XC Day at Red Hills

Today was so great, I feel so spoiled to have such nice horses.

Donald went right around noon in the 3*. It's always a big tough track here at Red Hills There are a lot of small changes in terrain and twists in the course that make it ride much tougher than it walks.

He went great out of the box, blasting through the first corner combination, the coffin and the bounce banks. Just as I felt we were hitting our stride and reached a perfect rythm for the course, eeerrrp... Hold on Course. They held David Koss, who works for Bruce, and I at the same stopping point for 30 minutes while they dealt with Kyle Carter's fall on Madison Park at the angled brush fences at 14. It's always nerve wracking when someone has a fall and the curtains go up, but the event officials told us while we were on hold that Parker walked into the trailer which was a huge relief. I heard he was resting comfortably which is awesome. I also saw Kyle walking around tonight with his arm in a sling, not looking too bad, so thankfully I think they're both okay. The event officials did a really good job of communicating with us as we were on hold.

Donald is very much a horse that needs to build. Sometimes I swear he is sleeping when he comes out of the box. I was worried about him starting again after standing around for so long. He went on to jump the double brushes, the 1st and 2nd waters and the tough double corners easily. However, he never seemed to get that "fire" back. He "superman-ed" it into the 3rd water and landed a little dead on his feet in deep water. As I pulled hard to turn him he just fell completely behind my leg and slowed to a halt mid-combination. Sort of a bummer as that incurred us 20 penalties but it's not an issue that I'm concerned about going home to fix - just a schoch of bad luck with the hold and whatnot. I circled him and he jumped out just fine, and on home we went. I'm very pleased with him and I really couldn't have asked him to be any better today.

Hewie went a few hours later in the Intermediate and I really felt like this was a "make it or break it" moment for him. Red Hills is his 4th Intermediate and definitely the biggest track he's been on yet. He's a little bit.. well.. radical at times. I was pretty sure the big atmosphere and difficult fences would do one of two things, sit him down and make him focus or he would bolt into the woods to hide. Lucky for me he was just perfect all the way around. He has gotten so physically strong and he is just now showing how much scope he truly has. I'm so lucky to have such a wonderful horse in Hewie. He really has a huge heart and I know he would do anything for me.

Both the horses look great tonight. Donald came into the D box today with a whopping temp of 100.8 so clearly not too stressed. Jogged both of them up tonight looking sound and strong. I'm going to try and get some good sleep tonight before the jog early tomorrow.

xoxo, kisses to ponies

k