During my final week in Florida there was a very exciting class happening called the Nations Cup. It’s when a number of countries from all over the world bring their riders to team up and compete to qualify for the year-end Nations Cup. Argentina, Canada, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Venezuela, and the U.S.A. all competed against each other.

The main goal is to have each rider-horse combination to have the least amount of points. Also there is only one horse per rider, so each rider has to take the horse they feel most confident with. It’s a two-round event where each country can have, at the most, four horse and rider combinations. The first to go in the first round is a country with only an individual rider, and then the other countries follow.

Everybody does the same course, and the top six countries with the least amount of faults continue on to the second round. When entering the second round, the team drops the highest score so they have a better chance to win.

Faults are when a horse knocks down a rail, stops, or goes over the time allowed. For each rail down and refusal, it’s four faults; for each second over the time allowed, it’s four faults. Then, each refusal is four faults; after the second refusal the horse is eliminated. Since there was a water jump, if the horse stepped in the water or made an imprint with its hoof on the water line, it cost four faults.

The course was very tough and challenging. A major problem was a combination at the beginning of the course. Just about every horse had a rail throughout the combination. Another one was the water; the horses were landing too close or in the water, or refusing to go over the water.

My final day in Florida I was given the opportunity to show my horse Spankey, but he was feeling under the weather and I didn’t show. I was sad about it, but oh well — everything happens for a reason. I knew it wasn’t the end of the world because I have a number of shows coming up, and I’m looking forward to all of them and to summer! I was also excited to head home to Northern Michigan!

Alissa

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 19th, 2008 at 10:17 am and is filed under Horse Tales. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.