I couldn’t think of a much better way for Area V to end cross-country day. Jacob started off the day in a great fashion with a trailblazing double clear! Mike had given him a pep talk a couple days ago when he was unhappy about having to go first and compared him to Andrew Nicholson, who almost always goes first for the Kiwis, and always throws down the gauntlet with a double clear. Sure enough, in Andrew Nicholson fashion, Jacob and that paint pony flew around the course, and Jacob said it was the best course he’d ever had with Falcon! Needless to say, we were ecstatic about how our team began!
Emma was on course next, and I didn’t see any of her course, because Falcon had just come off the course, but she had a super round only a few seconds over the time. Galway and Falcon were in the vet box at the same time, so Area V was busy for quite a while! Kendyl went next and while we didn’t actually help her in the vet box, we certainly cheered loudly for her every time she galloped past. She also finished the course double clear and moved up to third! The announcer even mentioned how loud our cheering section was from the vet box, so that certainly made us cheer even more. Rowdie finished off our two-star team with an awesome double clear, but since she was faster than Kendyl, she ended up fourth. Overall our team moved into first by 0.6 points! Here’s hoping for springs on all the hooves for the team!
Up next was the one star team, who laid it down for everyone else to catch up tomorrow! Area V has over a 25 point lead going into show jumping. Avery was up first and followed Jacob’s lead to lay down a fast double clear! Winston lost both shoes on xc, but luckily we had plenty of duck tape and vet wrap in the vet box. Next out was Tori, and after a super intense pep talk from her groom, Julie Foody, she blazed around double clear! I particularly enjoyed cheering for her as she galloped past the barn, and I yelled for her while I was icing Falcon. Tori has been staying in my team trailer, and has taken to calling me “Mom” so I felt like I was trying to follow my motherly fashion. Tori finished the day in 3rd place, and got to attend the press conference, which was very fun for her! Taylor had a bit of trouble at the corners, but pulled it together and managed to finish the course. Next out was Alexa and she had a very nice clean round just 16 seconds over. Lastly, 14-year-old Alyssa blazed around the course with 19 year old Dancer. She had a super round, which was Dancer’s last cross-country round ever, but unfortunately missed the finish line, and ended up with 1.2 time faults by the time she circled around and finished. She ended up being in second, and would have been first if she had gone through the flags the first time. If she loses the gold medal tomorrow just because of that, we may never let her live it down! (Just kidding Alyssa!)
The rest of the afternoon was spent icing and giving fluids through a torrential thunderstorm. Sixteen kids in a barn with no food and pouring down rain is not a good combination. We’ve been eating anything we can find in sight! We were all starved by the time we got to the competitors party and had a super time dancing and watching the freestyle dressage.
This morning was nice and early, with a 4:45 am alarm, so that we could get down to the barns and have the horses ready to trot for Dr. Newton at 6 am. Luckily, all our hard work icing on Saturday really paid off, and our horses looked fantastic! All the horses passed without a second look!
Now we are all working hard to load all our equipment back into Mike’s rig. Show jumping starts at 1 pm with the 1*. Hopefully, all the ponies are feeling springy!
