Last weekend was Southern Pines horse trials. What a great event! The cross country course this year was designed by Tremaine Copper and he really gave the course and new look with lots of galloping room. Murphy was in the intermediate and was a really good boy. After a few bobbles in the dressage ( he reared, he thinks he should be part of the spanish riding school) he managed a 38. I am really please because his flat work is really coming along. THANK YOU BONNIE! 

Cross country was a BLAST. I love this horse. He was very bold into the water, which was a big drop in, three stride up a bank, one stride off the island, three strides up a bank, and then one stride to a skinny. He was awesome. I had to circle him once on course at fence 7 abc two palisades to a corner. The ground jury made the decision to allow up to circle due to the challenging nature of the question. Since it was the first combination, Murphy was a bit strong so I opted to circle to avoid a 20 giving me some time penalties. Otherwise he was foot perfect. I am so pleased with our cross country. I feel very confident in the job placed before me and my horse has never felt better.

SOO MUCH TO TELL, SO LITTLE TIME

That feels like my life these days. I live, eat, breath horses, and still work and gallop 6 racehorses a day, oh and attending college. :) Not sure how I do it, but it gets done. Since last time, Murphy has done three more events, Pinetop in the Prelim where he was 2nd, Pinetop again OI and was 10th and I want to say, had some time and a silly spook in stadium, and then Redhills in the OI as well.

Redhills didn't go as well as I was hoping but what a GREAT event. He started off swell getting the best dressage score to date at Intermediate a 37 with some bobbles, so I was actually quite pleased. Cross country was almost foot perfect. IT WAS HUGE!!! We shared half of our tables with the advanced, I thought I might cry. We had three open oxers, and three ditch and walls and a HUGE ditch and wall bank. And to add to all this, throw in 20,000 spectators. What a great learning experience for the big man...

He had one stop xc at jump 7 the first combination, we came around the turn and there was a LARGE crowd standing there. He had already locked onto A which was a squirrel, one stride, drop three stride up and down a hill to a log with a pretty large drop on the back. Bonnie had told me not to go for the first thing I saw, so I grabbed a hold of him to get his attention and he saw all the people and literally ran into it... rookie mistake..

Anyway I was so happy because he was a saint everywhere else and really feel like he became so confident and brace jumping around! Showjumping was another day. Bonnie has been trying to change his way of going somewhat, so we are having some difficulties and I rode him like he was going to stop. He had rails and they we all me but one where I just sat on him over the fence causing him to drop them behind. If the horse is going to have a rail it is going to be upfront so I blame myself. 

But now it is all better as I have also come to find out that my saddle was broken and needed some repairing. I am going to blame the jumping problems on this and now mentally prepare myself for the CCI** in Ocala in April. 

Here are some random picture from past events including snowy pinetop and redhills... all Ashley Adams (She is my new favorite person) since the camera died, but you get the idea!