Amanda Miller and I in the awards ceremony — her horse Connor had to help P stand still!
In this series, Cassidy Sitton chronicles her experiences as she and her OTTB, Subway Prophet, prepare for the FENCE SmartPak Equine USEA Training 3-Day in the beginning of April.
Well, it’s over and done.
All that hustle and bustle, all the prep work, all the checking legs in the wee hours of the night, all the blog writing for useventing.com, and it all actually did reach a conclusion. Amazing how even when we think time is moving so slowly, how it’s really flying by.
When I got to FENCE, to be honest, I was slightly concerned about the fitness of my horse. He was “Raleigh” fit, meaning we could trot and canter and trot and canter for a LONG time where it’s flat, but at FENCE he needed to be “Tryon” fit, with big ol’ hills on both steeplechase and cross country. I even had shin splints after walking the courses a couple times (and many questioned whether I’d be able to jog up sound on Sunday).
Cassidy and Prophet have a nice relaxed warm-up before dressage.
Day one was lovely–a good jog in the morning with all the horses passing. My horse felt awesome in warm-up for dressage… a little too awesome. It was kind of one of those things where I didn’t want to do too much, since he can quite easily lose the little bit of brilliance he has. I spent a lot of my warm-up chilling under the shade of a tree, appearing nice and calm on the outside, but racking my brain about whether or not I should be doing more.
Apparently I need not worry, pony “stuck it,” in the good, gymnastic kind of sense. I made some pretty major bobbles (I mean, really, who needs a lengthened trot or a walk/trot transition when you can just as easily canter for both!), so wasn’t so sure of my score, but I was pleased with my horse. He must have bribed the judges, as we came out nearly three points in the lead! Most I think would be very happy with this, however, I consider myself a come-from-behind kind of kid, so I was a bit unsure of my new leading position.
I need one of these steeplechase things on my farm! Hoofclix.com photo.
Endurance day rolled around, and my fears about fitness were unfounded! Its times like these I’m really happy to be sitting on a full-blooded Thoroughbred. He burst into the 10 minute box, up on our time, and ready for cross-country. After being none-to-thrilled about the sponge/scrape process, we collected ourselves for Phase D, and out of the box we went.
I was pleasantly surprised to be up on my time at the halfway point, especially since the first half had featured a killer hill (what we Raleigh people refer to as a ‘mountain’), and a minor steering disagreement between the Diddy and I. I let him pick down the long downhill, and taking a glance at my watch and the optimum time I had taped to my arm, I realized I was still quite good on time. I let P coast across the finish line… finishing what I though was a few seconds over time (which I was fine with, considering the point padding we had).
P was amused by all the hustle and bustle of the 10-minute box.
Much to my surprise, our time was 5:24, NOT 5:42 (darn dyslexia!), so we received a walloping 11.something time penalties, dropping us to 4th. Oh well, the pony was pretty darned please with himself, and I am just glad he can’t read what’s on the scoreboard.
Sunday morning rolled around with a great sigh of relief, as P was jogging up more free and sound then he had on Friday morning! He passed without a second glance, and rocked my socks off in show-jump warm-up. He preceded to jump one of the nicest show-jump rounds I’ve had with him, even though the course designer seemingly tried to make us dizzy with lots of roll-back turns. I landed from the last jump with a big smile on my face, and the most admiration for my pony that one person could feel.
P giving the warm-up oxer plenty of breathing room.
So…. even with my botched/blond moment, pony ended up a very respectable second place, and our friend and fellow-Raleigh-ite, Amanda Miller took home the blue!
Do I think there are things I would want to improve on? Most definitely (like maybe writing numbers correctly?). Am I the most proud a horse-y mom could ever be? Absolutely. It’s such a special feeling to complete a full-format on a horse that you’ve done every bit of training on… and now we’re looking forward to our Prelim move-up. Here’s to hopin’ you see us at a P3D in the near future!!
[Check out Cassidy’s daily journal from FENCE in the upcoming issue of Eventing USA 2.0!]
Cassidy Sitton, 25, bases her C-Horse Eventing business out of Raleigh, North Carolina where she enjoys teaching and training, and is also a marketing professional for an equine-related business.
The CCI5*-L field was narrowed by one this afternoon following the first horse inspection on High Hope Inspection Lane at the 2025 Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event. Horse and rider pairs were looking their best, with a few horses demonstrating their readiness for the upcoming competition through their flamboyant behavior (we're looking at you Bronte Beach Z and Dyri).
The man, the myth, the legend himself, Derek di Grazia is back in his typical fashion at this year's Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event and he has designed some beautiful tracks for both the CCI5*-L and CCI4*-S competitions this year. You can get a first look at these amazing courses as well as some insider interviews with di Grazia himself thanks to our friends at the CrossCountry App!
It's the most wonderful time of the year—and we aren't talking about the holiday season. Welcome to 2025 Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event (K3DE) week! This week the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky, will be crawling with eventing lovers from all across the globe for the first five-star of the 2025 season and the USEA is excited to once again be onsite for all of the action.
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