Ups and Downs at The Fork 2012

Boyd and Otis in Action. Samantha Clark Photo for Eventingnation.com

The Fork Horse Trials didn’t start very well for our team. Right from the get-go, when we checked the horses on the way down I noticed poor old Ying Yang Yo’s eye was swollen – it looks like he knocked it somewhere along the way. After arriving at the event he soon departed for the University of NC where his eye was treated by an ophthalmologist. That was a real bummer because he is just starting to hit form in his training.

Cold Harbor bounced back after a rough Southern Pines and had a good run in the intermediate, jumping much better and feeling very confident.

I had an up and down weekend with the advanced horses: Remi had a sensational weekend, bar the third to last jump on cross-country, the double corners. I was going like a rocket and I believe poor Remi didn’t pick up on the fence and had an uncharacteristic glance-off, which was a shame because he was going so well. I think it scared him because then he balked at it again, but it’s a good wake-up call to focus on more than just his fitness work before Rolex.

Neville put in an impressive dressage test which gave him a 26 and put him in the top bracket of a very competitive field. He danced around the cross-country; I chose to work on his rideability and just chill out a bit around the course. Unfortunately his show jumping was a bit lackluster: I assumed he’d put in his trademark brilliant round but he was a bit casual and had a couple fences down. We’ve been focusing on his dressage so, like with Remi, that was a reminder to work on his jumping as well.

A highlight of the weekend was Otis, who put in a classy test and a nice strong cross-country round and then finished the weekend with a super show jumping round that left him in fifth place among some of the best in the country.

We’re on the road back to Pennsylvania to gear up for Fair Hill and Plantation horse trials, and then on to Kentucky in a couple weeks’ time. Over the next couple weeks I’ll just be fine-tuning the weaker aspects of the horses’ training, do a couple more gallops up the Cheshire Hunt Country hills and make sure the horses are fit as they can be going into the four-star.

-Boyd