Emily Beshear

Within a day of being home from The Fork we had some good news in that Quincy’s radiographs were clean. By day two he was miraculously sound and back to work, do I have an awesome vet or what!?!  That answered the question as to whether soundness and fitness (having to miss several days of work) would deter us from continuing to head to Kentucky in two weeks.  However answering those questions simply led to a ridiculous amount of speculation and decisions to be made.  Now I had to consider whether I felt Quincy would be prepared to tackle his first 4* course having run just one Advanced horse trial this spring. And whether his mishap at The Fork would at all effect his confidence on course.  To answer those questions I decided to enter the Fair Hill Advanced… not an ideal situation for many reasons.  But entering gave me an option and Mary was kind enough to add me to the list.  Next was how soon I should go back to jumping at galloping.. his injured hind end seemed ok but the muscle had obviously been injured and I was concerned that stressing it too soon would set us back again.  In the end I decided that it was important to push on and get myself in the mindset that we were going to Rolex and therefore needed to prepare as such. Being passive was not going to get us there in any better shape… By Thursday we headed to the O’Connor mountain to get in a good gallop (seeing how mother nature was also working against us with the unusually hard ground).  That evening he jogged up well so Friday included a proper dressage school.  Saturday we traveled to a schooling jumper show (seeing that i had not yet show jumped him on anything but grass at competitions all spring).  I wouldn’t say that I had my usual horse in warm-up but he settled and jumped well over a couple of 3’6″ courses.  Sunday included another big dressage school in the morning followed by a well thought out cross-country school in the evening.  In all of my reflecting I did realize that one thing I had not done prior to The Fork, simply because the ground had been so hard, was Quincy’s week of wake-up call.  I know that I have a very strong tendency to over-control so I like to set very small jumps and things that fall down both in our ring and out in our cross-country field that are all on odd angles and bends and a bit skinny and surprising.  I make myself ride on a very loose contact and not “help” the horses to get to the best take-off distance.  It’s all very quiet  and meant to get the horses thinking for themselves… It did just that for Quincy and really opened my eyes as to how, almost, over trained he had become. He was waiting for me to tell him what to do and at the beginning nearly ran into a  couple of 2’6″ verticals.  But he’s no fool and quickly sharpened up and handled everything else like a pro, including the very narrow and odd looking “cheese wedge” that I managed to build.  So here we are, a week away from leaving for our first 4* and getting the confidence to do so by jumping a bunch of things under 3 feet tall… I can do that with Quincy because I know that for whatever reason it’s all the same to him whether it’s 3 feet tall or 4 feet tall.  So the decision is made that running at Fair Hill will not do anything to help us get to Rolex.  The better preparation will be jumping at HITS Culpeper this week to be sure to see some 4 foot jumps in a spooky ring (for me not Quincy) and doing another wake-up call schooling session on the Monday that we ship out. Here we go….

In 2011 The Fork was the only real negative competition that we had all year… It did force me to change my focus on Quincy’s training program and warm-up plan and from that point on our year just got better and better.  This year it was meant to be out final big test before heading to Rolex.  I entered the CIC*** so that we would have to deal with the most challenging cross-country questions and the course walk certainly showed that to be the case. However having just run so well around Southern Pines I was feeling good about our chances at not only jumping clear but also being efficient and quick enough to get into the ribbons. We put ourselves in a good position after the dressage with our score improving 10 points from our performance in the same test at Fair Hill last fall.  The weather and footing were also playing in our favor so things were looking good.

Quincy was a little stronger and more opinionated in the cross-country warm-up than usual but I had him listening well before we headed out to the course. The first few fences were very good as were the two big tables at 4ab where I chose to add a stride to be sure he stayed focused early.  But none of that seemed to matter when we had a mind-boggling mishap at fence 5a, the “cheese wedge”.  The approach was great, Quincy seemed focused and we got to a good distance and then he simply didn’t leave the ground… the next thing I knew he was trying to avoid hitting the wedge but was unsuccessful.  He snapped the flag with his head and hit the back corner of the wedge with both his shoulder and flank area. I stayed on and tried to regroup was instantly aware that he was favoring a leg so jumped off (not remembering to unhook my airvest…).  We debated calling the transport out to help get Quincy back to the barns but by that point Jeff had arrived on the scene and decided it may be better to keep him walking.

