The Aiken Horse is a bimonthly magazine-style newspaper serving the equestrian community of Aiken, South Carolina and the surrounding region.
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Pets inc. will be doing a low cost spay and neuter clinic at Home for Good Dog Rescue on Whiskey Road on September 26! Sign up now to reserve your space. Open to all South Carolina and Georgia residents. Wellness and vaccination appointments also available. See below or call 803-739-9333 for more information.
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Our August-September issue features the Paris Olympics and much more.
Our August-September cover shows Boyd Martin riding Fedarman B over the stag jump at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Photography by Shannon Brinkman.
Don't forget! There is a mustang adoption event in Monroe, North Carolina this coming Saturday, August 9. See the poster below for more information.
Both Laura Kraut and Karl Cook advance to the finals of the Individual jumping tomorrow, Tuesday. Laura and Baloutinue had four faults, but were fast enough to make the cut. Karl and his mare, Caracole de la Roque, delivered another perfect clear round. He is the only one of the US riders to put in three clear rounds so far. Not only is this his first Olympics, he was originally the travelling reserve rider, taking the place of Kent Farrington at the last minute, after Farrington's horse, Greya, developed a slight allergy at the Olympic venue.
McLain Ward will not compete: he and Ilex went around the course in perfect form, but dropped an unlucky rail on the very last jump. Only the fastest of the four fault rounds were able to qualify, and McLain was not quite under the bar. The individual final is limited to 30 horse and rider teams.
The jumping final begins at 4 am, but if you have Peacock, you can watch a replay at a more convenient time. See the order of go here: https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/results/equestrian/jumping-individual/fnl-000100--
Jumping Team Silver for the USA! Karl Cook, the traveling reserve, learned just two hours before the team qualifier yesterday that he would be competing, but he stepped up to the plate, delivering double clears both yesterday and today with the amazing Caracole de la Roque. He was the only American rider to earn a perfect score. Laura Kraut, who was double clear with Baloutinue in the qualifier, had four faults in the final today. McLain Ward, who had a rail and time penalties in the qualifier, was double clear today, securing the US a medal with Ilex, a horse that made it all look easy.
Jumping will continue Monday morning at 8 am EST with the individual qualifier. Meanwhile, the team dressage final starts tomorrow, Saturday, at 4 am EST. This will be followed on Sunday by individual dressage, also at 4 am. The individual jumping final is Tuesday at 4 am, and then that’s a wrap! Find the full schedule, results and more details here: https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/schedule/equestrian?day=3-august
Steffan Peters's thoughts after his disappointing Olympics outing.
Aiken-trained Post Time set to run in Whitney Stakes in New York on Saturday
Aiken Standard 8/1/2024
By Dede Biles [email protected]
A graduate of the Aiken Training Track will be running in the $1 million Whitney Stakes (gr. I) on Saturday, Aug. 3
Post Time is a 20-1 longshot on the morning line for the 1 1/8-mile race at Saratoga Race Course in New York.
Eleven other thoroughbreds are entered in the Whitney.
Post Time was in Aiken learning how to be a racehorse from the fall 2021, when he was a yearling, until “around May or June” 2022, said Cary Frommer, who trained him back then.
The c**t has won eight of his 11 career races and has never been worse than third while earning $817,910.
In his most recent outing, Post Time finished second, beaten 6¼-lengths by National Treasure, in the $1-million Hill ‘n’ Dale Metropolitan Handicap (gr. I) on June 8 at Saratoga.
National Treasure is the Whitney’s 9-5 favorite. His sire (father) is the 2009 and 2010 Aiken-trained Horse of the Year Quality Road, who was the runner-up in the 2010 Whitney.
Post Time’s sire, Frosted, captured the 2016 Whitney.
Ellen Charles of Hillwood Stable owns Post Time.
Frommer purchased the c**t for $85,000 at the 2021 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic fall yearling sale at Timonium in Maryland.
Before buying Post Time, Frommer said she saw a video online of the c**t “galloping out in the field” and “really liked the way he moved and covered ground.”
- photo by Barry Bornstein
Don't miss the team jumping final, tomorrow, Friday, August 2 at 8 am! The US team comes into the final in second place with a combined six faults. Only one team, Germany, saw all three riders go clear. Everyone starts with a clean slate tomorrow, and we will be rooting for Team USA!
It's really not that hard to get a horse on the bit.
