Above: Ryan Starley, flight supervisor with H.E. Sutton Forwarding Company, escorts Phantom Pursuit from a 727 at Glacier Jet Center. Eighteen horses traveled from the east coast to participate in The Event at Rebecca Farm. - Lido Vizzutti/Flathead Beacon Read the article by Erin Cole
Boyd is at the airport in Chicago on his way to Kalispell, Montana for the Rebecca Farm Horse Trials. He says:
The event is taking an extra step to bring the best riders in America to the event by chartering a plane out of Baltimore for 18 horses from east coast to fly out on Monday and paying for the majority of the flight expenses. I was lucky enough to get on board; some of the other riders will be Karen O’Connor and Buck Davidson. This is a whole new frontier for eventing in America, with the organizers going beyond the call of duty by renting a plane.
I’m riding four or five horses at the event: my main horse is Abbie and Kim Golden’s Phantom Pursuit (pictured at right, behind Buck Davidson's gray, Titanium) who is an advanced horse that my old friends Guy Wallace and Tim Boland used to compete in Australia. He was sold to Abbie, who is my student here in America; she’s been nice enough to let me ride in a couple horse trials leading up to this event. She also flew out to Montana with Phantom Pursuit to get him ready for the big day. It’ll be his first time competing at advanced level in about five years and he’s hot to trot and has been training well the past couple of weeks.
I’m also riding four catch rides who are already in Montana, from novice up to intermediate. I’m not too sure what I’m in for here, having never seen any of the horses before. I love the opportunity to compete in new and exciting places, so when the chance turned up to take on a few catch rides I put my hand up straightaway.
This is the first time since I’ve been in America that I’ll be competing away from the east coast, and the first time I’ve had to fly to a competition since competing in New Zealand six years ago.
-Boyd
No comments:
Post a Comment