Bucky at Richland, Michigan Photo: Shannon Brinkman
After a summer of travelling thru’ New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Virginia the first weekend in November is the VA Horse Trials which also the official end of my season! It's always held two weeks after the biggest autumn 3 Day Event, Fair Hill International, at which I rode Beth Sokohl's Buckharo. Bucky has enjoyed a lot of success with Beth at Training/Pre Novice level. This year I've taken over the reins and moved him up to Advanced where he has proven to be very competitive. Fair Hill is a great course, a little bit like Sydney, lots of room to gallop and plenty of technical questions. The other thing Fair Hill is famous for is its rain! This year didn't disappoint with a couple of pretty heavy downpours. After a pretty decent dressage test, Bucky was great on the cross country then show jumped clear to finish near the top end of the 122 horse class. That was good enough to warrant a one month break for him!
Always plenty of rain at Fair Hill!
As you may know two of my advanced horses were laid up for the summer and were back in work just in time to make Virginia. This was exciting in a few different ways. The most obvious was that they're back in action and feel fantastic. The not so fun part was riding two fit thoroughbreds, that haven't seen a cross country course in six months, on top of a mountain in nearly sub zero temperatures! Fortunately I managed to stay on them and they ended up 3rd and 5th.
Try This at 5 Points Advanced (yes there are 2 greys!)
The end of the season now means washing, selling, washing, unpacking, washing, paperwork, washing, keeping warm, washing, more paperwork, AND washing! After Thanksgiving (end of November) I'll head home for a short break before coming back and heading south for the winter season.
Thanks for reading!
Banker at Millbrook
