I can definitely speak for the girls and I when I say that we are EXHAUSTED!  The drive to Winona ended up being 9.5 hours long after blowing a tire on one of the horse trailers... No problem, we changed that and arrived at Winona at 5pm... After leaving the farm at 7:30am!! 

It was an interesting weekend... The weather was fantastic, but we were stabled offgrounds and had to haul in to one location for dressage/sj and another location for xc.  Oddly enough for this time of year, the area had received very little rain, so all phases felt more like concrete to the horses than turf. 

Spar was very stressful this weekend; highly unusual for him.  He wasn't himself the entire trip, and though he scored a 34 in dressage and sj clean at Prelim, Rene wisely walked him home off XC  as he wasn't jumping well.  He  is an amazing horse, and they'll be on their game at the next outing without a doubt.

Angela and Goose may have earned the gold star for the weekend!  Angela greatly improved Goose's flatwork with a 41 in dressage, and it is getting better all the time... He showjumped clean and ran XC double clean in what I saw to be the BEST novice XC round of the entire show.  Goose & Angela laughed at the entire course, and though I was concerned that it was quite challenging, they made it look like a walk in the park... Pretty impressive since Goose is just 4yo.  This is their second consecutive novice where they very competently appeared bored out of their minds with double clears, so I do believe they have earned the priviledge of moving up!!  Congrats! 

In an uncharacteristic day, Lindsey and Thatcher had a great dressage test at Training and were on their way to a clear SJ round when Thatcher spooked and they each went their own directions... Highly uncharacteristic for Lindsey!  Please everyone send her your support, as she severly sprained her ankle and is hobbling along on crutches for the next few weeks. 

Kathryn and Bentley completed their third consecutive Prelim!  They received a qualifying score this weekend, and are one step closer to going to their CCI* this fall!  They did a fantastic job all weekend, and finished in a very impressive 4th place.  We helped Kathryn find Bentley off the track in the fall of 2005, and he has just been eventing for one year... And he has placed 3rd, 4th, and 7th in his three prelims so far!!  Congrats to Kat for her great weekend, and great accomplishment.

Nemo was fantastic this weekend!  I ran him Prelim as a fresh little school for him, and he was a star.  He scored a 30.0 in dressage (0.5 off the lead) and show jumped beautifully, but slipped badly at one vertical on the hard footing and knocked it down.  (So uncharacteristic for Nemo to have a rail!)  He jumped XC really, really well, though I was conservative with the time on the punishing footing.  He finished on a 39 for 4th place!  I was thrilled to see him step up to the plate once again, and I have big plans for this 6yo.

Hopper was also truly amazing...  The best he's been to date.  He scored a 40 in dressage, but his division was scored pretty high, putting him just a couple of points out of the lead after dressage and in 5th place.  (His test was fantastic!)  He show jumped really well for a clean round with 2 time penalties.  Then I put the pedal down a bit on Hopper as he's moving up to Prelim in 2wks and I wanted to teach him to gallop & jump.  That he did, and put in a double clean round... The fastest Training XC of the day!  He is really ready for Prelim, as he was incredibly bored with the Training fences. May Daze here we come!

The big story for the weekend we'll save for last... Emily has had an amazing trip with her 14.3h quarter horse Tom.  Emily had taken a hiatus from eventing for a few years when last fall she received a loan of her mother's reining horse (Tom), and starting showing him in the crossrails hunters, hoping to sell him.  Of course, we persuaded her against that as best we could... And she was rewarded by winning his first real HT at Team Challenge last fall!  Then hard work & dilligence over the winter turned the QH pony into a WB pony... No one can believe he's a QH.  Emily is one of the hardest working, most genuine people I know, and she pours her heart and sole into Tom.  Sadly, she considered returning him to her mother this spring so she could prepare for wedding this fall and pour herself into her doctoral program... But she found a way, and hard work is always paid off in tenfold...  Such is the case here, as Emily impressively WON her Training division at Winona HT, beating all of the big horses at Training!!!!!  No one could deserve it more, and karma couldn't find a better way to tell Emily that she's in this for the long haul!!

The funny thing was that we were all sitting around in the horse trailer on Saturday discussing the AEC's this fall... Emily was sad that Tom probably wouldn't still be eligible for the Novice AEC's that he qualified for by winning Novice last fall, as we have plans to move him up to Prelim this summer.  I jokingly told her that all she had to do was go win this weekend, and she could go at Training instead....  AND SHE DID!

Then on Saturday we got to change two more tires, and lost another one on the way home... Do you think the road was trying to tell us something?  And finally, we got caught in a huge traffic jam on the interstate on the way home.  Needless to say, we are very, very tired.  (And a big thanks to Trailers America for my new trailer... We LOVED it!!! None of the flat tires were mine!)

:)