give it a second thought because he’s honest as the day is long and super straight, but too much is riding on this, and I really, more than anything, would just like to go clear tomorrow—I don’t actually care about the time that much.”

Emily Beshear and Shame On The Moon slotted into second place in the CCI***. Photo by Taylor Joyce.

Emily Beshear made the CCI*** at Bromont, which is known to be tough, her goal with Shame On The Moon this season in hopes of heading to the Blenheim CCI*** (England) in the fall.

She slotted into second place (48.4) after dressage with the lovely-moving 9-year-old Trakehner/Thoroughbred mare (Sonset Sieger—Indy).

“It wasn’t our best test. I think [the Jersey Fresh (N.J.) CIC***] was certainly her best test at this level,” said Beshear, Somerset, Va. “This was a different test than Jersey’s and it didn’t play to our strengths quite as much as the test at Jersey did, but when I’ve had her in an environment like this is the past she can get really spooky and inattentive, and today was actually the opposite. She was really relaxed and almost lazy. So I didn’t quite have the test I would have hoped for. It wasn’t as clean and we had lots of little mistakes.”

Beshear joked that maybe the cross-country course was a bit tougher than she was hoping for, but she feels that it will be a good test for “Delta.”

“There’s a lot to do. In a sense, it’s what I hoped for,” she said. “It’s what I think she’s ready for and I keep kind of joking that I need to start riding her like she’s a three-star horse, not like a green horse because she’s certainly more than willing to do it. There are a lot of lines where you have to be determined and accurate.” 

Tidbits

– Marilyn Little and RF Overdressed currently lead the CCI** on a 40.9. “He’s quite strong on the flat and I hadn’t ridden that test on him before so I was really pleased with his effort,” she said. “He’s just wonderful. He really wanted to depart into canter from the turn on the haunches.”

Little has kept the gelding at the one-star level for much of the year, but feels he’s ready to tackle the two-star course. “There’s a ton to do out there and Derek has some very strong courses set,” she said. “And Bromont is notorious for the terrain and this has a great gallop, so I’ll be trying to make the most of that. I’m going to have to nurse him along a little bit at the end because he’s never done anything like this before.”

– Beau Guimond and Filibuster ST lead the CCI* on a 38.4, while Canadian Peter Barry and Long Island T lead the CIC** with a 41.3.

-Cross-country starts at 8:45 a.m. tomorrow with the CCI*, followed by the CCI***, CCI** and CIC**.

For full results, click here.