Canadian eventing athletes converged south of the boarder to compete against a record number of competitors at the 25th Anniversary edition of the Dutta Corporation Fair Hill International Three Day Event, held October 16-20 in Elkton MD, USA .
In their first trip to Fair Hill, Colleen Loach of Dunham, QC piloted Freespirit, Peter and Susan Barry’s seven-year-old Canadian bred mare by Freedom Z, to a third place finish in the CCI 2 * competition. Sitting in twelfth place on a dressage score of 49.7 penalties, the pair delivered a double clear performance over Derek di Grazia’s cross country course moving them into third place position. Sunday’s show jumping proved to be just as successful for the pair with their second double clear performance of the weekend. In a neck and neck race from start to finish, it came down to closest to optimum time posted on cross country to break the tie, with merely 2 seconds between Loach and her competitor.
“I was thrilled with Freespirit’s performance this past weekend. She achieved her personal best score in dressage with a 49.7 Historically, dressage is definitely our weakest phase as she can get quite tense but this weekend she really stepped up to the plate. The jumping phases are usually no problem for Freespirit as she is very athletic and willing,” commented Loach. “Having said that, Derek’s two star course at Fair Hill certainly asked some demanding questions and was by far the longest course we had attempted. I was a bit concerned that she wouldn’t be fit enough for the task, and was pleasantly surprised how easily she handled the length and rolling terrain of the course.