Eventing in a Winter Wonderland

By Paula Parisi March 21, 2012

Snow pelted 3 Day Ranch in Aguanga, CA, this weekend, dealing event riders a wild hand. Competitors at The Event, March 16-18, got to ride their dressage test under sunny, warm skies Friday, endured crisp temperatures and showers late in the afternoon on Saturday, and woke to four inches of snow for stadium jumping on Sunday!

Yet the show went on –mostly.

The Event’s organizers, Margie Molloy and Dave Kuhlman, by all accounts did an amazing job of keeping things on track. At a Sunday morning riders’ meeting it was announced that stadium jumping would be cancelled for everything below Training Level ― Novice, Beginner Novice and Elementary would be considered a “combined test” for dressage and cross country.

For the riders who were counting on Horse Trial scores to qualify for other things, including the FEI  classes at Galway Downs later in the month, the show management team plunged ahead, giving the jumping arena some extra grooming even as they revved the snow plows.

“What’s really funny is, if you drove about 75-feet down the road, there was no snow,” Pepperwood Riding Center’s Gina Economou said. “Three Day Ranch was just at that elevation level where it broke to snow.”

The facility is at an elevation of about 2,000 feet, in the foothills of the San Jacinto State Park, about 35-minutes north east of Temecula. “We don’t get snow that often in Southern California, much less that we’d have to event in!,” noted Economou, who won the Open Training Division on Phargo, with a single  rail in the jumper round.

 

Karen Bristing, who owns the Equinox Equestrian Center in Los Angeles, and was at 3 Day with her horse, First Field, to compete at Preliminary Level, said her initial assumption was that her trainer, Economou, would discourage her from riding, since she was not going for qualifier points. “She said I was welcome to give it a try, so I figured I had to do it,” Bristing recalled, characterizing it as, “Ride if you dare!”

“No one can say Southern California riders are weather wimps after this weekend!,” joked the Event’s show secretary, alluding to the reputation of lower Golden State equestrians. “We are sort of fair weather people,” Economou chuckled. “ I mean, I don’t think of eventers that way, but here in Southern California, the climate does that for us.” Until now!

Since Bristing’s horse’s shoes were drilled and tapped, all she did was add mud studs “to see if we could keep his feet from slipping around in the muck.” After the course walk through the flurries, the riders, trainers and crew helped take the rails down for one last tractoring, then put them all back up. A real team effort!

Bristing wound one of only five among 22 eligible riders to go forward with the stadium phase to  complete the trial. First Field jumped clean in the stadium round, but Bristing had to circle before the last jump adding jump and time faults to finish fifth in the Preliminary division. The other four―David Koss, Tiffany Lunney , James Atkinson and Andrea Baxter, who won on Fuerst Nino R, all had clean rounds, proving that the course was safe.

Of her student’s performance, Economou said, “She did a great job in less than ideal circumstances.”

At the Training Level, all riders but one in each of the Amateur A and B divisions withdrew from the stadium jumping phase. Economou student, Sarah Berry, won the Amateur B division on Counterpoint, and despite the weather extremes, the Pepperwood trainer felt it was a successful show.

Another of her trainees, Erin Murphy, notched a win at Junior Preliminary on Sunrijse Sonata ― a first with that horse. Murphy’s other horse, MysterE, is “very sensitive to cold. He shivers at 50, so we opted not to run him that last day,” Economou said.

As for her own rides, Economou was particularly pleased with Phargo, who was competing in only his third Training event, notching his second win. She is riding the 7-year-old Trakehner for owner Brook Gerard, “to put some mileage on.” Time-tested riders such as Jennifer Wooten, Erin Kellerhouse and Tamra Smith had withdrawn from the stadium jumping phase of the Preliminary test.

Bunnie Sexton on Rise Against won the Advanced Preliminary, finishing on her dressage score. She was one of only two riders to complete day three (Anne Carr and Safari came in second.) Geriann Henderson and Kingslee won Intermediate, with five competing.

As Sunday progressed, “It kept snowing, it kept hailing, it went on and on and on!” Economou recounts. Molloy and Kuhlman, she said, “were amazing,” unleashing an army of Kubotas (hardy, off-road versions of the “golf cart”) to help the evacuees get their gear from the barns to the trailers.

“You couldn’t really get out of the barn area easily if you didn’t have four-wheel  drive, so we piled everything onto the Kubotas and ferried to the parking lot,” Economou said, adding that the hosts, “went out with trucks and towed people to the road who couldn’t get out. They made that show run beautifully considering the circumstances.”

And so ended the equestrian snowstorm of 2012! Next stop, Galway Downs, for the March 30-April 1 International Horse Trials CIC3*. Needless to say, all are hoping the weather is more clement.

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