Lots happening around the sovereign state of Eventing Nation this weekend! Let’s recap winners and a few notes from Ocala International CCI & H.T. in Ocala, Florida; Fair Hill CIC & H.T. in Elkton, Maryland; Twin Rivers CIC & H.T. in Paso Robles, California; and FENCE H.T. in Landrum, South Carolina.
- Andrea Davidson and Mr. Poppers posted the lowest finishing score of the weekend in the country, a 20.2 in a division of Open Training at Ocala International. We love the story of this special partnership between the Davidsons and this handsome black horse, who meant so much to the late Christine Brown. Well-done, you two.
- FENCE H.T. was compressed from a two-day to a one-day due to impending severe weather on Sunday. What could have been a mad scramble ran smoothly thanks to a classic case of eventing camaraderie. As my buddy Katherine McDonough, who finished 2nd in Open Beginner Novice A with Irish Red, recounted, “Shout-out to the approximately 591,583 moms, dads, friends and fellow competitors who helped all of us when our two-day got changed to a one-day due to impending storms and kept us fed and watered and held horses and put in studs and helped us cool out horses and tack up and ran and got this and carried that and told us what time is was and helped us run through our courses in our head and and and … what a sport, what a crew.” Indeed!
- It’s great to see events putting so much effort and attention into quality footing. Ocala International has a new irrigation system in use at The Florida Horse Park, along with two huge new irrigated arenas. Ocala organizer Equiventures, LLC was also able to purchase an aerator made possible by contributions from the eventing community and help from Mark McCleerey and Will Whiddon, and it was put to good use over the weekend. A snapshot from Fair Hill, which also takes pride in providing competitors with top-notch turf:
A post shared by Fair Hill International (@fairhillint) on Apr 13, 2018 at 5:50pm PDT
Your weekend…
