Fair Hill International Wrap Up: See You Next Year!

It took me a whole day to get over my three days at FHI! I decided to not go on Sunday due to my husband being so nice about me being missing in action for three solid days from Thursday to Saturday. By the time I got home Saturday afternoon, my heel was killing me and I had to lay down with a bad headache (I didn’t even VISIT the beer tent).  So I am glad I didn’t go on the final day. Though it sounds like that was fun-filled as well with the shaking up of some of the scoreboards!!

Saturday dawned pretty early due to me having to go grab our tickets from the 5k. I didnt run it but I did watch the finish. It was pretty cool and I would have loved to finish up running across the arena to the finish line. I took a photo as I stood there and chatted to runners who were riders too and even exchanged numbers and contacts with a few (everyone is SO friendly at FHI!).

Shopping was a massive fail for me mostly (Well besides looking at saddles). I ended up buying two Mango Bay belts on Saturday. Except for food, that was all I bought all three days. WHAAAA?? How did I do that (It helped that by Sat it was very humid so I had no desire for another vest/coat/hat etc.)? WAIT I KNOW. Amanda wasn’t there. Bada bing! Make sense? Yep.

I met up with Austen (finally met her and her lovely Lyra) to give her her tickets so she could get in, saw Emma and her crowd off and on all day and hung out with Sarah (who may have a restraining order out on me by now, poor girl dealt with me for three solid days)! HA it was a blast though!

Cross country started up and while I was waiting for Austen to arrive on the shuttle I hoofed it over to a nearby fence (Along the lines where the tailgating and the beer tent was) so I could see Sally on her first horse Wizard go (I now can’t find the order to go so I THINK Wizard was first and I watched Chris later but apologies if I mixed them up, both were fantastic!).  She was third to go at like 9:36 or something.  I did get to see her zoom by like no big deal (this was toward the end of the course) she finished with just time faults but otherwise clear. She also was clear with time faults on Christopher and withdrew Igor her last mount of the day after starting the course (YES the woman is intense, riding three horses in one event, I know there were a lot of pros there doing that but jeez how exhausting!).  I am really proud of her though and thought her horses looked great over the cross country fences. I watched her ride Christopher through the fence/ditch/hell combo around fence 13 and she made it look textbook. Amazing!

I also stalked another Mighty Magic for Amanda and watched him (Michel 233 and Will Faudree)eat up that same fence combo that I watched Sally do. It was fascinating watching them go. He ended up 15th in the CCI** and pretty much cemented my thoughts that the900facebookpony.com is brilliant for having bred Sadie to MM to get Presto. The three I watched this weekend were the most rideable horses I have seen. I would have gotten on all three of them and you all KNOW how wimpy I am!!

Both courses looked big ass and enormous on paper and in person so I have to give kudos to those who made it under time. There were some rider falls and some refusals etc but overall it seemed like a pretty good day for horse and riders I think everyone was safe home even if they had to walk back leading their horses.  I really enjoyed watching riders adjust their horses and strides for some of these fences and really think this is the first FHI that I watched that helped me understand more as a rider. Not that I will ever jump that big but it still applies the forward principle!

It was just amazing to watch some of these riders. Besides Michel 233 in the CCI** I loved Louis M as well (So bad Cornelia went from 2nd over night to 22nd after show jumping but such a cute, cute jumper.) I am sure there are more I loved, just a blur now.

It was a great weekend to watch horses and riders but I can’t forget the dogs. There were loads of dogs there too (not just for agility).

One of my fave pups all weekend besides Lyra was Bear the Rottie puppy who rode around with volunteers on their gator all weekend (They also gave my hobbling self a ride on Friday to the YEH jumping as I limped over the hill, FHI Volunteers for the win). He was like 10 weeks old and just snoozed in his crate except when he was out and showing how cute he was. Just a laid back pup! Loved him

And my very favorite dog who I visited daily was Bourbon the Norwich Terrier at the Forestier booth (And I sat in one of those yummy saddles too. Seriously OMG it was so comfy. Yeah, they start at 5k plus). The rep was really nice and told me some things about my length of thigh and calf that was really interesting. Cause I was wondering why I had issues in  certain saddles and it made sense. He gave me a card and said he would come out and fit Remus. I had to laugh because I was like my husband would divorce me if I spent that much on a saddle but damn that thing was NICE. But the dog was the best. If I could have stolen him I would have! (Pretty sure they had alarms attached to him)

SO that was FHI in a nutshell for me. Next up our saddle fitting from last Thursday! Not enough hours in the day to blog!

The weather could have been better (We had like ten different types of weather on Sat alone and the sun stayed away) but it was a great time!

I have to thank Tanya for giving me some comp tickets and lunch on Friday!! I appreciate Tanya and Hillside HVAC so much!! (Hillside sponsors FHI as well as other horse trials there throughout the year) Thanks again!