American Eventing Championships

American Eventing Championships is like 'Rolex' for all levels. You get all kind of goodies for entering and even more goodies if you win! Plus there is a great trade fair as well as beautiful facilities, proper championship courses, and lots of tough competition.

We were very lucky this year. The weather held out. It was warm, but not beastly hot. I think the horses especially appreciated it, though it certainly helped spectating too! Our horses were all in very fine form. Looking sleek, fit, and happy thanks to our wonderful alfalfa and brome hay provided by Rockin WH Ranch, which got lots of attention from other competitors.

Stephanie competed in the preliminary amateur division with little Tucker. Dressage was dressage as usual. Tuck has a tough time maintaining composure when he can see the cross country in the background, but he held his counter canter which was a BIG deal and he even pulled out a qualifying dressage score! Then the little grey cross-country machine ate up the course on Friday. He nailed the hard questions. Even the announcer couldn't help but comment that this was once of the nicest preliminary rounds... kiss of death. Unfortunately, Tuck fumbled a little coming up the bank at the sunken road questions and Steph lost her stirrup so she pulled him off the skinny out. No harm done really. She saved him for another day (especially important as her CIC* is around the corner). Show jumping was also beautiful. We are very proud that Steph and Tucker finished 12th, and we are so looking forward to her CIC* at poplar the last weekend of September!


Megill rode both her hoses, Ollie and Kipling, in the junior novice division. Kipling was WOUND in the dressage. Kudos to Megill for keeping him in the ring. Chatt Hills dressage has a lot going on, and on top of that horses are often running cross country in the background (not that Kipling needs much or an excuse to be silly these days). Ollie was much the opposite and put in a very competent test to put her in the top half of the nearly 60 person division. Both horses ran bold and clean on cross country (just a little speeding ticket for Kipling); they also rocked around the show jumping. However, Ollie was the star of the day to finish 17th of 57.

All in all a great weekend. We had time to visit with lots of friends from other areas that we do not get to see as much as we would like. As Betsy said, it is like a family reunion. You spend lots of time getting excited to see old friends and it is gone before you know it and you're left feeling a little sad. We are lucky to have such great extended horsey family!


Thank you Eleazer Davis Farm and Hoofclix.com for all the wonderful pictures!