Saturday: Australia wins with American close on their heels

-- Sunny skies led way to speedy hazards on a very successful Saturday. The out of time favorite, Boyd Exell won the marathon by 0.8 points in front of Chester Weber who is still leading going into cones.

In the team competition, three teams were eliminated and one team elected to retire due to disobediant horses. The single horse division also had two competitors which had to retire after severe problems in the hazards. However, no competitors or horses came out of the marathon in worse condition than they began. The course proved to be testing, but not impossible. Hazard four was the new hazard that was built for this show and was on the mind of several competitors as a difficult hazard. This hazard actually proved to be far less daunting than it was. Overall, the marathon was fairly horse friendly and proved to be a horse race. There were no imediate surprises as far as who would win and most current leaders remained in the same position.

-- As a groom, I was happy to see all four horses coming back to the barn in good shape and having a driver who was pleased with the performance of the team. The overall perception of the drivers with the course was that it was not as easy as it looked but most were pleased with results and team drivers got a very small taste of what 2010 will bring.

-- Tomorrow will bring a morning of nerves and doubts, but the true drivers will show themselves during the cones competion.