Olympic Gold Medalist Beezie Madden Blogs About USEF Show Jumping Team Selection Trials for the 2010 Games--Part II

WELLINGTON, FL--February 28, 2010--Saturday night was the second round of the WEG Trials. As expected, the course was a lot more difficult than the first one. I had mixed results with my horses: Mademoiselle was clear, Danny Boy had 8 faults and Via Volo had 12 plus a time fault. Although I was a little disappointed with my scores with Danny and Via Volo, I am still very happy with the horses. Mademoiselle jumped beautifully, but I am not going to get too excited with how high she is in the standings. And I’m not worried about where Via Volo or Danny are right now because we’re less than halfway through. You can see how much the standings changed just from trial 1 to trial 2, and at this point all three horses are right in the hunt to be in the top 15. As I get to know Via Volo better, I think we will be able to handle the more difficult courses together more easily. Danny’s faults were just a misjudgment at a not very wide oxer which is very uncharacteristic of him and also a triple that was difficult for a lot of the horses.

Some of you may wonder why I didn’t ride in the jump-off with Mademoiselle. The reason is that riders were only allowed one horse in the class unless they were participating in the Trials and in that case, only one of the horses would count toward prize money. Since Mademoiselle wasn’t eligible for prize money, I couldn’t go in the jump off.

The next Trial is on Wednesday afternoon (March 3) on the grass polo field. The change of venue will be interesting since I have no idea how it will affect my new horses. I think Danny may like it, though. He has been a little tense under the lights at this venue so I might notice a real difference in the afternoon.

Stay tuned to hear more from Beezie Madden as she blogs through out the U.S. Show Jumping Team Trials!