The following weekend Prospere went beautifully in the Intermediate at Gatcombe Park again adding nothing but a few time penalties to his dressage score.  I was pleasantly surprised with how well he galloped along and that he found the cross country quite easy.  For the first time I was forced to stop downplaying how nicely he is going and consider that he’s a really good horse.  Then on Wednesday we took some youngsters to Somerley Park where I had my favorite ex-polo pony in the Pre-Novice (that’s Training level).  Dexter did a very steady dressage, and although he taped a few show jumps out of greenness, he was incredibly good to go in the big ring surrounded by the trade fair on all sides and jump around a course that was set very much to size.  Cross country he was absolutely brilliant, gaining confidence and experience with every jump.  For his first eventing experience I’d say he stepped up to the task very well. 

Then it was Finn’s turn last weekend at Belton Park CIC3* where we needed to get a qualifying score and where Mark Phillips would see us out for the first time this season.  Finn jumped so well at home on Friday before we went, I was feeling pretty confident but when you need a qualifying score cross country, there’s no room for error.  He warmed up for dressage beautifully and the crowd that gathered at 6:00 at night when we were the last to go proved that I wasn’t the only one thinking we could do a blinder of a dressage test.  Mark said it’s the best he’s ever seen the horse, and one of the stewards said “that horse is nearly perfect!”  Frustratingly, when we went in the ring Finn lit up a bit and I didn’t do a good enough job settling him.  It was a case of nearly but not quite, for a score of 52. Mark and I talked about the fact that the horse is working wonderfully and now it’s a matter of perfecting the warm up to make sure we get the best work in the ring.  Frustrating, but not disastrous.  In Show jumping I let my disappointment of the day prior get the better of me, and I rode a hurried and desperate round causing Finn to have one down.  It is a testament to how good he is that on a day when people were having lots of rails, we only had one.  Fortunately that was a wakeup call along with Nick’s “what are you doing, chill out” pep talk before cross country, and I was able to get my head screwed on correctly in time.  Finn went absolutely brilliantly around a difficult and up to size 3* track, most importantly getting our qualifying result, but also letting me feel like we are right on track with our training and spring preparations.  Not bad work for three week’s time, and as a competitor, keeping a schedule like this will be about 4 times the experience I would normally have in a spring season.  If I didn’t know before, I now know why the Brits are so good at eventing!

This weekend we are off to Burnham Market where Prospere is doing the CIC2* and Finn will do the dressage and showjumping of the CIC3*. I had entered him in case of needing another chance to qualify, but now it will be a good opportunity to get in the big ring again and make some improvements without spending his legs cross country.  Prospere will be making a big leap up to the 2* level and with only two events together, hopefully we know each other well enough to be up to the task. 

Hope everyone else’s springs are going equally well.

Tiana Coudray comes 2nd in main event

I hid myself away in my own personal cave and completely dropped contact with everybody at home.  For that I am sorry, but I hope those people can understand that I found comfort in suffering my disappointments by myself, without having to answer to any one for them.  In that way, the anonymity of competition in England was just what I needed.  Through small successes and huge disappointments I began to view my time here in England as bigger than “this season”, bigger than “this horse”, and so much bigger than “London 2012″.  I’ve come to believe that you can’t force success no matter how hard you try, how much talent you may be sitting on, and how much you may think the time is right.  It’s like I was staring so hard at my goal that my vision had gone crossed, and the harder I tried to not make mistakes, the more I forgot how to ride.  The more I worried about Finn losing his confidence, the more of it he seemed to lose.  I had to completely let go of all of that and start to view the ups and downs of this year as having a greater meaning, and one which I probably don’t even know yet. 

At some point along the way, somebody told me I wasn’t ready for Blenheim, and that competitive fire which has guided me through my life began to smolder again.  “Is that a challenge?”  For everything I’d been through this year, I had finally been pushed to the point of saying, right or wrong, I was going to stick to my gut and do what I thought was right.  And for some reason, although our results told a different story, I thought we should go to Blenheim.  A good friend at home adamantly told me that my instinct had never let me down, and my lesson for this year was to believe in it.  And so I did, and I accepted that if it didn’t go well, I had no one to blame but myself. 

