Chasin'

Two weeks ago tonight a fire destroyed the barn housing horses trained by Boyd Martin on the ground floor and employees on the second.  In the days that followed the community was numb with the aftermath, the loss of lives of horses, the injuries, the immediate need of the human survivors for a somewhere to live and something to wear.  Everyone knew someone intimately who had lost something dear.  Ever mindful of the irreplaceable, friends moved into action to take care of the practical.  Among many others throughout the country, a “boots on the ground” fundraising effort was begun in anticipation of the Horse Trials planned for Plantation Field in Unionville this past weekend.  Phone call and email solicitations for contributions to a bake sale were sent out and resulted in a table overflowing with cupcakes, snickerdoodles, cake and brownies.  Priced to sell at “donation”, business was brisk and resulted in a first day total of over $1000.  The second day recovery is as yet uncounted.  I personally ate a brownie with peanut butter drizzle, its purchaser informing me that it was a $40 tray of brownies – worth it?  Quite tasty.

The best thing of all, however, was to see Boyd Martin look to the future with four horses competing at the Novice level through Preliminary.  Boyd completed the day with two firsts, a fourth and a ninth place finish beginning a new phase “after’ the event.

To donate to the recovery effort using paypal you can go to http://eventingnation.com/home and look for the Donate button on the right hand side of the Home Page.