Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Reichert and back home to Louisville.


Pictured are Tom and Carolyn Stinnett, Equine Motorcoach Principals

We had a great a very productive visit at the Reichert Celebration in Tulsa, Oklahoma last week and we are already back in Louisville, Kentucky at the Kentucky Exposition Center for the World Championship Horse Show.

Come see us. Here's where we are: I-65 to Crittenden Drive
Follow to Central Avenue, Gate 4
Kentucky Fair and Expo Center
After turning at gate 4, we are on the right.

Team USA Individual Medal Pursuit.

Inside with Viviane Garner
Watch live - go to: http://www.nbcolympics.com/equestrian/index.html
7:15 p.m. EST August 21, 2008

Hi all,
Unfortunately, Will Simpson will not get to compete for an individual medal. A country is only allowed to send three riders even if all four qualify. It is disappointing as he's had such a great year, but he still goes home with the team gold!
V

Hi everyone,
I made it back home. What a great trip to say the least!

All the US horses passed the jog on weds. The class will start at 7:15 pm thurs Hong Kong time which will be 7:15 am thurs (EST) for us. I will keep you posted as best I can from here. It is supposed to be on tv thurs our time:

Aug. 21: Show Jumping Individual Gold Medal Final–10:00am-1:00 pm
It does not say if that's on NBC or Oxygen.

Talk to you soon!
V

Monday, August 18, 2008

Team USA Olympic Gold!


We are so excited about the Team USA Gold Medal for lots of reasons. First, because they represent the United States. We got to know all of them through the Olympic Show Jumping Selection Trials earlier this year that we sponsored. We are incredibly honored to be a part of the process that got them to the Olympics.

Special thanks to Viviane Garner with Laura Kraut and Cedric. She kept us posted every step of the way while the team was performing in Hong Kong.

Congratulations Team USA: Laura Kraut and Cedric, Beezie Madden and Authentic, McClain Ward and Sapphire, and Will Simpson and Carlsson vom Dach.

You can click here to watch a replay of the finals, which even included the medal ceremony.
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HONG KONG (Reuters) - The United States snatched the equestrian team show jumping gold from Canada in a breathtaking jump-off at the Olympics on Monday. Canada took silver and Norway bronze.

The United States and Canada had tied for first place in the show jumping final with total penalties of 20 each. Both teams went into a jump-off, where riders tackle a shortened course against the clock.

This marked the second consecutive U.S. victory in Olympic team show jumping.
"I'm shocked, so thrilled with the way we did. So exciting," said American rider Laura Kraut. "We wanted that gold medal really bad."

When asked if he was disappointed to see Canada miss their first gold in the category since the 1968 Mexico City Games, rider Eric Lamaze said: "What we did was already amazing, so we're already very happy."

Thirty-five riders out of the 50 who rode on Monday will also go through to the individual show jumping final on Thursday. The top-ranking individual rider was Norway's Tony Andre Hansen with a total of 3 cumulative penalties.

"For the team to get a bronze medal is fantastic. It's really a team spirit and we helped each other," he said after his round.

The United States won the team show jumping gold at the Athens Games in 2004 and in Los Angeles in 1984.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Inside Olympic Show Jumping.


From Vivian Garner with Laura Kraut and Cedric.
5"59 PM Hong Kong Time
Hi everyone,
The sun is setting over the venue in Hong Kong and it is a warm but lovely evening. The riders are walking the course. The jumps are higher and much more interesting to look at than the first night. Dragons, pagodas, temple doors and a large water jump. The individual riders go first and then the teams begin. The US will be the last team to compete. Beezie goes 76th and last of the evening. Mclain will start off for the US followed by Laura and Will. It is going to be.a very long evening. See attached photo. More to come..........V

8:36 PM Hong Kong Time
The non-team riders finished with no clear rounds. Denis Lynch and Jos Lansink both had one time fault and are in a good position to qualify for the individual medal round. They have divided the teams into two groups for some reason. The bottom half of them are finished and the results are surprising. Sweden is in the lead with 30 points followed by Mexico with 40 and Germany with 52. The course has had only one clear round-Ninja and Rolf Bengtsson from Sweden. The water jump line and the triple have taken their toll. We have an intermission, and then the rest of the riders compete. Talk to you in about 2 hours!
V

10:23 PM Hong Kong
End of night two
The end of the night was very surprising. Authentic did not want to go into the corner and stopped at the in of the triple. Beezie circled and he had it down but finished the rest of the course in his usual great form. So the US is now tied with the Swiss with 12 points each. Mclain is double clear along with Eric Lamaze from Canada in the hunt for the gold! What a night.
My heart is still beating like I'm the one who jumped the course. Laura is thrilled with Cedric, and thanks all of you for the well wishes. Good night from Hong Kong.
Viviane out!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Friday, August 8, 2008

We're at the Reichert Celebration in Tulsa, OK.

