Busy Weekend for Team Lily at Plantation June HT!

It was a busy weekend for Team Lily at Plantation, with twelve horses from within the barn competing across the two days.

On Saturday, Kaelen Speck and her mare Sweet Rebellion put in another stellar performance at Preliminary, adding only time to a competitive dressage score to finish second.  In the Training, Gabbie Ciccone had a great dressage test to sit in third with her Some Kind of Wonderful.  Her two rails in stadium were unfortunate but they followed that up with a double clear cross country round to bring home third in her Training division!

Nicole Spiropolous and her new ride Aberjoy completed their first Training together in good form, save for one unlucky rail and a green moment at the ditch on cross country.  I rode my young OTTB, Bold Tiger, in his first event of the year and he impressed us with a respectable dressage (in spite of a very short warmup) and exuberant jumping rounds to finish on his dressage score for seventh in the Novice.  Finishing right behind us in eighth on his dressage score was Stonewall Winters with Tori Kager in the irons. We were also happy to see students Miranda Webb and Lyndsey Barrett have great outings and add only time to their dressage scores in the Training and Novice, respectively.

Braden and Weasel in the warm up.

On Sunday we returned for the Unrecognized competition.  Annelise Aurillo and Rasher started the day off at Training level with a great dressage test followed by a near-perfect show jumping round and an educational cross country round. Rasher is still green at this level, and Annelise persevered to get it done out there and made us all proud.

In the Novice, Braden Speck won the dressage on an amazing 25.40,  unfortunately Weasel bested his jockey with a pony move in stadium but Braden redeemed himself with a great clear cross country round!  Heather Cooper finished on her dressage score for second in the Novice with Regal Dancer, with Jesse Connell and Corduroy close behind in fourth after a strong cross country ride.

Heather Cooper on Regal Dancer

Cassidy Heitzenrater competed Go Devil Go in her first outing of the season, and Cassidy rode extremely well through some rusty, green moments to have a confidence-building day. Summer working student Jenn Catalano had her mare Validation in the Novice and put in a nice dressage test but sadly their day was cut short after disagreements in show jumping.  We were disappointed that Mackenzie Verna and Hannah Daneker were unable to compete due to unfortunate circumstances and look forward to having them back out with the team in the near future!

All in all, it was a great weekend at our favorite local event and I am proud of all of my students for their hard work thus far this season.  Team Lily was also so pleased with our eventing community pulling together for our friend Seema; the love for her over the weekend was so apparent and well represented by all the riders sporting purple gear.  She was an incredible contributor to the sport and will be greatly missed!