The next two days were a huge blur of disappointment and worry and second guessing… You can only begin to imagine.. The first ray of hope came when Quincy started to walk comfortably.  The trauma from hitting the jump caused so much swelling in the shoulder that he had radial nerve paralysis and was having a difficult time lifting his front leg. As that began to improve it became obvious that the trauma to his hind end was causing him to be quite stiff and sore as well.  We wouldn’t know the extent of the injuries until we got home t0 do radiographs but he was steadily improving with medication and the use of his fabulous Sports Innovations pulsing magnet/massage blanket. The second ray of hope came when I was able to watch the video replay. Thankfully Mark and RNS caught all of it and Mark even kept the camera rolling for a bit to see the aftermath.  My recollection was accurate and the video showed that he did not try to leave the ground because he was planning on putting another stride in.  He simply misread the face of the jump and when he was just about to put his feet down on it he realized his mistake and simply tried to avoid landing on it. I felt better knowing that it was truly just a rare misunderstanding and not something that I had allowed to go wrong.  Now it was a matter of getting Quincy feeling better…we certainly left with many more questions than we had arrived with…

The weekend after Southern Pines was just as big an occasion as Moose was competing in just his 2nd preliminary at Morven Park.  We’d planned for him to head to Morven with the thought that the course would be better suited to a green horse seeing that it was early in the season for Area 2.  I was mistaken… I got  a good look at the cross-country course on Saturday when I went up to help Michelle and Jack contest their 2nd beginner novice event. The highlight of the day was their lovely show jumping round.  The spooky fences and small ring were causing plenty of problems but not for this pair! Then they flew (she got to learn about speed faults..)around the cross-country with ease to finish in 7th place.

My focus shifted back to Moose and I decided he was up for the challenge and that in a way riding him around the challenging track would help to prepare me for Rolex since I knew Moose was going to be surprised at just about every combination and would get plenty of practice staying tight in the saddle . It had been a month since he had competed last so I did wonder how that would play into things… He made it clear to all of us that he was ready to play by putting in another fantastic dressage test to go into the lead at the start.  I was especially proud since this was his 1st time doing the “B” test in which the movements are relentless.. And for anyone that has not yet seen Moose in person, he’s huge! His ability to put all of the movements together in that small ring is a testament to his athletic ability and willingness.  I can’t wait to get him into a big ring and show everyone what he can really do!

With that done my real work began.. I made the decision to show jump in a a hackamore and hoped he would be focused enough to get all of the quick turns done. No doubt it was the right choice!  This was by far his best show jumping round to date.  He jumped in excellent form and listened intently the whole way around.

So after a quick tack change (no chance of a hackamore on cross-country!) we were off to tackle the course.  Our ride was a good mix of awesome efforts, with his bloodlines showing through in his ability to jump the big fly fences right out of stride, and a few “how did he do that” moments.  The first of those came at the big downhill drop  to the chevron fence. The distance was set for a nice 4 strides but 1/2 way off the drop Moose must have gotten surprised by how far away the ground was since he somehow balked and ended up landing off to the side of the line we needed. I managed to get him turned back in the right direction but now we were on a nice 1/2 stride.. Rolex practice! How to salvage… support with a steady contact and keep the engine moving and hope they remember all of the footwork exercises we’ve done.  It worked! You’d never know looking at his picture  that we arrived there on an awkward distance and even better he never had a moments thought of trying to avoid the jump.

The next “how did he do that” moment came at the water.  We had a great jump at the first log and the striding was just right to the small rails into the water.  No hesitation on take-off and then somehow midway through the jump he got confused and suddenly his hind end tried to put down early which led to a seriously turbulent landing in the water.  Check out the photo sequence… it’s pretty entertaining. There were a couple of other green moments but every time he pricked his ears and galloped on to the next fence as if nothing happened.  Needless to say I never bothered to look at my watch but was pleased to see we finished less than 20 seconds over the time.  And it turned out that was good enough to hold on to 1st place!  Major congrats go out to Chris and Michelle.  We all knew it was in him but this win certainly happened even earlier in his career than we could have hoped.  Moose will wait to run again until the Virginia Horse Trials in May so that I can focus on getting Quincy and I to Rolex but I’m excited to get him out again…

Southern Pines is always an event that I look forward to for many different reasons and this spring was no exception. However this year there was one specific reason as I wanted to see if Quincy and I were on track to aim for the Rolex CCI**** at the end of April, just one month later. I’d decided to wait until Southern Pines for our first advanced run in order to have plenty of time to build up Quincy’s strength and to focus on improving our technical skills throughout the beginning of the year. While we have made great improvements, we didn’t get it quite right in the dressage. The improvements did shine through since we earned a 29.6 for a test that had quite a few mistakes.