Everywhere we went, people told us we needed to be at the Reichert Celebration. So it should come as no surprise that we are already there. The event runs through August 17.

Bob Wiegand who sells the Coach is such an all around guy that he drives the Coach (sometimes with his family), polishes it up and shows it like no one else can. He knows every nook and cranny of that Coach.

Every time we ask him, "how's it going?", he tells us people start coming to the Coach even before he can get it set up. Today, I asked him where he was at the event so I could direct the media to it, and he said "just ask anyone on the grounds." He had gotten there the day before and already had attracted at crowd.

The Reichert Celebration is an extraganza of horses: paint horses, barrel horses, quarter horses, halter horses and more than we can list. So click here to download the schedule: Reichert schedule.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Medals Awarded at 2008 CN FEI North American Young Rider Championships at the Colorado Horse Park presented by Gotham North
Release: August 04 2008

By Amber Heinzenberger

Parker, CO - The CN FEI North American Junior/Young Rider Championships at the Colorado Horse Park presented by Gotham North finished with a three-hour closing ceremonies at the Colorado Horse Park in Parker, Colorado today. The four-day championship competition wrapped up with the Junior and Young Rider Musical Freestyles in Dressage, Stadium Jumping in Eventing, the Individual Finals in Show Jumping, and the Individual Finals in Reining.

Already having locked down the Team Gold on Friday, Zone Ten swept the medals in the Young Riders Show Jumping competition today, claiming Individual Gold, Silver and Bronze medals in today’s final competition. Karl Cook, who won Team and Individual Gold last year was the only rider with a score of 0.0 in the first round, but had two rails down riding Notories Utopia in the second round and one in the fifth round (12.00).

Hannah Selleck on Bauer scored 3.76 in the speed round and had a rail down in three of the five following rounds (11.76) to place just .24 points ahead of Cook and claim the Individual Gold, relegating Cook to Silver. Their teammate Paige Dotson took the Bronze on Friponnier II CH (14.3). The team also included Sophie Benjamin riding Marga, who finished 11th overall.

Selleck said, “I’ve had some disappointments – last year my horse got hurt, but that makes it sweeter to come back and do this.”

Cook actually rode ahead of schedule, since Dotson fell off in the warm-up when her horse took a huge leap over one of the warm-up fences and unseated her. “I’m so glad I made it around,” she said.

“Regardless of how you do, riding here is a good experience,” said Cook. “Riding as a team builds character. The first year I was here I ended up in the Farewell class and I thought Young Riders sucked. But the only way to get experience and learn how to handle a situation like this is to ride here. I didn’t want to come back this year and not do as well as last year but once I started doing the trials it pulled me in, it’s a very supportive atmosphere.”

Carlie Thompson of Columbus, Ohio will go down in history as the individual Gold Medal winner at the first-ever Young Riders Reining Championships. She and her Quarter Horse mare Paid By Corona scored 219 from judges John Snobelen, Andrea Simons and Dori Schwartzenberger. Teammates Jason Kvols and his flashy paint horse Sunny Spotacular were close behind with 217 to claim Silver, and Lacey Vernon on Duncans Dun It took the Bronze with 214.5. Team USA won the Team Gold and Team Silver went to Canada.

“I was really proud of my horse today,” said Thomson, who grew up watching reining and started at age eleven. “He loves it – it’s awesome."

Kvos said, “It went well and I’m excited. He pointed out that the Colorado Horse Park was a different sort of venue than they are used to, since they showed outdoors here and generally show indoors. “It was a lot hotter showing outdoors, and it was different with all the arenas and so much going on. We like our ground deep, and they put dump truck after dump truck loads of dirt in the pen. The footing was awesome.”

All three noted that it was fun to be in the midst of so much other equestrian sport. “I used to jump so this is familiar to me,” said Thomson, laughing, “My horse is big as a reiner, but here he feels like a midget!”

Jennifer Brannigan kept her cool and left the rails up to win the Eventing CH** riding her seven-year-old Irish Sport Horse gelding Cooper on their dressage score of 36.3. Karen Shull and Just My Style also went double clear to hang on to Individual Silver (47.7), while Katlyn McMorris and Clifton Peekachu jumped clear but added 4.4 time faults, still with plenty of room for error, to claim Individual Bronze (51.1). Brannigan’s teammate Max McManamy finished fourth on Beacon Hill and Stephanie Rhodes-Bosch, the sole Canadian competitor in this year’s two-star, placed fifth riding Port Authority. Tiana Coudray rounded out the top six with Ringwood Magister (60.6).