Julio Mendoza in the Horse & Hound
The Ecuadorean flag-bearer Julio Mendoza Loor has enjoyed a fairytale journey to compete in Olympic dressage, with his bargain-buy horse Jewel’s Goldstrike
A statement from Christine Traurig about Steffan Peters's test today.
“I deeply share Steffen’s disappointment with his ride today, especially taking into consideration what this combination has done for this sport, our country, and worldwide, bringing so much positive engagement to our sport over the past few years. It became obvious to me during their test, Mopsie was not himself. After returning to the stabling, he was taken care of by his team and our team USEF veterinarian and he is starting to feel more himself which is the most important thing.” - Chef d’Equipe Christine Traurig
Olympic News: Day two of dressage qualifiers proved disappointing for the US team’s Adrienne Lyle and Steffan Peters. Lyle rode Helix yesterday to a good score of 72.593 and hoped this would be enough to qualify for the individual final. Peters went this morning, but his mount, Suppenkasper, was uncharacteristically tense and nervous in the Olympic stadium. They finished with a score of 66.491, far below the qualification line. Adrienne Lyle’s score did not quite make the cut either. This means that there will be no more US riders in the Olympic Dressage competition. North Carolina rider Julio Mendoza and Jewel’s Goldstrike, competing for Ecuador, earned a score of 70.839 with a solid first Olympic performance, which was not quite enough for him to qualify for the finals. The full results can be found here: https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/results/equestrian/dressage/comp0001d1--
Ten nations, led by Germany and Denmark, will compete for team medals on August 3, and 18 riders will return to the arena on August 4 for individual honors. The schedule can be found here: https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/schedule/equestrian?day=1-august
Meanwhile, Showjumping starts tomorrow at 11 am Paris time or 5 am Eastern Standard Time. The United States is the 13th of 20 teams to go. See more here: https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/results/equestrian/jumping-team/qual000100--
Olympic Dressage News: Day one is in the books. The US Team is out of the competition; the Danish team is on top so far; individual qualifiers continue tomorrow. (Marcus Orlob and Jane, photo courtesy of USA Dressage.)
That’s right: the US team will not be able to compete for an Olympic medal in dressage this year. This is a sharp blow to a trio hoping to repeat their performance from Tokyo 2021, when the team won the silver.
This is what happened: The first US horse in the arena, Jane, ridden by Marcus Orlob, was observed to have a speck of blood on the inside of her right hind leg while competing. The judges stopped the ride and eliminated the horse and rider. In this year’s Olympic format, a team has three riders, and there is no “extra” rider with a dropped score, as there has been in some years past. With Marcus eliminated, the US no longer has a full team, and is definitively out.
What happens now: Our two remaining riders, Adrienne Lyle with Helix and Steffan Peters with Suppenkasper can compete for individual medals if they qualify. Here is the qualification process: The 60 competitors have been divided into six groups of 10. Each group is treated as its own preliminary competition. The riders with the top two scores in each group qualify for the individual final. That makes 12 riders. Then, they take the top six scoring riders who did not qualify, and those six riders will also have an opportunity to ride for a medal, meaning that there will be a total of 18 riders in the final.
The first three groups (and two US riders) went this morning. Marcus Orlob was eliminated, and Adrienne Lyle earned a score of 72.593, which put her third in her group. This means she has not qualified for the final, but she still might. The second three groups will go tomorrow morning (Wednesday, July 31.) Steffan Peters, our most seasoned team member, rides at 9:02 am. Julio Mendoza, who competes for Ecuador but lives and trains in the Tryon, NC, area, will ride at 6:47 am. The individual final (Grand Prix Freestyle) will be contested on Sunday, August 4, while the team final (Grand Prix Special) will be on Saturday, August 3.
The complete list of ride times for the qualifying test (and today’s scores) can be found here: https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/results/equestrian/dressage/comp0001d1--?fbclid=IwY2xjawEWXtRleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHSG-Gxf78SBRNTW5qHRUJon2FUghrJxg9lO3j8oI2NUSQ09weE_D-P59NQ_aem_Sg3uiiNKMOTvbf4hYoi6sQ
And what about Marcus Orlob and the mare Jane? He thinks she nicked herself with a hind hoof before entering the arena. He said the source of the blood was something possibly the size of a mosquito bite and that it was not actively bleeding by the time they returned to the stable. However minor the injury may have been, FEI rules require that any horse with evidence of fresh blood be excused from the competition. If you bought a subscription to NBC Peacock (highly recommended), you can watch the test and see how the mare was nervous, rearing and spooking at the crowd before she entered the arena, making this explanation plausible. Marcus comes into the competition area about 2 hours and 50 minutes into the program.
