Woodside International Horse Trials – Cross Country

Finally, we get to the fun part. I think all eventers must feel this way. And it’s not just the people; Eugene really loves cross country. If you can’t watch the whole video, just watch the first 10 seconds when his ears fly forward as he realizes “omg, we’re doing the thing.” Those little ears might flick back occasionally when my husband talks to him, but the rest of the time, they are forward.

Little Mustang loves cross country.

Sadly, my camera skills remained terrible (though we figured out what setting we needed to fix afterwards – of course) so a lot of the pictures are blurry. The course was identical to the spring and summer courses so I didn’t do another coursewalk, but you can look at the spring trials post if you want to see the course.  We were both disappointed that they didn’t change the course at all. It’s supposed to be a harder competition coming at the end of the season, but the only change was the stadium course. The cross country course was the same and it’s really a very easy course: no banks, no ditches, no flagged water. Since cross country is where Eugene really shines, with it being so easy we knew there’d be no real chance to move up that day.

Jump 1


Classic splashing through the water shot


Happy boys

They were double clear after a bit of a slow down and zig zag before the last fence to kill time. Sadly, they remained in last except for 2 withdrawals, but they had a lot of fun doing it and that’s the important part.

11 thoughts on “Woodside International Horse Trials – Cross Country

    1. Olivia Post author

      Thanks for thinking of us. We’re hours away from the fires. Which is good for us, but I’m so sorry for people up there who have lost everything. Even though the fires are hours away, the air here is filled with smoke. I can only imagine how much worse it is up there.

  1. Keith W Matapouri

    AH!!! The GoPro video is so cool! I screwed up timing and didn’t realize he was riding BEFORE whoever it was that rode last, and I totally missed this part. So glad I could watch the video.

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