Tuesday, May 5, 2015

jump judging: MCTA Horse Trials @ Shawan Downs

This weekend I jump judged at the MCTA Horse Trials with a barn mate and her young friend. We had SO MUCH FUN!! The weather was beautiful - high 70s with a light breeze and big puffy white clouds. Idyllic. 

Jump judging provides the perfect opportunity for some serious fangirling too, lol :) - and the pros were seriously out in FORCE at this event. 

I didn't come close to snapping pics or video of all Phillip Dutton's rides (and failed to capture Icabad Crane's round, boo), plus Boyd Martin, Doug Payne, Ryan Wood, Jan Byyny (who I also failed to catch on video) and a few others also ran multiple horses. Kinda nuts - I can't imagine the fitness (and teamwork!) needed to make that happen. 

We saw some really amazing elite riders up close and it was thrilling. Below are pics of the riders I managed to snap with my cell (tho a big bummer was missing Sinead Halpin, as she unfortunately skipped an early fence and retired). 

We spent the morning at a prelim 2-stride combo, which only had two or three refusals at the A element throughout the day. The afternoon put us at the second-to-last training fence - chevrons that had zero faults (tho one or two 'oh shit' moments as riders flew downhill to it) and conveniently put the water complex right behind us for easy spectating. 

So, uh - that's pretty much it for the 'words' portion of this post - the rest is all pictures and video. Enjoy!

water complex
intermediate and advanced jumps were spread about too - and BIG
view down the valley
selfie at our assigned combo
Preliminary Fence 9A-B
Lauren Kieffer, Landmark's Jungle Roc
Doug Payne, Reddina Cooley
Ryan Wood, Zeizos
Phillip Dutton, Come Fly With Me
Doug Payne, Chubba
Mindy Cady, Crime Wave
(Mindy blogs about her experiences - like moving up to prelim last fall! - at That Horse Force. Go check her out!)
Suzannah Cornue, Korbin
Boyd Martin, Santos
Phillip Dutton, Fernhill Singapore
Elizabeth Bierman, Czech It Out
Training Fence 16
Colleen Rutledge, Capital Flight
Jessica Payne, High Class
Sally Cousins, Stravinsky
Boyd Martin, Loughnatousa Reiner
Courtney Sendak, Royal Millenium
Boyd Martin, Boo-yah
Yvette Seger, Finders Keepers
Nicolas Hinze, Dakota Blues

32 comments:

  1. SUCH great pictures! Your post is like a sneak peak for me because I'm jump judging at Jersey Fresh this weekend, and I imagine that most of these riders will be there too! Glad you had good weather.

    Also, random side note: Liz Bierman owns her barn right up the road from where I ride.

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    1. omg you're gonna have so much fun at jersey fresh!!!! please take soooo many pictures haha!

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  2. Fence judging is the best! And so cool that you got to do it at an event with all of these big names! There used to be an event 20 mins away from me that went up to advanced and I saw the likes of David O'Connor and Phillip Dutton, but that was 10 years ago and they only go up to prelim now.

    Also: Chubba???? Best. Name. Ever.

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    1. it really is a lot of fun. makes for a long day (and i may or may not have purposefully not told the teenagers i took with me exactly HOW LONG the day would be lol - but they were troopers anyway), but it really is a great experience.

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  3. How awesome! Such great photos and lovely horses!!! Thanks for including the riders and horses! :)

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    1. thanks!! they're pretty much all video stills (per usual for this blog lol) - but it was such a gorgeous day out that everything just looks good haha

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  4. Bahaha! It would be so much fun to take a horse named "Boo-yah" xc!

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  5. So awesome! It looks like it was a gorgeous day with some awesome, up-close riding!

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    1. it's so cool seeing these riders up close haha. it would have been neat to travel around and see different obstacles, but obvi we couldn't really leave our fence haha

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  6. What fun! Looks like a beautiful day

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  7. Woah, great photos. Those are some intimidating looking fences!

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    1. haha they're definitely a bit bigger than what i jump.... tho these guys made it look easy :)

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  8. Such cool pics, thanks for sharing :) Some of those jumps are pretty terrifying!

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    1. lol right? the intermediate and advanced jumps were HUGE - i wish i got closer pics of them too!

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  9. Great pics, and good for you for volunteering! I so wish we had stuff like that near us.

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    1. it's definitely a great opportunity - plus they reward volunteers with 'mcta bucks' that can be used for show entries. maybe you just need to start an organization and host some events to draw in the pros :)

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  10. Looks like a super fun day! Loved seeing all the rides on video

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    1. glad you liked the video! it was really neat seeing how different rider/horse pairs handled the combo

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  11. Those pics are great! You have a good eye. Also, Boo-yah is my favorite name for an event horse. So cute.

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    1. haha i love 'boo-yah' too! and i can't take too much credit for the pics - every single action shot is actually a still from video... but whatever they're fun to look at all the same!

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  12. Awesome! Love the photos and the video. Thanks for sharing. I learn so much from jump-judging and volunteering is good for our sport so good on ya!

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    1. thanks! i agree - jump judging has taught me a lot about how events are run in general, and helped me understand the rules. my first ever event was actually as a volunteer rather than competitor and i'm kinda grateful for that!

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  13. Great pictures! This makes me miss eventing so much! Maybe I should jump judge this summer to get my fix.

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  14. So fun! I love the chestnut paint taking the long spot :)

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    1. haha yea he was a spitfire and actually kind of little... pretty sure they added in the line but they made it work

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    2. Little late, but the pinto pair is Suzannah Cornue on Korbin. He's only 15.1!

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    3. thanks - post is updated!! what a cool little horse, tho i guess i thought he was littler than he actually is (my eye must be off since my mare is only 14.3...)

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  15. Nice photos! Looks like fun :)

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