L-R: Lindsey Taylor, Emily van Gemeren, Doug Neilson, and Caitlin Silliman
Our 2012 event season began with a busy day at Full Gallop Farm horse trials with a total of eleven horses competing. The courses were great, with good questions for a first time out, and all the horses ran very well. Some of the upper level horses came out for their first run of the season and all ran nice and slow around the Preliminary. The sales horses all went very well and are a great group of competitors. Poetic Justice, or “Poppy”, had a great go in the Training, placing second with a fast cross-country round, Ricochet {“Chetti”} jumped well in the Novice, and Bacardi won his first ever event! The young horses went well too, and look to be horses for the future. After a great dressage test, I unfortunately cantered right past fence 7 in the show jumping, but I'm happy despite the resulting TE because of how well my horse Berkley was going up until I went off course. Luckily for me, I was allowed to run cross-country anyways and so I had a good, slow round to prepare for my next few events. Both Boyd and Caitlin were happy with their days as well! Lindsey kept everyone very organized back at the trailers and we even had time to sit down every now and then!
Steady Eddie at Full Gallop
Full Gallop Farm Horse Trials
Preliminary
Boyd: Lucy Boynton’s Crackerjack 5th, Laurie Cameron’s Merging 6th
Emily: Berkley TE
Training
Boyd: Gale Thayer’s Poetic Justice 2nd, George and Gretchen Wintersteen and Denise Lahey and Pierre Colin’s Steady Eddie 4th
Caitlin: Looks Like Fernhill 11th
Novice
Boyd: Gretchen and George Wintersteen’s Ballyneety 4th, Denise Lahey and Pierre Colin’s SBF Balboa 9th
Caitlin: Lisa Samoylenko’s Rhicochet EDF 9th
Beginner Novice
Caitlin: Sandy Issler’s Bacardi 1st, Denise Lahey and Pierre Colin’s SBF Cortez 4th
Just three days later, Boyd and Sara took six horses to Sporting Days horse trials. All of these young horses preformed very well for their first time out this year, with top placings among the levels. Sara rode Ann Rawle’s sales horse Ladylovesdiamonds {“Jewels”} in a big division of Beginner Novice and she placed third, beating many good horses and riders.
Sporting Days Farm Horse Trials
Training
Boyd: Katie Walker’s Brewster 2nd, Anne Hennessey’s New Cadet 5th
Sara: Ann Rawle's Polaris 11th
Novice
Boyd: Bonnie Stedt’s Quinn Himself 1st, Katie Walker’s Wakefield 1st
Beginner Novice
Sara: Ann Rawle's Ladylovesdiamonds 3rd
This coming Wednesday Caitlin and Boyd are headed back to Full Gallop, and then this weekend we go to Pine Top- from here on out we are sure to be very busy!
-Emily van Gemeren