Most of you know that last weekend was the biggest success of my Eventing career to date.  Finn didn’t put a foot wrong, and I put in a personal performance that I can be proud of.  While I am completely over the moon about that, and it tastes even better with a bit of “told ya so” sprinkled on top, I still feel that it’s all part of a bigger picture than just successes and failures.  While it’s nice to turn Finn out on winter holiday having finished on such a high, I’m not losing sight of the big picture.  Just like I couldn’t succeed by focusing on our weaknesses, I’m very aware that I can’t succeed off of one good event either.  I had a conversation with Karen O’Connor at Rolex talking about how you can’t focus on the Olympics too intensely but rather have it vaguely in view and I said “Of course, I’m not focusing on it at all.”  What has taken me 5 more months to realize is that I need to apply that same vague focus on every event I do, from Blenheim down to the smallest horse trials.

To the people who have helped me around every turn, I owe a huge amount of gratitude. I was shown kindness and support at a time when I undoubtedly needed it most, and probably wasn’t a very fun person to be around either!  From the hospitality and maternal/paternal care of the Allistons with whom I’m living, to the “been there, done that, it’s not the biggest thing in the world” support of Mike and Emma Winter, I am genuinely thankful for the people life has lead me to meet. 

…So there you have it.  I’m in England, I’m a young rider with a stubborn streak and a competitive nature, and for better or worse, I’m living the dream.

Photo: Stockimageservices.com

Lexington, KY - With three riders in the top 10, the Land Rover U.S. Eventing Team had everything to play for in the show jumping on the final day of the 2011 Fidelity Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials in Woodstock, U.K.

And Tiana Coudray played the game the best for the U.S. throughout the week, adding nothing to her dressage score of 49.4 to finish second on Jatial, Inc.’s, Ringwood Magister, a 10-year-old Irish Sport Horse gelding.

“Today it was pretty much textbook,” said Coudray after the show jumping.

The California native has had a rough spring. After falling at their first CCI4* at the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event presented by Bridgestone in April, the pair then struggled at the Lumuhlen CIC3*. Coudray made the decision to stick it out in England over the summer and regain the form that saw her win the Jersey Fresh CCI3* with her flashy grey in 2010.

She found it at Blenheim.

“I am so, so pleased,” said Coudray. “It’s extra special because things have been so tough for quite a while. It was a pretty good way to finish off the season.”

I’m not sure right now if the scoreboard showed me having a Technical Elimination or having retired but the end result is the same. We all underestimated the effect that our tumble at Rolex had on Finian’s confidence and we left the box Saturday like an ally cat instead of a lion. Even more poorly planned, the course here isn’t the kind of course that would rebuild his confidence because nearly every fence is a wide table, just the type of fence we fell at in Kentucky. While I got nearly all the way around the course, it was not the way I wanted it to be, and when we finally did have a stop, 5 fences from home, I knew it was time to pack it in. I can only hope that Saturday’s go didn’t set us back further in the process of putting the roar back in the lion.

Now we have to go back and do what obviously needed to be done after Rolex which is to start back at square one and see that all our ducks are in a row. I’m fairly devastated that I didn’t foresee this situation better, as a part of me knew coming here we really weren’t ready. I feel a huge responsibility to make the right choices for how to bring Finian along, and I failed him in this instance. It’s one more reminder of needing to believe in my own decisions, a lesson I’ve been struggling to grasp all year.

The irony of it is that after Saturday and now that we’re here in Europe, we’re on our own to do whatever we please. I guess the good of that is that there is no pressure to do anything whatsoever, but at the moment, I can only feel the loneliness of finding the way on my own, and the hole in my gut that we’ve lost the belief that people had in us. The most important thing is that all four horses we brought here seem to be in really good shape tonight and will be ready to have another crack at it soon. Today Jennie will head back home while Will and I will pack up and head off to the UK. I am heading to Mike and Emma Winters farm in Cirencester and Will to Jackie Green’s in Marlborough.

