With eventing at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru kicking off in almost exactly four weeks, the U.S. team athletes and horses gathered together for the first time yesterday in The Plains, Virginia to begin their final preparations.
Boyd Martin, Doug Payne, Tamra Smith, Lynn Symansky, and the reserve riders who have been selected to represent the USA for the upcoming 2019 Pan American Games trained today at Chestnut Run Farm and Beverly Equestrian Center. All riders rode dressage in morning sessions and jumped with U.S. Eventing Performance Director, Erik Duvander in afternoon sessions to prepare for a busy schedule in preparation for Lima.
“It looks like everyone’s been doing the work they need to do at home,” said Symansky. “Mine feels better than he was in the spring. I think the term is ‘cautiously optimistic’. I am a positive thinker but not outwardly so. My mental game is: prepare for the worst and expect the best.”
Smith and Alex and Ellen Ahearn and Eric Markell's Mai Baum arrived from their home base in Southern California late last night, completing the team save for traveling reserve Liz Halliday-Sharp, who is at home in England and preparing to compete at Barbury this weekend. “I’m in bit of disbelief that I’m here,” Smith said. “We just flatted today, but he felt great. He got here and took a deep breath and a nap!”
Mai Baum and the other team horses are overnighting at Mary Ann Ghadban’s Chestnut Run Farm in The Plains before heading to The Maryland Horse Trials this weekend.
In total nine team horses (including reserves) schooled over a Chris Barnard-designed course in Beverly Equestrian’s outdoor arena, that modeled what riders should expect to see in Lima. Duvander was pleased with the day.
“It’s always interesting when you first put a new group of people together. There’s a lot of talk about team culture and so on, but it’s always developed with individuals - you can’t create a culture until you put them all together and see what happens, and I don’t know if we were lucky on day one, but it’s been a really good day,” Duvander said. “All the horses went well and everyone worked with really good focus. It’s about ticking the boxes every day, getting it right every day, and I think today we got it right with all horses.”
Until this past May, qualifying for the USEA American Eventing Championships presented by Nutrena Feeds let alone actually making plans to compete, seemed like a far-off dream. Going into this show season the AEC was a goal I had set in the back of my mind but maybe only said out loud a few times.
The Millbrook Horse Trials kicked off on July 25 with lower level dressage at Riga Meadow Equestrian Center at Coole Park in Millbrook, New York. There are more than 400 total entries competing at Millbrook, from Beginner Novice to Advanced level. Today the upper level horses cantered down the centerline, while the lower levels headed out on cross-country.
The United States Eventing Association, Inc. (USEA) is thrilled to announce Adams Horse Supply as the new title sponsor of the USEA Adult Team Championships (ATC) at the American Eventing Championships (AEC). The ATC will now be titled “The Adams Horse Supply USEA Adult Team Championships at the AEC.”
The world’s best eventing horses and riders will be first out of the starting blocks when the equestrian action gets underway at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Versailles, France, tomorrow morning with the opening dressage test.