The grand finale!

   Show jumping day is always a nail-biter, and this year was no exception. The drama started at the trot up, where James Alliston's lovely horse, Tivoli, was sent toths hold and then spun on reinspection. The ground jury made some interesting calls, holding Megan O'Donohuge's Pirate, who really seemed mostly just awed by the crowd, lifting his head and wiggling his way up the jog lane. Thankfully, he was accepted on reinspection. Kendal Lehari's Daily Edition was also held, and although he did look a tiny bit ouchy, he was ultimately accepted.
   After watching the trot-up, we went off for a walk around the course. It was BIG, with some interesting distances (which ultimately rode great), lots of corners and skinnies on strides that forced a rider to make a decision or risk a drive-by. It's a real testament to how good the riders have gotten at schooling these accuracy questions- there were really not too many run-outs on cross country.  The course flowed nicely, with the really hard questions often having a slightly simpler intro earlier in the course. My overall impression was that the course was horse friendly but left riders no room for a lapse in concentration, which is a huge upgrade from the tricky, trappy courses that seemed to be where course design was headed a couple of years ago.
   Show jumping started at 1:00 pm due to the NBC broadcast. It's a drag that it starts so late, as it makes it very difficult to fly out on Sunday evening, but we can't complain too much when our sport is being broadcast nationwide. The course looked very nice, although rails fell like mad all afternoon. There were some really nice rides, most notably Hawley Bennett, and Gin and Juice, who looked like she had done nothing at all the day before, she was so fresh! A number of the horses looked a bit tired, and several riders did, as well. William Fox-Pitt and Andrew Nicolson produced lovely clear rounds, and Lynn Symansky did as well, ultimately being one of only two riders to finish on their dressage scores. There are some really great younger riders beating down the door, hungry to prove their worth on a US team, so hopefully we start seeing some new blood infused in the American program in the very near future.
   The horse of the weekend, really, was Quimbo.  He's beautiful in the dressage, great on the cross country (although having Andrew Nicholson as a pilot surely helps) and he's an amazing show jumper. Really an amazing show jumper. He jumped up around the fences, never changing his rhythm, never getting close to a rail- it was lovely, and gave everyone a whole new standard for show jumping.
   So, here we are at the end of our trip to Kentucky. We've hoofed it around the horse park for four days, gotten sunburnt, soaked by rain, done a ton of shopping, seen some amazing horses, seen some legendary riders, and had a fantastic time. I've played Tetris with my duffle bag, managing to cram both Summer's and my new vests in, along with hiking boots, laundry, and enough outerwear to clothe an army. Everything's finally packed, and as long as TSA doesn't open up the bag and muck about with my packing genius, we should all arrive back home this afternoon. Then, it's on to the barn- Luke has to get going, I've got big plans for him!