Road to NAJYRC: Area VI

Teresa Harcourt has been blogging for HN about her eventing team’s preparations for the North American Junior & Young Rider Championships, taking place this week in Lexington, Ky. And Area VI is ready!

From Teresa:

Hello Horse Nation from Area VI in Lexington, Kentucky!

Can y’all believe it is finally here? (Can you tell I am embracing my inner “country girl”?) I think all of Area VI is very excited to finally be here.

It all began at 2 a.m. on July 12^th at Pepperwood Riding Center. Sarah Braun, my dedicated boyfriend and myself drove down to Ontario to meet the other girls in order to go to the airport in Ontario. After a long unloading equipment process and a long waiting game to get the horses on the plane, Sarah and I were up in the air with 21 horses!!!!

We landed in the Bluegrass State around 1 p.m. and were quickly met by Sarah Kleintop and Alison Wilaby. Both of these lovely ladies were so kind to help us with all the equipment and getting the horses on trailers. Sarah Kleintop was so kind to Area VI to open her beautiful farm to us. Thank you again to these ladies for helping us!!!!!!!! The horses were sad to trade their lush turnouts at Shady Hill Farms for box stalls on Monday. Also, thank you to Laura Werner from Hagyard Equine for helping us with our horses at Shady Hill Farms! Y’all are awesome!

The horses are now at the Kentucky Horse Park. The weather has been pretty decent but humid. We are from California…. HUMIDITY DOES NOT HAPPEN THERE! Today (Tuesday) was a GREAT day for the team! We are really a team and a force to be reckoned with. Our day started with lessons with Queen Dayna Lynd-Pugh. It was great to finally have Dayna here. We all missed her!

After lessons, it was time to decorate our golf carts for opening ceremonies and the golf cart parade! As you can see in the pictures, we did not take this lightly. If you noticed the monkey on top of the golf cart, we have dubbed it “Shannon Lilley” for the weekend. As many of you know, Shannon could not be here at Young Riders this year. I know just as well as the entire AREA VI team that we MISS HER VERY MUCH. She has put in HOURS upon HOURS of hard work to get Area VI here. Shannon, we can not thank you enough for all you have done. You are such a positive influence on all of us and we hope to make you proud this weekend in Kentucky! XOXO to you!

Tomorrow is D-Day, also known as the jog-up. Our day starts early tomorrow with dressage lessons and rider briefings. The jog will begin at 3 p.m., which means our team will be pampering ponies, wiping sweat off our faces and putting our pretty faces on for jogs. I will be sending another update tomorrow night and then one each night from here on out! Area VI would like to thank all of our sponsors: FLEECEWORKS, MERIAL, TOKLAT, WESTERN SADDLERY, and RIDER ON VIDEO!!!!!!!! Also, THANK YOU to all of our Californians rooting for us back home! We can not thank everyone enough for all of your support! Keep on cheering for us!

Talk to you soon!!!!!!!

Teresa and the Area VI Event Team

The team and Queen Dayna

A big thank-you to Fleeceworks!

Sarah & Teresa