Keeping It Local

We’ve have had such a funny year, especially summer and fall. I think Virginia has never seen so much rain! I ran one horse trials at Maryland in July and the ground was hard as a rock, and everything else has been soaking wet or cancelled because of rain. We did go to Loudoun at the end of August the footing was unheard of good, though, and it was so fun with Kortina, Jolie and Volcan. 

I decided to keep quite local this year, so next thing on the docket was going to be Seneca. I did run Volcan, who was good in spite of the rain and deep footing, and then went to walk the next day’s move-up courses with Emma and by the third jump we decided there was no way were going to our horses. It was literally standing water on top of the ground and they called the event an hour and half later. 

So we came home and decided to enter Marlboro with all the babies and the girls at the barn because they were accepting entries. I ran Volcan in the preliminary so he could have a not overwhelming experience and I could work on his ridability and on myself. Kortina moved up to training and won and Volcan won as well. It was a great day for everyone competing at Surefire; everyone was in the top 10! The only bummer was Jolie had shifted her shoe and was dead lame so she couldn’t compete and move up to Novice. 

Then we went to Morven and had great weather. Jolie was still recovering, but I was able to run Kortina and Volcan. Kortina was great but it was the training Olympics and she had two green rails in show jumping. She handled the cross-country course like a champ, though maybe not the with the most confidence because it was such a huge ask. Volcan had a nice dressage test, an unlucky rail down behind in the triple in show jumping and was a bit of a madman in the cross-country but finished third in the 2-star. 

Up next was Loch Moy with Kortina in training and Jolie in the novice and now Volcan is in the 2-star at Fair Hill. My parents are here, which is great—this is always one of our favorite events.