Brannigan, McManamy and Coudray, along with David Koss on Candy, claimed the Team Gold Medal for Area VI (California) on a three-day total score of 170.4. The team from Areas I, IV and V finished second (1122.8) followed by Areas VIII and X (1158.5).

Brannigan recently had surgery on her tailbone, which kept her out of the saddle for a couple of weeks prior to the championships. She was able to sit on Cooper only three times in the lead-up to the Championships, and expressed her gratitude to Nick Cwick for riding Cooper while she was recovering. She also thanked Estrella Equine Clinic and her sponsors Custom Saddlery, Ayora Saddlery and Dougie Hannum.

In the one-star championships the Area IV Team (Jessica Lux and Car Tanga, Callie Judy and Irish Odyssey, Hannah Ross and Fantasia and Edith Lee and Ballycormac Petrocelli) led from start to finish, completing the event with an impressive total score of 161.4. Medalist Callie Judy finished on her dressage score of 48.8 to also claim Individual Gold.

“It’s amazing winning Gold,” she said with a smile. This was her second time competing at a Young Riders Championships. “It hasn’t sunk in yet. I had a good cry, and I’m still shocked! My horse is still new to me and we started out with problems – we had some stops on cross-country this spring, so I’m very pleased with her. I just kept trying positive thinking, I kept telling myself, ‘I am going to win this event’.”

Individual Silver went to Lindsay Crnkovich riding Right Back Atcha (49.1) and Individual Bronze went to Canadian Sarah Talaga riding Vena (50.7). Talaga’s success was even more impressive because Vena lost an eye to glaucoma last year. Talaga said it took some time for the mare get used to having one eye, but that their partnership is strong and the horse trusts her.

“It’s so good to win Bronze,” she said. “It’s been a lot of work to get here.”

Area VIII & V claimed Team Silver, and Canada’s team with representatives from British Columbia and Ontario earned Team Bronze.

Laura Noyes had a couple of days of tense, nervous tests from Syncro, but today the 14-year-old Trakehner by Enrico Caruso settled into his job and performed beautifully to win the Young Riders Musical Freestyle Championship with an outstanding 74.75%. Noyes also competed in the NAYRC in 2006 and that same year took Syncro to the Young Riders World Cup in Frankfurt, Germany but did not compete because he had a slight injury.

“Today he was relaxed in the atmosphere,” said Noyes. She rode to music from “Peanuts” compiled by Ruth Hogan-Poulsen. “The test was steady and he was very consistent. The past two days he’s been fresh and tense.” While her horse got better, Noyes said that she suffered from the high temperatures and high altitude in Colorado. “Every day I felt worse,” she said. Noyes is a student of George Williams and bought her horse when she and he were both competing at First level.

Having already claimed individual medals yesterday, Brianna Dutton and Chelsea Pederson returned to the top three today. Dutton took Silver (71.9%) riding Tibet followed by Chelsea Pederson on H.S. With Honors (70.5%) taking home the Bronze.

“This was the first time in his trot work I’ve felt him stay steady,” said Dutton. “As for the second Silver medal, I wasn’t expecting this at all!”

Pederson commented, “The freestyle is the most nerve-wracking test. I just changed it, so I’m not 100% sure all the time. It’s based around the canter music, which is from Aladdin. The trot music is upbeat and fun, which matches his personality.”

In the Junior Dressage Freestyle Morgan Heinrichs and Orlando impressed the judges with their upbeat composition of Swedish music by Rocky Mountain Recorders and relaxed, accurate riding to win on a score of 71.9%. McKenzie Jenkins and her Anglo Polish Arabian Tsarina Bint RII claimed Silver with 70.9%, riding to music from the movie The Thomas Crowne Affair, choreographed by Marlene Whitaker. Mackinzie Pooley and Jonkara earned 69.45% to win the Bronze medal.

“I’ve only been riding this horse since February,” said Heinrichs. “I was hopeful but I didn’t really imagine winning. Overall he felt really energetic today.

Jenkins said, “I am really excited. I love my freestyle! I just try not to get nervous before I go in the ring. I think the canter work was the best; the flying changes are my favorite part.”

In recent years the closing ceremonies took place unmounted in a coliseum, with all competitors attending at once. This year the ceremonies took place outdoors with groups of riders entering the ring separately, on their horses. There was a podium where riders received their medals while flags were raised and anthems played, followed by victory gallops.

For more information, please contact Joanie Morris at jmorris@usef.org.