Friday, July 3, 2009

New Additions to Silva's Barn

Silva has a couple of recent additions to her lineup of competition horses. Both happen to be 17.2hh Danish geldings and both have had a fantastic start with Silva as their rider.

CONCORDE is a Danish warmblood owned and imported from Denmark by Jeff Anderson. The big 17.2hh gelding had not shown before Silva started riding him, but Jeff brought him over a couple of years ago and had put all the basics on him. Now Concorde and Silva have shown twice at Third level and recently won and placed second in Fourth level classes at Fair Hill. Silva plans to compete him Prix St. Georges in the PSG Challenge in Lexington, Virginia and then in the Open PSG at the CDI at Saugerties, New York.

“He’s a great horse, easy to train and I think he’ll be competitive,” said Silva. “He’s still green at Prix St. Georges but he’s very good. He’s almost qualified for Fourth level at Devon but I’m hoping he’ll actually do Fourth Level test 3 and the Prix St. Georges. I think that he will be ready for Grand Prix by the end of next year.

COMET V, by Comeback, is owned by Sheila Christiansen and is currently showing at Third level. He took the championship at Fair Hill and Silva is aiming him for the BLM Championships.

“He’s a little cheeky but very smart,” said Silva. “Sheila keeps him going and I ride him for a couple weeks before the shows. I have a really good relationship with Sheila and it’s nice that I can help her out and get him ready for the shows. She’s like to do a First level freestyle with him sometime, but she’s also happy to come to the shows and groom him and she’s great to have around.”

In other news, Waimea has returned to her owner after several months of successful training and showing with Silva, and Lidcombe, having completed “dressage boot camp” with Silva, is going to do some eventing with Boyd now.

Silva is also excited that Nutrena Feeds is officially sponsoring her and Boyd – more details to follow!