Meadow Run Farm

WOW!!  What a fall.  We set out with high hopes, a lot of hard work, and a lot of support from a lot of people, and it all paid off.  On September 28^th I left Meadow Run with Marveles, River King, and Prince Noah.  We headed up to Leesburg Virginia to compete in the Morven Park Horse Trials.  My goal was to expose the horses to the different terrain and courses in that part of the country.  The courses in the south east are generally flat with manufactured terrain.  Morven Park’s course was much more built into the natural terrain features of the hilly surroundings.  I especially wanted to use Morven Park to prepare Noah for Fair Hill two weeks later.  River King ended fifth.  Marveles finished 7^th.  Jim and I decided to just canter Noah around the cross country course in order to save him for Fair Hill.  Noah finished ninth having a perfect prep for the upcoming CCI.

AfterMorvenPark, Jim flew home to coach at Middle Tennesse and I headed up to our dear friend, Bea Cousseu’s farm inChesterCountyPA.  We can’t thank Bea enough for her generous hospitality and friendship while I did the final prep for Fair Hill in the gorgeous hunt country of that part of the country. 

The week of Fair Hill arrived and so did the support crew.  First Jim came back up north.  Next my dear friend Maggie Weems came all the way fromCaliforniato help groom.  Then our past working student Aubry Cox flew up fromALto take over as Noah’s head groom.  Aubry’s trip was very generously provided by her employer and Jim’s past student Karen Yates.  Mickey Rathbun who is writing a book on Noah, came fromMassachusettsto help out.  Finally a past student of mine fromCalifornia, Tony Breeze, came on cross country day.  I can’t thank all of you enough.  There are never enough hands to carry, groom, lead, hold etc., or enough legs or vehicles to rush hither and yon for whatever forgotten item or piece of information was needed five minutes ago.

So Fair Hill 2010 began.  The first jog thankfully was uneventful.  Noah looked beautiful thanks to Aubry’s elbow grease.    Noah drew an early Friday dressage time.  It rained most of the day Thursday which the footing desperately needed though the riders going that day might have wished otherwise.  We did an early morning school which went well and then an afternoon hack where we were allowed to familiarize the horses with the competition area.  My first walk around the course left me with a mixed impression.  The track was big and busy with combination followed by combination followed combination.  However no particular fence or fences stood out as the one that would keep me up the night before running.  To me the difficulty would be with making the time .  The track was twisty and the roping of the galloping lanes seemed very narrow and almost claustrophobic.  I was also unsure how the rain would affect the traction in the turns, and since you are eliminated for a fall, even if it is just a slip in a turn, every meter/minute faster becomes a calculated risk.

Anyway Friday dawned cold, clear and windy.  Not the best conditions for dressage on a fit thoroughbred.  Jim had done a fantastic job  helping me to peak Noah in the ring by insisting that in the days prior to the test we just focus on keeping Noah’s back loose and his mind relaxed.  We did not drill movements or ride him up into his show frame.  Into the ring we went Noah was on!!  For a 17.2 hand TB who started doing dressage two years ago, I couldn’t have been happier.  My goal was to score better than a 55 and to be in the top third after dressage.  Both goals were achieved.  To do that at Fair Hill was truly a thrill and was a wonderful payback for the years of work on this often frustrating discipline.

Cross Country day was picture perfect.  The weather and footing couldn’t have been better.  I had made friends with the track after a couple more walks and so we were off.  UnlikeMorvenParkwhere we were out for a school, this course was had been my goal for Noah for 2010.  I stepped on the gas on Noah answered. Nine minutes, four water complexes, and I don’t know how many jumping efforts later we had jumped clean around Fair Hill.  The only downer was that I was stopped “by accident”, one minute from home.  Upon pulling up the flagman said, “I’m so sorry.  I was supposed to stop a different rider.”  Well it never fails that when you are held on course your time is always messed up.  According to my watch I was double clear.  When the official time came in they had me 19 seconds slow.  I inquired and protested as far as I could.  The ground jury, while admitting a mistake had been made and that I had been wronged, were not willing to change the time penalties.

Oh well.   Nothing could take away the thrill of having ridden such an amazing animal around that course.  Compliments came from left and right on Noah’s amazing performance.  So now all efforts went into keeping Noah comfortable and happy for the jog on Sunday morning.  Noah was fine Saturday evening and Sunday.  The difference in his fitness between the beginning of the year and now was very evident, in his recovery from cross country day.  I noticed at the jog that most  looked stiff and sore from the exertions of the prior day.  The spring in Noah’s step was remarkable given what he had just done.  One of the Olympic selectors came up to me after the jog and complimented me on how good Noah looked.

Lots of rails were falling on the big stadium course.  Noah can be a bit difficult to show jump after running fast on cross country and the stadium looked huge.  Well Noah stepped up to the plate and jumped huge. He had one rail down which wasn’t bad for this course.  Again I was thrilled with the performance.  My final placing was 14^th out of 60 starters.  Without the time penalties from cross country I would have been in 9^th.  I could have been disappointed about being kept out of the top ten by a mistake of the control tower, but the best was yet to come.  As I exited the show jumping arena, Jim came up to me with the best news of the year.  Karen O’ Connor, as a talent scout for the Developing Rider list, said that she was going to nominate me to the list to participate in the team winter training sessions. 

The trip was almost over.  We leftPennsylvaniaand headed forLexington.  We had one more stop at theKentuckyHorseParkwhere the other two horses were going to run at the Midsouth Team Challenge.  The trip was quite eventful with a truck breakdown somewhere on border of PA andWest Virginia.  We limped intoKentuckya day later than planned.  All was forgotten though when River King scored a 29 in dressage and won his very large division of preliminary.  He is fast on Noah’s heels and will be moving up to intermediate this year inFlorida.  Like I said at the beginning WOW!!

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