Click here for official 2009 Fair Hill CCI2* and CCI3* results.
Boyd and Neville entered the Show Jumping arena with two rails in hand and jumped a great round with only one down to finish the weekend on a 55.0, as your CCI3* Fair Hill winner. Boyd acquired the two rail margin after Karen had a rail on Mandiba and Phillip had two rails with Kheops Du Quesnay. Boyd was placed 16th after Dressage and turned that into a 4.2 point lead with a fantastic cross country ride on Saturday.
**In an unfortunate incident on Sunday, Jennie Brannigan's excellent horse Cooper was taken off in the horse ambulance after crashing into fence number 9, a skinny oxer, on the CCI3* Show Jumping course. Cooper appeared to be distracted by something on the approach and did not see the jump until the final stride. He slammed on the brakes, knocked the fence over, got tangled up in some of the poles, stayed on his feet, but was visibly unsound upon walking away from the jump. Jennie is an excellent young star in our sport and she gave Cooper a good ride, it was just an unlucky situation. The horse is obviously in the best possible hands and I expect to see Cooper and Jennie Brannigan kicking butt again sometime soon. We covered this in real time during our live blog.
We will have a full Fair Hill recap when I get back home tonight, and by then other websites might have their articles up so we can link to them. But, until then, here are a few early thoughts:
-Mandiba looked like he had shaken off Burghley and is ready for a great Spring.
-Despite the two rails, Kheops Du Quesnay looks like yet another great horse in the Dutton arsenal.
-Kelly Sult had a great weekend and finished 3rd after being in 33rd after the Dressage, with a great XC ride and a double clear in SJ.
-Rebecca Howard (CAN) was the highest placed foreign rider in 9th.
-There were 12 clean rounds out of 36 rides.
-The horses looked well recovered from the tough conditions Saturday.
-Boyd won the American Championships in his first year as a US citizen, and established himself firmly as a contender to make the WEG team.
-Boyd also showed the developing depth of his program by being the only competitor to finish the CCI3* on two horses. His second horse, Remington finished in 6th.
Also, check out COTH coverage of the 2* by Sara Lieser and Kat Netzler here, and they will also likely have coverage of the CCI3* up sometime soon.
***Important note: Eventing Nation will continue its inside and in-depth coverage of Eventing after Fair Hill and hopefully many years into the future. Starting Monday, we will have about one new post each day, including rider interviews, headlines, program spotlights, news and notes, a 'history of eventing' series, coverage of clinics, and much, much more. As I stated in out inaugural entry, Hello World "Our goal at Eventing Nation is to serve the Eventing community by providing convenient and comprehensive access to our great sport." This mission extends well past our trip to Fair Hill. Thanks for visiting Eventing Nation today and please stop back to see us sometime soon.
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