This just in from Kelly Foley, mother of Connor Aubichon. Connor qualified for the Junior North American Field Hunter Championships, which were held on Saturday, November 9, at The Plains in Virginia, and acquitted himself extremely well. The OVH is very proud of our valiant junior and his amazing pony, Roy. Many thanks to all of you who supported Connor and Kelly in this exciting venture.

From Kelly Foley
 
"What an amazing experience, Connor just missed making top ten but got loads of personal good comments from judges who came up to talk to him personally which I thought was awesome out of that huge group of kids...they were impressed with Connor and Roy but it was pretty tight competition! An experience for sure and happy they represented well and were a great team!

After the busy and late social last night I got some other details on the fields as I wasn't out with Connor and I did know the fields were all moving VERY fast but judges were also focusing on handling on tight manoeuvres and top speed so lots of tricking ditches, sudden turns in forests, around fence poles all at gallop speeds.  Quite a few kids fell off and a few required doctors to be brought to them, one horse needed stitches!  So for Connor to finish positively, and for he and Roy to not be showing signs of stress I'm very happy with, especially with the judges personal feedback and compliments to them is an added bonus. All in all we are walking (had enough galloping!) away happy with the experience and having met lots of great new friends and resources as well.  And we both know what to train and prepare for next year.

I was actually riding as well but as an Outriding/Rescue horse for the 10 and under group - there were 17 of them all together, the youngest was 5 oldest 10 they were soooo cute but I was even surprised their little mock hunt so they could participate was done at very fast speeds too - galloping across the fields and cantering in forests - holy cow! They were like little jelly beans and my boy Myst has been herding cows for 10 years so he's a herder at heart naturally so whenever two or three ponies would get away from their kids and bolt in another direction, Myst was in his element - it was quite funny to see him pin his ears "nope nope nope - back you go" . I was really just his accessory for the ride :-)

Connor has already asked our host Miranda if we could come back in the spring the roads and forest here are just so lovely he really wanted to get out and hack but we had no time it was quite a full weekend.

Our get together with Antony before we left was just perfect and set Connor up for success for sure.  We have been updating him through the weekend as well and he's looking forward to meeting with Connor on our return too so we will schedule that.

Thank you to each of you and to the Club for supporting Connor as mentioned before  - it is so heart warming and amazing to see him so happy and passionate to learn doing something he's discovered he loves.

Packing up this morning so we can get home and hopefully enjoy a nice hack through the snow tomorrow at home."