With the victory gallop at Rolex now in the past, the East Coast eventing scene’s focus shifted to the final preparations for the New Jersey CCI** and CCI*** in early June and the Virginia Horse Park’s CCI* in mid-May. Many riders chose to have a final tune-up at the Maryland Combined Training Association (MCTA) Horse Trials located at Shawan Downs.

Although MCTA Horse Trials are long time veterans of the spring eventing schedule, the organizers added both intermediate and advanced levels to the event’s timetable, making it the only event east of the Mississippi to run novice through advanced levels on the same weekend. The expansive menu of levels yielded an entry of over 500 horse and rider combinations, almost 100 of which were competing at the intermediate and advanced levels.

Olympic Gold Medalist and USEF President David O’Connor put the facility’s amazing terrain to good use in his design of the cross-country courses. While the preliminary, training and novice tracks were virtually unchanged from last year’s courses, O’Connor and his fantastic MCTA fence building crew, headed by David Wisner, created new tracks for the intermediate and advanced.

While most of the combinations jumped around safely, there were many stops scattered around the courses. O’Connor’s track certainly walked a bit softer than it rode, and riders in future years will be a bit more on their toes.

While some riders needed to be a bit sharper, there were several horse-and-rider combinations that looked at the top of their game last weekend. Jane Sleeper and her mare, UN, were the popular winners of Advanced Division One. Phillip Dutton and his student, Kate Ditchey, who finished second and third respectively, both survived several lucky moments but still finished in the top placings.

In the other Advanced section, Villanova University student Cayla Kitayama put her long-time partnership with Docksider to good use and galloped away with the win. Carly Rodgers must be ruing her expensive show jumping round, which ultimately cost the win. Finishing lower down the order, but still looking impressive, were Tara Ziegler and Buckingham Place and Momi Black aboard Fleeceworks Mullingar.

Sharon White showed that last year’s injury did little to dissuade her competitive streak with wins in both intermediate sections, on the strength of her immaculate jumping rounds. Young riders, Alex Zavoyna and Stephanie Boyer both produced performances that were well beyond their years to finish second and third in Intermediate Section Two.

Hopefully next year’s FEI calendar will allow MCTA to enjoy another year of a large entry, because the event’s top-shelf organizing committee, volunteers and course builders are already making plans to make the event even better next year.


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