(Just a note: NBC Peacock costs less than $8 for the month, and you can see all the sports, including equestrian, both live and on demand.)
Some shots from Paris, courtesy of USA Eventing Eventing
Olympic news: Successful outing but no medals for the US
The good news for the US eventing team is that all three horse and rider teams finished all three phases with respectable scores and results. The bad news is that there were no medals. This morning featured two rounds of stadium jumping. The first determined team medals. In the second, the top 25 riders returned for individual honors.
It was a deceptively challenging showjumping course: Japan was the only team not to drop a rail (although they did have time penalties.) On the US team, Boyd Martin and Fedarman B (aka Bruno) jumped clean and within the time, while Liz Halliday and Nutcracker accrued .80 in time penalties, but kept all the rails in their cups. Caroline Pamukcu had one rail and .40 in time penalties. This gave the US team a score of 133.70, which was good enough for seventh place. Great Britain was the winner, with a final score of 91.3, beating France whose total was 103.60. Japan (115.8 penalties) managed to stay on the podium to get the bronze medal, even after replacing their team rider Ryuzo Kitajima with Toshiyuki Tanaka. Kitajima’s mount, Cekatinka, had come up a little off after cross country; replacing the horse and rider meant Japan had to take 20 penalty points. This was Japan’s first-ever Olympic medal in eventing.
Both Boyd Martin and Elizabeth Halliday qualified for the individual finals. Liz Halliday and Nutcracker took down a rail on their very first fence and accrued 1.2-time penalties, giving them a total of 40 penalty points and putting them in 19th place overall. Boyd and Bruno were foot-perfect, making the course look easy with another flawless double clear. They finished in tenth place on 32.1, having added 1.60 cross-country time faults to their dressage score of 30.5.
Although the US team finished off the podium, very little would have had to go differently for a much better result – slightly better dressage scores could have meant individual medals; if all three riders had gone clean on cross country, we would have landed team bronze, etc. In the coming days and months, much will probably be written and debated about our success or lack thereof, what that means, and what should be done about it. Most horsemen would agree that making it to the Olympics, competing and completing would mean that you had succeeded. But striving to be the best means hoping you might come home with a medal, and the US team has not done that in eventing for 20 years.
Individual scores can be found here:
https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/results/equestrian/eventing-individual/jump000100--
Team results are here:
https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/results/equestrian/eventing/jump000100--
And now it’s on to dressage! The action starts Tuesday morning at 5 am EST. Watch it live on NBC Peacock, or watch a replay at a more convenient time. The first US rider, Marcus Orlob, on Jane, is scheduled for 7:57 am EST. Adrienne Lyle and Helix go at 9:52. Steffan Peters, the team anchor, goes the following day, Wednesday, at 11:01 am, riding the gelding Suppenkasper. We hope Aiken will also be cheering for our North Carolina neighbor Julio Mendoza, who will ride Jewel’s Goldstrike for his native Ecuador on Wednesday morning at 6.47 am.
Find the full dressage schedule here: https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/results/equestrian/dressage/comp0001d1--
Photo of the day: Annie's dad, Putter, cheering Bruno on from the sidelines at Paris 2024 ♡
📷 Kim Ferguson
Olympics News: It wasn’t quite the day that Team USA hoped for on the cross country course. Heading into the day in sixth place, the riders hoped to go clean and fast and move up the leaderboard. However, a few days of rain made the course a bit slippery in places, inducing them not to push quite so hard for the time.
Both Boyd Martin (Fedarman B; aka Bruno) and Liz Halliday (Nutcracker) jumped clean with just a few time penalties. However, the pathfinders, Caroline Pamukcu and HSH Blake, had trouble at fence 16abcd (a complex involving ditches, drops and arrowheads) incurring 20 penalty points and time penalties. Although the top of the leaderboard was also shuffled, with Germany (second after dressage) falling to 14th after Christoph Wahler was eliminated for parting company with his horse, the US also dropped. The team is now in eighth place, almost 35 points behind Japan, which sits in bronze medal position. Great Britain and France are first and second respectively.