The cross-country course made everyone take notice… I always expect jumps to appear big at the start of the season but somehow this course seemed to have grown and the technical questions were very unforgiving. I won’t go through jump by jump but the overall feel was that the horses had to be bold from the beginning and then be ready in an instant to focus and listen to the aids. Seeing how this was meant to show me if we were ready to head to a 4* I saw it as an appropriate challenge. On the day it became clear that the course was even less forgiving than we thought…particularly the water complexes. Quincy warmed up great and started off fairly focused. The first big test came at fence 5 which was a ditch and wall 2 strides to a roll-top. The jump was made a bigger challenge by the rising ground in the approach which kept the horses from being able to see the (ridiculously!) wide ditch. I was confident that Quincy would not be concerned with the ditch so did not ride overly aggressive, rather focused on helping him find a good take-off. I’d bet he had one of the best jumps there all day and as we galloped away I was feeling pretty good. The next big challenge for us was 2 fences later at the downhill bounce drop with a 90 degree left turn to a right pointed corner. Quincy likes to let gravity take over so I was concerned with being able to get him together after the drop to get the focus and balance for the corner. He jumped brave and tidy through the bounce and, much to my surprise, was right with me on the landing so we were able to make a smooth turn and a great jump over the corner. The rest of the course went just as well. I never pressed him for speed and, looking back, did waste a bit of time setting up much earlier for some things then we needed. So we finished the course jumping clear with a bit of time which was just fine by me…

The show jumping course gave me plenty of chances to work on riding related distances and combinations. Quincy was awesome and for the most part I was pleased with the ride I gave him. I take full responsibility for the one rail we did have as I was late getting my canter organized coming to the triple combination. Our performance was good enough for 8th place in a very competitive field and even better than the ribbon was finishing feeling like we were right on track…

My trip home from Aiken ended up delayed by a few days when I decided to make a “side trip” to Ocala for a few days of lessons with David O’Connor.  I thought this was the perfect timing for finding a way to step our dressage up a notch and to fine-tune my show jumping.  I came away having gotten exactly that done with many new tools to use in the dressage ring to help Quincy gain better strength and engagement.  The show jumping was spot on as well as the lines that David set highlighted my tendency to focus too much on just getting to the first jump in a line well rather than getting to it with the right canter to help make the rest of the line go smoothly.  Thus my constant habit of adding strides in the lines.  Southern Pines is just a few weeks away so I’d better get to work!

While in South Carolina this winter I was asked a number of times about the new logo on our trailers and saddle pads. They belong to our sponsor who we are delighted to have join us, Rock – It Cargo.

Rock- It are an international freight company with a world wide network of offices providing a 24hr personal service shipping difficult, complicated fragile and even time sensitive materials and objects around the globe… or even just down the road if need be.

As you may have guessed from the name, Rock-It Cargo began ( in 1977 ) by providing logistics to the music concert touring industry. Basically moving bands gear along with sound, lights and anything needed for the production whilst the band was out on tour. They developed this niche market and dedicated themselves to the principle, We Perform So You Can.

Over the years they have expanded to include many sporting events. Football, golf, soccer, cricket, Nascar and The Olympics have all turned to Rock It to help them with their domestic and international events. Rock-It now leaders in their field pride themselves on finding solutions for complex projects and help a diverse range of clients from mining companies to fine arts dealers with their logistical nightmares. They even organized the shipping of Moose from England to his new home in Virginia.

It is Rock-It Cargo’s first venture into sports sponsorship and I am delighted  they have chosen eventing with the Brickland Team.

For any information about the logistical challenges Rock-It Cargo faces on a daily basis, including the moving of dinosaur bones from Africa to the University of Chicago, visit their web site www.rockitcargo.com.

