Magic

Well,the event is now over. I can't believe it. WHEW we made it through another one.It was Magic. The weather was PERFECT. I may never ever be that lucky again but I will remember this weekend for a long time.

All the stresses and agonies of the pre-event leadup was worth it. It is hard to imagine the amount of hours that so many people put in to make a horse trials happen. Chris Owens worked steadily for three solid weeks building lots of new fences.They were perfecting. Everything rode just the way we wanted it to.

I was so pleased to see how well the courses rode. There was a lot of pre- cross country buzz at how big the riders thought the courses were.But from what I saw those riders were pretty pleased with themselves afterwards and knew they had some good horses under them when they were finished.

I was impressed by the quality of what I saw this weekend. The riders treated the event with respect. They knew when they came to Paradise that they had better be ready to play and play they did.The preliminary course allowed the riders to really have a crack at galloping and power jumping. Our three new combinations on the course rode very well.

The training,novice, and beginner novice course got everyone fired up as well.Owners and trainers were so happy to be able to stand up on the big hill and watch their horses gallop all the way round the course. The viewing at Paradise is truely amazing.

The dressage ran like clockwork. WE were done 310 rides exactly at 5 pm and then an amazing crew of people tore the dressage rings down and had the entire show jumping course up within and hour. We made it before dark. A new record!I am really having fun with my course designing. I look forward to attending more seminars . It is really fun to see ones plans come into fruition. Teaching so much and adjusting fences during the lessons has given me a great insight into course designing.The ring looked spectacular and the horses jumped really well.Saturday night we tore down the novice and beginner novice show jumping and added a few more jumps for the prelim and training course.

The USEA help a seminar for Technical delegates and used this course to analyze the show jumping phase of the event. YIKES I was nervous whipping up a course for the likes of two FEI officials!But they were kind and complimentary and had a few great suggestions which opened my eyes to a few things I didn't think about. I love it when someone teaches me new stuff!There's just never enough time to learn everything out there!

We had so many great people at the event.I was overwhelmed with appearances from a lot of people that are eventing celebrities from many different countries.It was magic for me. Paradise is an incredible piece of land and the courses really sparkled this time. The entire event did. It was magic.

I feel everyone had a great weekend. The moral was good this time. It is not easy to pull one of these crazy competitions off! A lot of people ask me why I don't do more events at the farm .NOT ON YOUR LIFE!!!!!!Two a year is enough for me. I had a great time and this was very personally rewarding and we made several strong additions to the farm (which is the point of all this)but I am really looking forward to being able to put this to bed and get back to riding full time. The event is a solid 10 weeks of distraction from that.I have some very nice horses coming on for other people and the Devils are chomping at the bit.River has a sore foot right now but he'll be back soon.

There are far too many people to thank but Karen Kelly, Barbie Reeser,Nancy Russel,Mary Ringler,Bobby Stevenson and Mary Lewis,Antonio Hernandez, Nannie Ward,Chris Owens,Tremain Cooper ,these guys were outrageously helpful.

We all owe a huge THANKYOU to ARENUS for being our GENEROUS SPONSOR!And many thanx to all my other sponsors as well. We had great prizes for the riders. The winners left with bulging bags of serious goodies. That was another part of the magic. So many people came in at the last minute offering all kinds of fun things.

So a great THANKYOU to everyone. This was the best Horse Trials yet. We TRUELY were blessed this go round. I am very grateful.

Now it's time for bed.Tomorrow is another day!