THE ISLAND 22 EQUESTRIAN PARK

Island 22 Event 2008

We did it!!

A successful 21 years!!

And 171 entries!! Wow. We were surprised at the numbers but willing to accommodate all of you happily.

Results for the 2008 Event up to 8th place.

Mind you it was a little tense on the Friday as everyone was arriving, where did that rain come from? WOW!!

It was almost scary! Sheets of rain so thick I actually walked into a tent pole as I couldnt see anything in front of me.

There was a lake building up on the dressage ring and the warm-up ring was a little gooey so we sent riders to the plateau area to ride. Our Society members were working fast and furious to get trailers unstuck and parked and to find some imaginative ways to drain the water off the riding ring.

The weather Gods finally turned in our favour by 5 pm on Friday, the skies began to clear and the rings began to drain. There were many sleepless Society members on Friday night as we all prayed for a rainless night.

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Who ever controls the weather up there likes us and the dressage ring was beautiful!! The amazing drainage at the park showed its powers and the dressage ring and the warm up ring worked out excellent and the cross country course began to quickly drain.

Dressage day was a lovely day!! The weather was beautiful and everyone looked lovely. There were some gorgeous tests. This year we welcomed some Intermediate riders to our event to do some training tests and they were fun to watch.

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Cross Country Day weather was a little odd. The sun was shinning brightly and we would get these strange sprinkles of rain with blue skies above true liquid sunshine. The footing held out very well though. There were a couple of corners that our ground jury were a little tense about so we gave the heads up to our riders in the start box and every one rode perfect out there safe and fun. We had no accidents and a wonderful cross country day.

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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books Jeremy cut off his finger a couple of days before the event. Ouch!

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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books \

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books Janice and Joan had fun decorating the water jump!

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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books Yes they are spiders. Janice put them all over the jumps!!!

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Then it was time to PARTY!! Our regular BBQ chefs backed out on us two weeks before the event so we called upon the Knights of Columbus and they put on an excellent feast for us all. The line up of dinner goers never seemed to end. Our entertainment this year was a great group, Ernie and Mannie, and they had us up and dancing right away. Everyone had a wonderful evening of conversation, dancing and friends.

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Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books Some people were even playing a great game of Frisbee in the riding ring!!

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We were blessed once again with a perfect day for Stadium. Horse people cant ask for it to be any better then that. It was lovely.

There was a large turn out to watch the Intermediate riders tackle Dale Irwins HUGE course. It was exciting.

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Dale Irwin was our stadium course designer this year and he builds a very different course from our previous long time designer, Pam Arthur. It was a very exciting and challenging course that saw a lot of movement in the placing in all divisions. Very exciting to watch all the way to the end.

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The Society would lake to thank all of our volunteers and our riders who kept everything on time and happening on Monday. We got 171 horses through by 4:30 and this made the day end on a happy note for everyone. Thank you so much.

All in all it was a very successful, wonderful weekend.

Thank you so much to every spectator that showed their support, to all the riders that came and enjoyed and to every single volunteer that make this event possible every year.

If any one has some photos that they would like to submit to the website please email them to island22website@yahoo.ca

We were pretty busy out there this year and it was hard getting good photos. We would love to see the photos that you all took!! The Official photographer photos should be up in about a week and I will let you all know when they are on her website.