Although it seems unlikely that the US team will have a podium finish this year, individual medals are not entirely out of the question. Boyd Martin and Bruno go into stadium in 17th place and Liz Halliday is in 22nd place. The format of this year’s games calls for a round of showjumping to determine team medals. Afterwards, the top 25 riders return for a final round of showjumping to earn individual medals. Both HSH Blake and Bruno are excellent in the stadium: Bruno has never dropped a single rail in his entire FEI career. It’s really going to depend on how difficult the courses are, and how well our horses and riders rise to the challenge. Boyd Martin, at 32.1 penalty points, is 10.1 points (fewer than three rails) from third place, so two clean fast rounds may indeed be enough to move him up. Liz Halliday, at 34 penalty points, can’t be written off either.
Team showjumping starts at 5 am Eastern Standard Time, with the individual final at 9 am. Watch on NBC Peacock: you can see the livestream in real time, or watch a replay at your convenience. Current scores and standings are available here: https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/results/equestrian/eventing/xc--000100--
Liz Halliday and Nutcracker, late additions to Team USA, had the best dressage score of the team (28.0) putting them within the top 20 as dressage wrapped up on day one of the Olympic eventing competition. Caroline Pamukco with HSH Blake and Boyd Martin with Fedarman B were a little behind, earning scores of 30.4 and 30.5 respectively to sit in 25th and 26th place. This puts Team USA in sixth place overall going into cross country day tomorrow.
Again, if you want to watch live it will be early. Riders will hit the cross country course in the same order as they took to the dressage ring. Caroline Pamukcu leads the way, setting off at 10:50 Paris time, or 4:50 am, Eastern Standard Time. Liz Halliday rides at 12:26 (6:26 am, EST) and Boyd Martin is scheduled for 14:02 (8:02 am, EST)
Don’t want to wake up so early? If you are watching on NBC Peacock, which has every ride, you can see a replay after the event is over.
See the full schedule of ride times here: https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/results/equestrian/eventing/xc--000100--
Eventing Dressage Schedule, Eastern Standard Time:
Watch this video about Annie Goodwin and Fedarman B (Bruno). https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1900450090398461&aggr_v_ids[0]=1900450090398461¬if_id=1722025215435642¬if_t=watch_follower_video&ref=notif
Olympic news: Will Coleman is out, Liz Halliday is in, and if you want to see the eventing dressage live, you're going to be getting up early. Will Coleman replaced his main horse Off the Record with his first reserve Diabolo in the run-up to the games, but now Diabolo seems to be brewing an abscess, so Liz Halliday, the travelling reserve, got the call with Cooley Nutcracker (who will go by Nutcracker at the games due to various sponsorship and naming issues.)
Dressage starts Saturday morning in Paris, which translates to 3:30 AM Eastern Standard Time, with our first rider, Caroline Pamukcu, going at 4 AM. Liz Halliday goes at 6:54, and Boyd Martin and Fedarman B (Bruno) will go at 11:03 AM.
You can watch the livestream on NBC Peacock, which you can sign up for at a very reasonable price. Full ride times for eventing dressage are posted here: https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/results/equestrian/eventing/drss000100--
Read up on Eventing at the Olympics courtesy of the USEF.
Fast Facts: 2024 Paris Olympic Games
Check in with Boyd Martin and Bruno (Fedarman B) in France:
Face it: You need some cats. Look at all the beautiful ones available at the SPCA—all vetted, spayed or neutered, and microchipped! You can't get a better deal.
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Advertise with us! Deadline has been extended to July 24! Advertise with us! We hope you have been enjoying this hot summer! We have, but now we are hard at work on our August-September issue,and
Do you have something to advertise for our August-September issue? Let us know! Our deadline has been extended to July 24,and the issue will be out the first week of August. https://conta.cc/3VW161O
Advertise with us! Deadline has been extended to July 24! Advertise with us! We hope you have been enjoying this hot summer! We have, but now we are hard at work on our August-September issue,and
It's time to start getting your ads together for our August-September issue. We are extending our deadline to July 24,and the issue will be out the first week of August. https://conta.cc/3zxObLX
Advertise with us! Deadline has been extended to July 24! Advertise with us! We hope you have been enjoying this hot summer! We have, but now we are hard at work on our August-September issue,and
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The US Olympic Eventing team was at Stable View over the weekend for a Mandatory Outing and a send off toast! Catch a little of the action here. Photos by Liz Crawley Photography, Stable View and The Aiken Horse. #lizcrawleyphotography #stableview #theaikenhorse #usaeventing #usef #olympicgames #paris2024 #chateaudeversailles #toasttotheteam
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