From Fair Hill to Burghley with Colleen Rutledge
Colleen Rutledge of Turnabout Farm in Mt. Airy just got back from competing at the Land Rover Burghley Horse
Trials (September 1-4) as one of six U.S. entries. She fi nished the event in 37th place aboard her off -the-track T oroughbred Shiraz (aka Luke or HRH) and was the third highest placing U.S. rider to fi nish the event. Before tackling this prestigious four-star event, Colleen and horse got the mileage and experience they needed competing at Fair Hill International. Colleen has competed at FHI for the past
three years, both in the two-star and three-star events with Shiraz and her other Advanced horse, Dillon. “If I had not ridden at Fair Hill, I would not have been as prepared for the ground at Burghley as I was,” she said. Colleen add- ed,
“T e ground at Burghley was a combination of Fair Hill and Stewart,
up in
New York…up and down.” She said that
sort of ground, not to mention the actual fences, makes it hard for the horses to get into a rhythm on their own. Hav- ing ridden the FHI course sev- eral times helped Shiraz gain the confi dence he needed to perform well over the same sort of terrain at Burghley. “If the horse can handle Fair Hill with that ground and those fences, then they will run better at Rolex and on from there,” Colleen stated.
Colleen trav- eled to the UK with Shiraz on her own as his “groom.” Which meant she got to stand in the back of the plane with the horses as they were taking off and landing.
“It
Colleen with her husband Brian and two daughters Ciana and Cassie after cross-country at Burghley (son Connor stayed home)
was really cool,” she remarked. While in Eng- land, Colleen said she had a lot of time to watch re- ally good riders work really nice horses. She commented that “We breed in this country because we love our horses. Over there, they breed to create athletes.” Colleen’s family arrived in England for the actual event to help out, take pho- tos and lend their general support and cheering. Her husband Brian remarked that the people he met were incredibly courteous, saying that all he had to do was mention that his wife was coming to the fence he was watching and the seas of people would part and specta- tors would move him closer to the jump to take photos and watch. When the trip was over and both Colleen and Shiraz had landed safely back in the U.S., Colleen laughed,
stating, “I defi nitely want to go back. Now that I’ve ridden the course once, I’d like to go back and enjoy it!” Although Shiraz will be sitting out this
FHI, having just completed Burghley, Colleen is entered again with Dillon in the CCI**.
As for Shiraz, Colleen said,
“Ideally, I would like to go back over to England with Luke in the spring for Badminton. Burghley is known to be the biggest four- star event in the world. Badmin- ton is known as being both big and technical.”
Excerpts from Colleen’s Burghley Blog AUGUST 18 – Sitting in the
Colleen and Shiraz in the dressage phase at Burghley
vetport [in New York] waiting to load the horses has turned into the longest exercise in patience that anyone could have ever dreamed up. T ere are seven or eight horses here waiting to be transferred out,
some of them on our fl ight, some of them on later fl ights. At about 7 p.m., Luke and the rest of the horses get loaded on the van that takes them to the staging area. T ey are loaded on the containers, and then trucked by fl at-bed out to the plane. T e containers are just like the stalls in my trailer, only self-contained. I get dropped
Shiraz and three other horses are transfered to the airplane in New York
off at the front of the airport, so that I can check in and get a bite to eat. While I am sit-
continued...
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