This coming weekend is the Colonel Bengt Ljungquist Memorial Championships at the Virginia Horse Center in Lexington, Virginia. I’m taking six horses, and they are all very good competitors.
Wasabi Rosa (Dutch by Jazz out of a Farrington mare), Nina Gardner’s horse is doing the Training level championships and is going really well. She’s going better than before Bucks County, and she was champion there. I checked the draw and she’s got a lot of competition in this class, which is good and not good – she’ll have to go really well. There are a lot of good horses entered, a lot of imported horses – for some reason training level is packed with really nice horses - but she is going well, which is exciting.
DP Lidcombe (by Luebeck out of a Thoroughbred mare), Janet Mudge’s horse, is doing First level. He hasn’t been to a show since the PVDA show which was in June. He some time off because he had a little cut on his leg but now he’s back in business and feels good. I hope he’ll do really well; the judges like to look at this horse, and it’ll be nice for Janet since she’s over here watching from Australia.
I have three horses in the Third level. The first is Ballatale, (Irish Sport Horse), Sarah Sanz’s horse. I teach Sarah on him every week and about a week before the competition he comes to me. I never know what to do with the horse because he’s just so easy to ride!
Waimea, (Canadian Warmblood by Wallenstein), Margo Marano’s mare, is doing Third level as well. She competed in Fourth level at Bucks County for the first time but I moved her back to Third for the championships. Since she’s been doing Fourth level, the stuff at Third is real easy for her and she feels great.
Sea Lord, (American Thoroughbred by Sea Hero), (pictured above, Amber Heintzberger photo), owned by Shannon Stimson, is the next in Third level. He’s one of my favorite horses and I’m very excited about him because he’s so spectacular; he always feels even better in the ring than in the warm-up. I haven’t competed him in a while because he kind of got used to doing the Third level test. The last show I did with him was Saugerties, in New York, where he won both classes. I gave him a break because he’s a Thoroughbred and very smart and was starting to know the tests better than I do, which is not very helpful!
Our Windurra horse, Jeff the Chef, (By Jive Magic out of a Salut mare), is doing Fourth level. He is coming from his really good performance at Devon, so hopefully he’ll go just as well or maybe even better. I have high hopes for him even against tough competition, so hopefully he’ll do well and then move up to Prix St. Georges.
It will be a busy week with six horses but I am taking Caitlin and Lucy to help me and I have a really good feeling about it. I’ve had a nice preparation; when you come from a show like Devon it feels like everything is going well. The Virginia Horse Center is a nice facility and there’s not one horse that I’m taking that I don’t feel is going really well.
-Silva
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