On Friday we headed up to the Lake Almanor FEI Rides.  Jeremy was going to ride Kutt on the 100 and I was riding Turbo on the FEI 75 with Dominique Freeman who would ride Razin.

Our drive was uneventful.  Once we got there we set up and spent our day getting prepared.  Skip and Shar arrived later in the afternoon as well as Lili Wren, one of our exercise riders.

All three horses vetted in great.  We pre rode and then went to the meeting.  At the meeting it seemed like the crew points might be tricky so after the meeting Skip, Jeremy and Lili went to go find them.  almost 2 hours later they came back.  It was vague but they thought they had found them. 

On Saturday morning Jeremy and Kutt headed out at 5:30.  There was a pretty mist hanging low over the high meadows, very scenic.

On the first loop there was a large front group of about 10 horses.  Kutt and the other 9 covered the first 25 miles in a very short time.  (The entire course had various amounts of rock involved.)  Kutt was the first to recover.

Loop two there were now 4 in the lead group, it was 12.5 miles and again the speed was great.  All 4 arrived together and Kutt recovered first again.

Loop three was 20 miles and the group was still 4 strong.  The pace was blazing. 

By the last loop it was down to three horses.  Monk arrived ahead of Pete and Kutt by 6 mins.  Kutt would end up leaving the vet check one and a half minutes behind him because he recovered so quickly. 

Monk left the last vet gate in a hurry and a min and a half later so did Kutt.  Jeremy tried to catch Lindsay and Monk and could only close the gap to :45 seconds by the finish line.  Both horses went well over 16 MPH for the whole last 12.5 miles. 

Monk finished in 6:53 and Kutt in 6:54 only :45 seconds later.  Very exciting for team USA!!  Two wonderful horses that ran a spectacular race.  Hats off to both horse and rider teams.

Turbo and Razin had a much less exciting day.  They went around the course steady.  They both completed their first 2*.  Their time was 9:09.

We are looking forward to the North American Team Challenge.