The Slower Road

Today — the final day of this year’s Kentucky Classic CDE, here at the Kentucky Horse Park — featured the cones phase of the CDE and the medal ceremonies for four new National Champions (in the pair-horse, single-pony, pair-pony, and pony-team divisions).

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In the pair-horse division, Misdee Wrigley Miller, who had the best dressage score among all the CDE competitors, was declared Reserve Champion …

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… after finishing only sixth-tenths of a point behind the winner. Jimmy Fairclough, who hasn’t competed with a pair of horses in nearly twenty years (he’s been driving a four-in-hand team in that time), is this year’s National Champion in the pair-horse division.

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Paul Maye is the new National Champion in the single-pony division

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Wendy O’Brien and her pair of ponies are this year’s National Champions in that division

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Lisa Stroud won her eighth National Championship in the pony-team division

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Katie Whaley and her team of ponies (Reserve Champions) had the only double-clear round on the cones course

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Today was the first day of dressage at this year’s Kentucky Classic CDE, here at the Kentucky Horse Park.

It’s also, of course, a regular work day for me. So I only made it out to the dressage arena for a little while this afternoon.

Here are a few photos of the three competitors in the Pair Horse division … the USEF National Pair Horse Driving Championship, in fact. I took these as the drivers were warming up for their dressage tests.

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Steve Wilson, from nearby Goshen (very close to Louisville), is competing in only his second advanced-level event:

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Over the past decade or more that I’ve known him, Jimmy Fairclough has always driven a four-in-hand team (including at this year’s FEI World Four-in-Hand Championship, where he won the team bronze medal), but he brought a pair of horses this weekend:

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Local favorite Misdee Wrigley Miller (who splits her time between Florida and Paris, Kentucky) had the highest [correction: the LOWEST; in other words, the best] dressage score of the day (even beating out Chester Weber by a couple of points): 39.68.

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