Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Ocala Winter Horse Trials 1 at The Florida Horse Park

Janet Andrews and Cosmic Diamond Beat Field of Olympians at Ocala Winter I Horse Trials
Text and photos By Shaneen Kohler

The names Janet Andrews and Cosmic Diamond are fast becoming well-known names at the Florida Horse Park. In both the three-day events held at the horse park (November 2005 and January 2006), the duo has claimed a blue ribbon in the Open Training division. In the Jan. 20-22 event, their scores put them above such names as John Williams, Matt Ryan, Jonathan Holling, Darren Chiacchia and Buck Davidson. Williams and Chiacchia were part of the bronze medal winning team at the last Olympics, Ryan is a three-time Olympic gold medallist, Holling has been long listed for the United States Equestrian Team on two occasions and Davidson has been a USET Athlete of the Month.

Yet, Andrews took it all in stride. “I have been competing for a long time and have competed against riders at this level before. Even so, I was still pretty nervous being in first going into the last division.”

She and Cosmic Diamond (Uron-Gaisha/Garibaldi I) had a rough start, with some rearing. But with some help from trainer Ralph Hill, they sorted through it. Seven-year-old Cosmic Diamond, the 2005 American Hanoverian Society Training Level Champion, has gone through stages of this sort, especially as a 5-year-old, “when she went through the Terrible 2s,” said Andrews. But, “Frank Barnett of Ocala fixed that for me. He helped give her confidence.”