Finn and the others have all settled in well and are happy.  We’ve been “quarantined” in the farthest back corner of all the barns, barricaded by 3 bags of shavings laid haphazardly across the barn isle.  I’m not sure if we’re being protected or if we’re considered to be contaminated but I’m sure glad to know that all are safe thanks to that “wall”.  And while it probably is not doing much in the way of quarantining us,  it has provided us with good napping accommodations, given great fodder for joking with our Aussie neighbors, and has doubled as a useful lunch table each afternoon.

Yesterday I had a dressage school with Mark in the morning that went really well and then I got to bathing, braiding, and polishing everything up for the Jog.  Come the 3:00 rider’s meeting, we found out that the CIC3* horses were not doing a first jog at all.  I would have felt really stupid if not for “International Nat the Super Groom” having braided her 3* horse as well!  While it was an annoying exercise it wasting time, I took advantage of my new found gap in my schedule to have a look at the cross country.  While I’ve far from made my plan yet, on first look it seems really good.  The footing is absolutely fantastic and the track seems challenging but fair.  There are several big ditches and lots of wide tables particularly later in the course, but the lines all seem pretty doable.

This morning Will had a fantastic test on Andromaque.  I think it was a career best for the pair and he should be thrilled with the progress he’s managed to make in the relatively short time he’s had Missie.  Immediately after his ride, I had a light school with Mark just getting Finn loose and relaxed. Both Mark and I knew that Finn was in a really good place and I think we both were very excited for my test this afternoon.  When I did get on for my test, Finn was really impressive.  I had a very rideable, relaxed horse with plenty of sparkle left and if the warm up were to be judged, I think we might have won.  Unfortunately, somehow between the warm up and the show arena, I think we left our winning test behind, as the work we did in the ring was fine, but far from what has become our standard.  We had two bobbles, one when we cantered instead of trotted out of the rein-back and the other when we swapped leads in the counter canter, and in general it was just lacking that something extra that separates the good from the great.

In a lot of ways I can shrug it off and say I’d rather save my winning test for a bigger, more important event, but that in no way means that I’m not hugely disappointed.  Jennie made it seem a whole lot better when she told me that if scoring a 51 is a bad day then we’re doing ok and I really couldn’t argue with her. Though today it didn’t show in the score, the work Finn has been giving me over the last few weeks has been on even a whole new level from what I’ve had in the past.  It seems just when I think to myself how lucky I am to have such an incredible horse, he steps it up and gets even better.  When we manage to bring what we had in the warm up to the main ring, I’m pretty sure he’ll blow us all away!

And while we may not yet have much excitement on the eventing front, our days in Luhmuehlen are anything but boring.  Yesterday our ghost town of a riding center that we’d enjoyed all to ourselves started humming with new arrivals.  At first we noticed several new horses in the barn of the shorter, wider stature with an easy going, kind eye.  I cracked a joke about them being the German equivalent of a Quarter Horse.  Then I went outside and saw the parking lot was packed with countless two horse trailers pulled behind all styles of small cars that really shouldn’t be pulling horse trailers.  Everything from falling apart sedans to shiny new sports cars, a few rickety RV’s and lots of horses tied up to the sides of the trailers.  The scene was most akin to a Pony Club rally, except for the bold decals everywhere of reining horses doing slide stops and slogans like “slide tough”.  Ah-ha!… America’s only equestrian export… Quarter Horses.  There are hundreds of them, some very classy, some…  well let’s just say it’s hard to make a Halflinger look AQHA approved, no matter how much you trim it’s feathered feet and band that mane! 

