Stuart Update Day #3

Simon in the OI XC - Photo via Twitter by

@copperlegend

We are just finishing up with cross country day for training and up here at the Stuart Horse Trials. It has been a great week so far with Show Jumping still to come tomorrow.

I'm riding four horses here: Running Order, Lysander (Leo), Arbor Hill (Timeless) and Shining North Star (Simon). Two others came along with us from the barn, Kristin Michaloski riding Kilamanjaro (Hughie) and Nicole Carolan riding Topgun (Gunnar).

Stuart is Running Order's first run since Rolex, it's great to have him back in action. His dressage was decidedly sub-par, we had some rust to knock off. There were some moments that were quite good, but some others where his excitement derailed us from having a winning test. Not to worry, he'll be back in top form soon. His cross country, however was an entirely different story. He hardly put a foot wrong today in a beautiful clear around Derek's CIC** track.

Simon was next out, he too was a little too excited about his arrival here to put in a winning dressage test, but he certainly made up for it on XC. He is one of the most fun horses to gallop and jump that I've ever ridden, he lived up to that reputation here today. He wasn't backed off anything, he made easy work of the intermediate track.

Leo might get the gold star for the weekend so far. After making easy work of his 4 training level events this spring he made the big move up to prelim here. He started off extremely well finishing 2nd in dressage. I didn't know what to expect, but this was a huge and exciting surprise! I would not say this is the most ideal track to move up, Leo proved he belonged! He jumped around today very well, we had a few green moments to be expected, but he impressed me. He's going to be a very good horse in a few years time. I think he's going to try to steal the Prodigy's YEH-5 title this fall!

Timeless is last but not least, this was his first event ever. He has now successfully made the transition from the hunters to eventing finishing the novice here in 4th place! He also won the Irish Draught Horse Society's award for the highest place horse of Irish decent. Not a bad result for his very first time out!

Kristin is in great shape with Hughie, she was less than 2 points out of the lead after dressage and jumped around clean today with the best XC yet. Nicole finished up her weekend yesterday with her second win in a row with Gunnar in the Novice!

We start up tomorrow at 8 with the CIC** jogs.

There are a bunch of photos of all of the horses already posted on Stuart's website here.

-D