Red Hills Horse Trials, Cross-Country Course

Our third time at Red Hills, and the course looks great.

Horses seem to go with dogs, or vice versa, and everywhere you look the interaction between the two can be quite interesting. This Dane seems to be saying: 'He touched my nose, eeuww.'

Of course Friday means dressage and next is a dressage shot. Now my job is done!

Sign of the times: an ATM machine in the pristine wilderness of Red Hills.

Avoiding the wet paint drying, I opted for a walking guided tour of the cross-country course. We were shuttled to the course and started walking at jump 1.

This is the throng of participants in our guided tour. It lasted 2.5 hours, covered about 4000 meters. and everyone was present and breathing at the end! [We had to, to get a ride back on the shuttle...]

This is one of the famous tree jumps, great source of confusion for horses and their riders.

Of course, some jumps seem to have a lot of distractions; geese, dogs, chickens and the like. According to our guide, these distractions only serve to get the horse's attention and to focus on the jump itself.

This is a replacement jump for the fabulous limb jump from last year: it's a lot safer for the horses.

The armadillo jump.

with part B, a smaller armadillo.

Here's 10 A, B and C Note that before A, you really don't see B which comes up as a surprise to the horse while jumping A. Dirty trick if I say so myself.

Here's another dirty trick: after you jump the jump in front of my forced-march-mates, the ground falls off and you're confronted with the B part over this ditch.

Further along, sun and shadows get into the act and play their own dirty tricks: where's the jump? [between the red flags]

My walk-mates surveying a mushroom jump, which many horses had strong objections to last year.

Back for this year is the teepee jump. From light to darkness then light again, aargg.

This next one is a triple threat: jump A onto the shelf, then B onto the table, then C in the background to leave the area.

The site of previous water jumps in past years has been improved for the safety of the horses.

Seems simple enough, over the jump and into the water, a few strides in the water, jump out onto a shelf, then quickly jump again, and run off into the distance. It should be fun shooting real competitors tomorrow.

These next two are small triangular corner jumps. I've lined them up, all you have to do is jump them. Skinny, no?

This should be fun shooting tomorrow also: no forgiving sides here. What great oaks, what stories they could tell, but I digress...

Do they call this a table jump because it's a table or do they just jump a table and call it a jump?

Does it matter

This next one is a high speed jump, nearly at a full gallop, where horse and rider try to make up time. It's one of the last jumps of the course. Competitors should do the 4km course in around 7 minutes, we walked for over 2.5 hours: worth every minute!

Of course, there are always other things of interest, like the back walls of the vendor tents, flapping in the wind.

or the vast amounts of spanish moss draped over the live oaks. Near-spring has also provided a white blooming tree for your entertainment.

and finally, a wisp of spanish moss flitting in the breeze.

Tomorrow, the cross country event: complete with riders and horses. Sure beats dressage... But I must admit, I don't know the ins and outs of dressage so I can not appreciate the finer points as Joan does. She watches dressage, I walk the course, sounds fair to me.