Moose really grew up over the weekend during his first full Preliminary horse trials.  The dressage was super yet again and I’m not even pushing for anything extra yet.  Show jumping went really well also but we did not come out with a clear round this time.  Primarily just because we didn’t want to deal with a tack change before cross-country so I had a little too much bit and therefore couldn’t really help him as much as I would’ve liked.  That being said, he jumped in great form and had quite an easy time with no real spooking.  Following show jumping we headed straight out to the cross-country.  The track had a very nice flow and several accuracy questions.  Michelle’s proudest moment was when we jumped the big up bank and Moose was slightly off his line to the skinny chevron 2 strides away but pricked his ears and corrected the line himself to jump it beautifully.  My proudest moment was without a doubt the coffin combination.  Moose has been one of the ditchiest horses that I’ve brought along and this was not an appealing coffin even for the preliminary level.  In the woods, straight down a slope to a narrow table the landed looking directly into a pretty massive ditch 1 stride away then a slight bend to get to an even skinnier table 2 strides after the ditch.  Moose was brilliant.  Jumped the first element with no hesitation and made a big leap over the ditch.  He was a little stunned when I picked his head up and kicked him to the final element but managed to get all his legs in order to get us to the other side.  The show jumping faults and some time on cross-country left us out of the ribbons but all in all it gave us a lot to look forward to in his next run at Morven Park.

Sunday was all about Michelle and Jack as the pair contested their first full horse trials.  I’ll have to get Michelle to give you rendition but I was very proud of how the day went.  I told her that the focus for the day was doing each phase well enough to get to do the next phase.  She did that with ease and by the end of cross-country both she ad Jack were smiling .

Moose has had a couple of good outings already this spring but headed to Paradise to test out his readiness for Preliminary by competing in the Preliminary Training division.  What I found out is that in the technical areas he is more than ready for his upcoming Preliminary debut. Before dressage I was wondering if we really could fit all of the movements into the small ring… we managed that and then some!  He was very light and responsive and not at all caught off-guard by how quickly the movements kept changing.  And we rewarded for our efforts with a 27.3 and the lead after the first phase.  I loved the look of the cross-country course for the next day and with the forward going start and numerous questions all with nice solid galloping fences in between.  It definitely offered quite a few challenges specifically for Moose since he’s had a dislike of drops and ditches and there were plenty of those for a Training level course.  However we all agreed it was much better to see how he’d react now so we know what he needs to see more of.  We did have one moment of uncertainty at the down steps..he’s never seen steps and simply had no idea what to do but was very genuine and after stopping and backing up did walk up and cautiously pop down both.  We continued on with a forward ride and had bold jumps over the majority of the course with an unfortunate oops moment when he second guessed jumping out of the sunken road.  Next time I’ll be sure to have a little more say in our direction.. But we finished the event in fine form jumping clear over the preliminary show jumping course which was proving a good challenge due to the wet footing and small space.  Moose kept his engine going and was very focused throughout so we’re looking forward to Sporting Days in 2 weeks! Nicholas got a few dressage pictures but I have a feeling there may be some great jumping shots from Mark Lehner coming soon…

This news needs more photos than usual so I’ll keep the details to a minimum and let the photos speak for themselves..Nicholas has been assisting me in Aiken for the past few weeks so we brought his new pony, Butter, along as well.  They headed to their first combined test (Nicholas’ first jumping competition) together at Apple Tree farm this week.  They came away with a win in the Amoeba division scoring a 32.5 in dressage and adding just 4 penalties for a little steering trouble in show jumping.   Apple Tree is simply the best and Nicholas is looking forward to competing there once more before heading back to Virginia.

Quincy and I have officially begun the 2012 event season!  We competed this past Friday in the one-day Intermediate Horse Trials at Pine Top (GA).  The divisions were packed with quality horse and rider combinations so I was pleased with our 6th place standing after dressage.  Especially with a few minor mistakes that will be easy to clean up once Quincy gets past his early season excitement which translates into trying to guess every other stride what movement I might ask for next.. such an overachiever .  Our show jumping was very smooth and felt effortless as he gave all of the jumps plenty of room to spare.  There was still a bit of sass in his step as we warmed up for cross-country so we started the course slowly to keep him relaxed.  The relaxed start turned into a quiet canter around the whole course since the footing was very hard and I realized I would not be fast enough to be competitive… might as well save his legs for bigger and better things later in the season.  Plus it’s a pretty great feeling to know he’ll jump around a big and complex Intermediate course as if he’s popping around a field over logs.  All in all we were both smiling at the end.  Next up is a trip back to Pine Top in 2 weeks to run around the Intermediate again.  Hopefully they will have the footing in better shape so we can work on kicking it into a new gear.  From there the plan is to wait a few weeks and run the Advanced at Southern Pines then the CCI*** at The Fork. Thanks again to Nicholas for the photos..