Preparing for Aiken

Over the last month and a half I've had the pleasure of getting to know the most amazing little horse ever. The new addition to the team "Let Them Eat Cake" aka Marie joined us on my 17th birthday. She's just a lanky dark bay mare but I can already tell she's something really special. She picks everything up so quickly, her dressage is excelling at an almost alarming rate and her jumping is spectacular.

We're looking forward to the great trek to South Carolina a week from today with the goals of Marie competing at Paradise, Sporting Days and Pine Top Spring. Hopefully this time next year little Marie will be preparing for her first prelim.

Thanks go out to my awesome parents, trainer and the whole team at After The Races.  Marie is the most wonderful four year old and I'm so excited for her bright future.

A Step In The Right Direction

Today Sasha and I competed at Waredaca August HT. Things didn't end exactly as planned- but I feel that we improved greatly on our previous runs!
In dressage we scored a 37, after putting in a decent test- both preforming the movements and slowing down. I was so happy with her!
We had a foot perfect show jump round (That caused a lot of others some problems!) to add no points on  to our dressage score. Kate and I both felt we had a much more mature round than in the past.
The first half of cross country was awesome and Sasha sailed over all the jumps and combinations. Unfortunately at jump 11, I was alerted to the fact that I had actually forgotten fence 8, so I received a technical elimination. Happens to the best of us I guess!

Success At Fair Hill!

This past weekend at Fair Hill was a success!
Sasha and I warmed up wonderfully for the dressage- but sadly we warmed up for too long so she got a bit tense and went in and did not preform to the best of her ability! We still scored a 43!
We had an awesome clear show jump round! and a clear xc adding five time penalties!
Bonus is that we finished fourth! And second as a junior!
We head to Waredaca this weekend!
Thanks to everyone that came to support us!

Here We Go

So sorry everyone for the lack of blogs! But lately I have been working my fingers to the bone and spending all my free time watching youtube videos of horses.
Why? You may ask?
Well! It's official Sasha and I did our first prelim! After our two awesome runs at Fair Hill, we competed at Seneca, Sure Fire, and Waredaca. We had awesome runs at all three and were feeling plenty pumped up, after some schooling, for the big day last saturday at Loch Moy #2.

We had a minor melt down in the dressage, but still ended with a good 40 in the dressage.

Our show jumping was surprisingly clear, Sasha and I's trouble area showed tons of improvement!

And then we had an awesome cross country round!

Our next event is Fair Hill International! See you guys there!

Emily






Photo Credit: Sarah Jeffrey

Spring has sprung!

It's finally the spring season and it has been crazy at Sunset Hill Eventing between grooming at Rolex, competing at Fair Hill, and getting a handle on a bunch of awesome blogs I haven't had any time to even reflect!
A few weeks after getting back from Aiken Kate, Cole, and I packed up and headed to Lexington Kentucky for Rolex! It was the experience of a lifetime! You can read about it here

Sasha and I also have had two amazing runs at Fair Hill International, with clear cross country and show jumping both times! She's jumping really well and I'm very excited for our event this weekend; Waredaca HT, followed by Seneca, and then hopefully a move up to the preliminary level if everything goes according to plan! We've been working on some more difficult and technical questions while schooling at home, and our confidence both on and off course has sky rocketed!

Wish us luck!
Emily

Aiken Part 2- Sporting Days Horse Trials

Well if you haven't already heard.... Sporting Days was a total success!
Sasha and I competed on saturday in the junior open training division where we finished second in a large field! Our dressage was consistent and steady, earning us a 34 (our personal best at the training level) and putting us in fifth place!
I was incredibly nervous going into my stadium round, but as soon as we got into the arena Sasha gave me the confidence that it would be okay! The first jump was a little slow, but I got her moving forward and the rest of the course went like a breeze (with the exception of a few whip smacks here and there! Oops ) We ended up having an awesome double clean round and I was ecstatic!

The cross country was equally awesome! Sasha navigated through all of the difficult combinations with ease! Her personal favourites:
The bank complex, a bank up followed by a large brush table two strides later

The water complex! First a ramp jump, followed by a jump in and a jump out of water! Sasha got a little excited and tried to run into the tree after the jump, but I got her back just in time to make the turn to the next one!

And here are a few odds and ends pictures!

All in all it was a great weekend and I'm so happy Sasha and I did so well! Second place is an awesome place to be, and hopefully we'll be able to do just that (or better!) at our next event Carolina International!
-Little One

Aiken- Part one

Well!
WE MADE IT
Aiken 2014 is going! We started the season out with Full Gallop Farm HT at the novice level. We didn't score as well as we had hoped in the dressage, followed by an unfourtunate run out at the first jump in show jumping and then an awesome clean xc round!
Two weeks later we headed to Paradise HT in the training level. After a winter storm preventing us to ride for two days, and only one day of preparation, we headed off to Paradise. Day one was the dressage, I scored a 35 which ended me around tenth and then a miraculous clear show jumping round bumped me up to somewhere around seventh. The second day was the cross country, the course was tough and Sasha and I set off to have an awesome clean round with the exception of a few time penalties. We ended fifth in the open, as the top placed junior.
Our next stop is Sporting Days this weekend! Wish us luck!