Most intriguing of all is how they’re not just buying the horses, but they’ve got the whole culture that comes with it!  These German’s have taken to the world of western riding and they aren’t messing around.  They’ve got the glittery outfits, the 30lb Silver encrusted halters (ever wonder how they get those horses to hold their heads so low?), and the uber-shiny black hooves. And more than anything, what would a western show be without a utility belt wielding mother or father armed with no less than 6 different aerosol products, each with a different purpose, and their distinctive smells wafting around the stables.  There’s a collection of venders from whom you can buy anything you want.  From neon colored chaps with fringe to cowboy hats to parelli halters, if it’s western, they’ve got it.  You have country music being piped over the loud speakers, and the announcer asking the riders to “please jog your horses, please jog”.  If the irony of this has been missed on you, just remember that only about 20% of the people we’ve met around town speak a single word of English!  I feel like if I went to warm up, I’d find the rail lined with cowboys wearing comtek’s, coaching their riders in German, but with a heavy Texas twang.  It’s like the whole American Dressage Queen stereotype has been turned completely inside out.  I’m pretty sure these ladies don’t really know what their horse’s name, “Cassidy’s Midnight Dazzler”, actually means, but it sounds authentic and they imported him, so he must be good.  

This whole western extravaganza goes on for two more days so we’ll have plenty of entertainment.  And if you’re worried that we’ll feel lost when this touch of home leaves us on Monday, fear not, because over the next few days all the eventers and our remaining support crew of Mark Phillips and company will start arriving. Then we’ve got jog-up’s on Wednesday and CIC3* dressage Thursday. 

We finally arrived in Luhmuehlen Wednesday night and got the horses settled into a nice stable where we’re staying until the event next week.  By the time we went to check in to the hotel and try to find dinner it was 10:00.  The hotel staff informed us they were closed and only agreed to give us a room after we begged a little.  Then we walked into town where the only food we could find was a Chinese restaurant.  In a scene that was a little like an I love Lucy episode, we attempted to crack a double language barrier to order some food.  As the proprietors barely spoke German and not a bit of English, they eventually brought a menu that had a few clip-art pictures of animals so we could figure what the words for beef, chicken, pork, and fish were.  We were still stumped with one, but through some demonstrations of animal sounds, we eventually figured it was duck.    It’s a good thing the place was empty because the quacking and flapping of arms at the table would have definitely turned some heads.  We ended up with an excellent dinner and headed to bed.

Today we took it really easy on the horses, hand grazing them and organizing our tack for most of the day.  We went to a tack store on site that was floor to ceiling, packed denser than anything I’ve ever been to.  It was really impressive, but I managed to leave without buying anything.  Kelly and I walked into town and found some real necessities; carrots and apples for the horses, and cookies and chocolate for ourselves.  Now we’re ready to take Germany by storm!  Jennie arrived in the afternoon and then we had a really nice dinner with a lot less gesturing and noise making.

Tomorrow we’ll give the horses an easy hacking day to stretch out their legs and then start to ramp things up later in the weekend.

As I write we’re sitting in the JFK airport watching the horses getting loaded on the plane and waiting to board so we can go join them. Kelly, who’s grooming for Jennie Brannigan’s Cambalda, and Nat who’s grooming for Will Faudree’s Pawlow and Andromaque are providing great comic relief and helping the many tedious hours of bureaucratic you know what pass a little quicker.  Kelly and I left from True Prospect Farm at 3:00 this morning with Ping and Finian, on our first leg of the trip to Luhmuehlen, Germany.  We arrived at JFK at 9:00 where we joined up with Nat, Will, and their two horses.  After weighing and tagging all the gear and sending it off on a truck, we sat around until 2:00 exhausting every form of time passing that we could.  After loading the horses up on another truck we said good bye to Will and headed off to the main terminal to check in ourselves.  After a 6 hour flight we’ll land in Amsterdam, go through the same bureaucratic you know what to get through customs there, and then be on our way, by truck, for a 6 hour drive to the event.  Once we arrive we’ll have a week to rest up before competition starts next Wednesday.

Here’s to a simple and non-eventful trip.  More news to follow from Germany.