Hanging out at Fair Hill
Here in America we're getting down to the pointy end of the year, which is much like Australia except here it gets colder and colder each day instead of hotter and hotter! Like Australia there is a year end Championship similar to Adelaide, called Fair Hill International.
Once you've been here for a couple of years October, November and December really take on a festive feel where everyone starts to get excited about their winter clothes and who has the fanciest boots to wear. Fair Hill is the riders chance to show off winter collections with girls favoring their woolen, short dresses and tights and the guys all wear their favorite vest under their favorite sport coat. It's also one of those events where it ALWAYS rain and there's ALWAYS mud, so it gives the grooms a chance to show of their Dubarrys and knack for keeping horses dirt free under the very challenging conditions!
My horses have all their qualifications so I hadn't planned on riding until the opportunity arose to compete in the PRO Bareback Challenge. The 'bareback' part is self explanatory, the 'challenge' part involves the fastest time over seven fences with the last fence being a joker and significantly higher. Growing up in Queensland I was an exceptional bareback rider, I would gallop everywhere and jump anything, rarely falling off. So when I found out that it was limited to six riders AND had prize money of $2000, I was in!
The bareback challenge - Photo thanks to Tara Katherine
By the time I had my first practice ride at home I was already picturing what I would be buying with the prize money, so it was a rude shock to find out that my skills no longer included galloping and jumping bareback! After several near falls I now understood why the six of us jumping really fast in front of a huge crowd at a three day event would be entertaining! Of course I didn't practice until three days before the show so I had a LOT of catching up to do! I also had to choose my horse very carefully.
I'm really fortunate that I have a barn full of really nice jumpers that are very careful, turns out that extravagant kicking up they do with their back legs over a fence is not a desirable trait in a bareback horse! After trying very unsuccessfully with six horses I ended up with one of my students horses, Maverick. Given his penchant for spinning in circles and spooking at EVERYTHING, he wasn't my first choice. The upper hand he did have though, is that his rider regularly fangs him around the farm bareback, so he was quite at home.
Anyway back to Fair Hill, we were second last to go with the others already posting some very quick times. Drawing on all my recent pure showjumping experience, I went really fast, did my tight turns and kept kicking to the finish. I was second by POINT ZERO TWO of a second! Less than a blink of an eye! In the main classes Clayton Fredericks was second in the two star in his first event since moving to America, Boyd was fifth and sixth in the same class and Phillip was third in the 3 star.
Cole on his way to another win
My horses have been going really well with both Cole and Trevor having recent wins and the others placing well. I have two more competitions left for the year, Waredaca (which is just down the road from my barn) and Virginia HT, which is 3 and 1/2 hours away. Last year there was 6 inches of snow at Virginia for us to go cross country in so I'm hoping for warmer conditions this year!
Good luck to everyone competing at Adelaide!
Kate
