Cole and I at Pine Top
The winter season is well and truly in swing here in the south of America and although it is geographically America, one could be forgiven for thinking it is actually Australia! It's not uncommon to see the warm up rings made up of entirely Australians: Boyd Martin, Ryan Wood, Dom Schramm and obviously myself (and now add Clayton Fredericks to that mix too). In fact on many more than one occasion there are only Australians cantering around the cross country course.
Anyhow, back to the eventing. For me January and February consisted of mostly competing at Full Gallop Farm, flying to MD (Maryland) to teach, competing at Pine Top, flying to MD to teach, competing at Pine Top, flying to MD to teach, competing at Full Gallop Farm … You get the picture!
Bucky and I at Pine Top
My horses have all been going really well and are jumping great. Pine Top 2 was very very very wet (think monsoon) so I scratched from the advanced and 1 star, leaving only the intermediate horses to run. Both horses are pretty green at this level but jumped around very easily, which was good. The organisers went way above and beyond anyone's expectations to stabilise the footing, preparing each take off and landing after EVERY horse, moving the jumps six inches every ten or so horses but sometimes mother nature certainly didn’t help their cause!
Dressage warm up at the BEGINNING of the day! It deteriorated fast.....
Next on my calendar was to be Red Hills CIC, however there is an outbreak of EHV-1 in Florida. With EI still very much in my memory I think I'll just keep my horses here in South Carolina and run them at Full Gallop instead. Again the organisers of Red Hills are doing everything they possibly can do in very challanging circumstances.
After Full Gallop we start to pack up and head home, competing at Southern Pines on the third weekend in March on the way.
