Plantation Craziness

This week/weekend was Plantation Horse Trials and CIC. Luckily this event was about 15 minutes away, so transporting horses to and from the event was pretty easy. Today was the x-country day, and the weather was PERFECT! Nate was one of the commentators, and he interviewed Phillip, Bruce, Skyeler, and other CIC riders during the competition. It was pretty entertaining :)

Phillip scheduled all the horses at True Prospect to have the day off, so those of us who were working could finish up the morning barn chores and help him with his CIC horses in the vet box. It was my very first experience in a CIC vet box, and oh the craziness! Horses walking everywhere, breathing heavy, sweating like crazy, 20 people walking with them trying to get vitals and grooms trying to take off the equipment and get them cooled down all at the same time, just insanity. I was stationed at the "cooling station," so I pretty much stayed in one spot and sponged the horses with ice water when they were done with the vets. Phillip did great, only having a few minor stops on a horse who may be having health problems right now. Besides Phillip, we had Liz riding Benjamin in the CIC**, and they jumped around clean. I watched her go, and she rode the water complex like a champ! It reminded me of going prelim on Elliott and made me that much more eager to find a new horse to get back in the game!

We also had a few riding in the Horse Trials portion of the event. Phillip won the Preliminary on Rocky (his very first prelim!), Ryan got 3rd on his mare Legend, Susanna had a mishap and was unseated xcountry on her mare Nina, and Kevin jumped around clean on his and Gomez's first Prelim (ending in 15th). All in all pretty successful! We're still waiting for the show jumping of the CIC tomorrow.

In other barn news, one of Nina's babies, Diva, left us to go to the racetrack yesterday. In her place, we gained DaVinci! DaVinci is a baby that had its last race this past Wednesday. I think it'll need a bit of time off! We also gained Chip and Ryan's recovered Intermediate horse, Wolf. Last night I had to meet the shipping van at midnight to collect Willie, a horse from Minnesota I know nothing about! Also, we've been lucky to care for the O'Connor's horse, Mandiba, for the weekend. Karen had a non-riding mishap and broke her arm, so it has been VERY entertaining watching her give Phillip riding lessons!!

Tomorrow I'm headed to try out some of Jane Sleeper's young horses for sale. Should be another interesting day!!