About Half of the Bags that Lizzy Brought from Houston
The eventers closed out a massive effort by making history. All five of them finished on their dressage score and made it look easy. This was one of the best groups I have ever been around – they enjoyed every moment of it – and jumped five perfect show jumping rounds on Sunday.
Hannah Sue And Harbour Pilot
Unfortunately due to a PASO regulation, only three of them were able to return to jump for individual medals – and Lynn and Shannon didn’t get a chance to jump again. They would have jumped clear – without a doubt, both or their horses jumped for fun.
Buck and Hannah rode masterful rounds again to hold their positions (in third and fourth respectively) and then the pressure was on Michael and Jessie Phoenix. Michael had two small mistakes – but Hanni is such a wonderful horse for the future – she has the ability in every phase. Jessie jumped another great clear, she is such a class act – you couldn’t help but smile. We have a great generation of riders coming up, as do the Canadians – so we have a lot to be excited about. We celebrated that night, where we learned that Shannon Lilley is an opera singer – she sang a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. Everyone was surprised that the team ‘mom’ had that in her. We also learned that Cat Hill (Shannon’s groom for the week) was the NY state champion in race walking (they were showing the highlights on the TV… hence the topic even came up) so we of course decided that we wanted to have a race. Cat won, by several laps, on the patio and we all decided that the sport was much more difficult than it looked on TV.
The jumpers jog beautifully the next day – they all looked fresh and fit, a real variety pack of horses. They then had their few minutes in the training session the following day, where only Mario – the reserve, jumped. The rest just cruised around to get used to the ring and the atmosphere.
They jumped like stars yesterday and every finger and toe is crossed for today's Nations Cup. Good LUCK!