Once again it’s been a long time since my last update. As you may know, my season hasn’t gone as planned, though two nice things did happen in May—Meghan O’Donoghue jumped around the CIC*** at Jersey really well, adding only time to her dressage score and getting herself closer to her goal of the CCI*** at Fair Hill. I was really pleased that I won both my divisions at the Virginia Horse Trials, an Intermediate on Why Not and the Advanced/Intermediate on J.R. It was the first time since last fall’s Fair Hill that I had run him. From there, he was sound enough to take to Bromont, which was my only possibility to try and get selected for the Olympics.
My plan was a little bit sink or swim, and as much as J.R. was a good boy over the Bromont course, as a rider I was not so good. He came off bank a little too fast and never saw the narrow after. I just circled and went right over it and he was great otherwise. But this made the Olympic decision quite easy, and helped me to think about making plans for the horse this fall. Lucky for me, J.R. came out of Bromont well. He’ll do another month of flatwork and I’ll get my mind around what the plan will be for the fall.
In the CCI**, Why Not was the best he’s been yet but of course, he won’t jump into the water if I miss as badly as I did. After he stopped, I just turned around and he dropped right in the second time. He was as awesome but wasn’t helped much by my ride; riding’s not always perfect!
It was so nice to have help and support at Bromont from Meghan, Kat and my Mom—it always makes a difference to have a great team of people with you. I got home to Virginia and a barn full of people—we have six girls right now gearing up for the event at Surefire. I’ll take the next few weeks to figure out my plans for the fall, Syd is back in work and so is Kemmerlin so I’ll figure out what makes the most sense for them as far as whether I stay here and do Fair Hill or maybe go to Boekelo. I’ll keep you posted and I’ll let you know how things go at our horse trials.
My plan was a little bit sink or swim, and as much as J.R. was a good boy over the Bromont course, as a rider I was not so good. He came off bank a little too fast and never saw the narrow after. I just circled and went right over it and he was great otherwise. But this made the Olympic decision quite easy, and helped me to think about making plans for the horse this fall. Lucky for me, J.R. came out of Bromont well. He’ll do another month of flatwork and I’ll get my mind around what the plan will be for the fall.
In the CCI**, Why Not was the best he’s been yet but of course, he won’t jump into the water if I miss as badly as I did. After he stopped, I just turned around and he dropped right in the second time. He was as awesome but wasn’t helped much by my ride; riding’s not always perfect!
It was so nice to have help and support at Bromont from Meghan, Kat and my Mom—it always makes a difference to have a great team of people with you. I got home to Virginia and a barn full of people—we have six girls right now gearing up for the event at Surefire. I’ll take the next few weeks to figure out my plans for the fall, Syd is back in work and so is Kemmerlin so I’ll figure out what makes the most sense for them as far as whether I stay here and do Fair Hill or maybe go to Boekelo. I’ll keep you posted and I’ll let you know how things go at our horse trials.
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