I started writing this sitting on an air mattress on the floor of Kate's living room at 4:30, were fifteen minutes late leaving for Pine Top Horse Trials. So I deemed this time worthy of recollection of my time so far here in Aiken. For those of you who are not familiar with it, is the winter home of many equestrian athletes, and alot of eventers! The town it's self is beautiful and the only thing more wonderful than the amazing footing is Maria's Mexican Resteraunt! I've been having a great time . Ive been able to see some amazing events and riders, not to mention I get out of the cold!
We had the chance to hack in the Hitchcock woods on 4 OTTBs on one of my first days here. If you don't know the Hitchcock Woods , it's a huge Forrest (1000 acres) that's full of trails and jumps for horses! All of the horses were surprisingly very calm and relaxed, to make it even better, I got to ride Beth Sokohl's Buckharo! I really enjoyed the woods and I wanted to jump all the steeple chase jumps!
We also visited Full Gallop, and Pine Top, and Sporting Days I got to walk some courses there. Full Gallop was a cool farm and I loved how they had a lot of combinations in their lower level courses. Pine Top I thought was beautiful and defiantly a difficult course tapered for the already upper level horses to start their season. Sporting Days had some really cool jumps and a bank in the show jumping, which is pretty common down here, I would have incorporated into my course somehow! So even though I wish I could stay here for longer the spring season is just around the corner back in Maryland! I'm planning on this being a very exciting one and Dobbin will be moving up to training level!
Will be blogging as the spring season gets in gear! Below is a schedule of events I'm considering doing:
Ct morning side 2/23
MDHT Cross derby 3/16
MDHT starter 3/24
Morven- N 3/30
CDCTA- N 4/7
MDHT starter- T 4/14
Redlands Hunt Pony Club- 4/20
Mctea 5/4
