Tag Archives: Elizabeth Scoville

Performance and Conformation Hunters Have Red-Hot Day at Horse Shows by the Bay

Kelley Farmer and Clearly. Photo Credit: Katie Anich/PMG

Traverse City, MI – July 21, 2011 – With the weather hot and steamy today at Horse Shows by the Bay Series III, riders were literally rolling up their sleeves and getting down to business. Hunt coats were waived as the day progressed, adding visible intensity to the competition in the hunter rings. By day’s end, Peter Pletcher had earned the impressive Grand Performance Hunter title, blazing past the host of skilled equestrians entered in this week’s classes. Kelley Farmer continued to impress as well, sweeping the Conformation Hunter division with a scorching set of wins. Both the Performance Hunter and Conformation Hunter classes took place in the R. L. Polk Family main hunter ring at Flintfields Horse Park in Traverse City, MI.

With nine entries, the 3’6″ Performance Hunter division was bound to be both competitive and fun. Peter Pletcher and Sleepy P Ranch’s Primero earned the top honors with 31 points throughout the division. Primero and Pletcher have had a very successful time so far at Horse Shows by the Bay in the High Performance division. There was a tie for reserve champion this week in the 3’6″ Performance Hunters between Kara Roposa on Carentino, owned by Alexander Cooper, and Caroline Weeden on Condanas, owned by Lacey Gilbertson. Both horse and rider pairs earned a total of 16 points and with neither riding in the under saddle portion, they both had the same number of points over fences and were able to share the title.

Elizabeth Scoville and Bianca Buschor’s The New Yorker also had impressive rounds in 3’3″ Performance Hunters, taking home second place in both over fences classes today. When talking about her rides today, she said, “I think practice makes perfect, but perfect practices makes perfect. The New Yorker is a young, very inexperienced horse that actually has a little bit of mileage in the jumpers. We’ve been doing these types of hunter courses to give him the mileage that he needs, and what’s been really exciting here has been to see him understand his new job. Like now, for instance, to see him standing so calmly here at the ring, waiting for the jog and practically falling asleep, is so great because previously, he would start to get anxious when it was jump-off time. He’s been very excited here so far, we’ve been doing the greens and the performance hunters, and we just keep going back in until we get it right, and we got it right this afternoon.”

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