The Radnor report

I was thrilled to get back to Radnor for the first time since riding Keebler there in 2007. Wow! hard to believe it has been 5 years. It was a really lovely day (at least once it warmed up a little). I broke out the toe warmers for the morning. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3986676833781&l=182a2221e

After almost needing plan B, when Missy's truck wasn't sure it wanted to start, we got everything sorted and headed out with Ike, Dylan and Keegan aboard (thanks Joe!). Keegan got to graze while Missy and Steph warmed up for and did their dressage tests. I enjoyed chatting with folks while Keegan munched. The Radnor crowd is great, and the event just keeps getting better.

Back to the trailer and on for dressage. Missy was also riding a novice horse, Ory, that belongs to one of her cients. Ory is hunt horse, dipping his hoof into the eventing world. The wonderful Mary Coldren gave us ride times that were back to back, making it easy for Missy to make sure I didn't do anything too boneheaded. I did remove Keegan from the warm up arena to the grass as neither of us really wanted to deal with the crowds, lack of steering by some crowd members or dust. The grass was great, footing wonderful and Keegan more than balanced enough to be fine.

Both Keegan and Ory put in nice tests. Missy agreed that Keegan didn't score as well as either of us expected, a 38, but I was thrilled with how grown up he was and how smoothly the test went. Jumping ahead all 4 horses finished on their dressage scores. Ike's 29.somthng was good enough for first place. That boy is showing every signs of wanting to be a big time horse. Ory rocked his first event, gettting a 3rd. Dylan was 6th and I'm sure Steph is thrilled to be back eventing after 11 months http://www.skipjackeventing.com/2011/11/journey-is-treasure.html. Keegan didn't get a ribbon, but he skipped around the stadium and loped around the xc and was altogether easy to ride and fun to be with. I'm looking forward to some dressage bootcamp with Missy in preparation for the winter season.

Lots of folks were at Radnor. Gloria Cascarino did a great job announcing for dressage and stadium. We all missed Dick Thompson's voice during the cross country. The Radnor organizing committee and the volunteers did a great job with the courses (Jeff did the xc this year and I loved it. The decorations were in the fall spirit, although I think several people (including Steph) may have preferred fewer corn stalks. Keegan took it all in stride and didn't look at anything. I was able to say hello to the Aliquippa crew, the Cairn O'Mount crew, Courtney Cooper, Molly Rosin, Boyd Martin, Ryan Wood, Lance McCue (who set me up with a mimosa for my xc walk - life is good), the Juvonens and many others. I somehow managed to completely miss Caitlin, who was there schooling Camilla, who rode in the novice on her super pony, Tuesday. I did hear that Caitlin walked the whole novice xc with Camilla, which was great news.

Back to Blue Hill and then yummy lamb and wine for dinner with Henry.

Sunday morning was warmer and really lovely. Keegan and I went for a long hack, accompanied on part of it by Laura and Hobbs (who seems to really enjoy the out and about time, but also looks a bit like he is wondering where the start box is). Altogeher a great weekend with the horses.