Week of October 31: Pandora For the Win!

Posted by pvos on Oct 31, 2011 in Training Journal | Comments Off

Virginia Horse Trials in Lexington marked our last horse trial of 2011. We may still show up at a random unrecognized event but looking at the calendar and everything we’ve done – it felt a fair place to end the season.

Success at VA Horse Trials for Pandora and Pockets

Pockets went Novice, and Pandora went Preliminary. Peyton got loaded up on the trailer at the last minute to take advantage of a stall reserved for Perfect (who we just got a glowing report from this week from his new owner.)

Since this was the year of natural disasters, perhaps we should not have been as surprised by an October blizzard! Luckily for the organizers and the competitors – the snow mostly moved along, leaving just an annoying amount at the Horse Center. Cross country was moved up to before the storm for some and postponed till after the snow melted for others – and somehow the show went on.

This proved most fortuitous for Katie and her own mare Pandora – as they won their Preliminary division! What a way to end the season!

Pockets was his normal, wonderful, steady self the whole weekend. He was tied for third after a lovely dressage test which scored a 31. He jumped a clean stadium round in the very atmospheric indoor coliseum, and then jumped clean around the cross country. His tiny speed fault dropped him to fifth but he was unaware of this little snafu and felt pretty good about jumping clean!

Back at Tebogo

Back at the ranch Paige kept the rest of the gang going despite the crazy weather. No rest for the weary as the Raleigh horse show is just around the corner.

On a personal note – since I recently purchased the wonderful and amazing Smooth Rider from Bobby Meyerhoff for my own personal dressage pursuits, I have found myself with less time to devote to my all around buddy Neon Delight.

I bought Neon off the Penn National track several years ago and since then he and I have dabbled in just about everything together – from horse trials, to A-rated horse shows, to riding all over hill and dale here at home. While not a world beater – Neon makes up for it with his beauty – both inside and out. He is also a People-Person – he loves human attention and seems to prefer human to equine company.

Seeing him pine for more attention I made the difficult decision to sell him – and probably would selfishly have kept him for myself if not for the absolute perfect buyer coming to Tebogo and falling right in love with Neon. Paige had already introduced me to Beth, a friend and former student from Virginia Beach, and her adorable child Beebee, some time ago and I knew Beth was the perfect human to dote, spoil, love and appreciate Neon for all that he is. I’m thrilled for Beth and Neon – and wish them all the happiness in the world together.