TEMECULA — Jolie Wentworth showed that her veteran campaigner Killian O’Connor has returned to full form, winning the open intermediate division at the Galway Downs Winter Horse Trials in Temecula on Feb. 3-5.

The 30-year-old rider from Martinez, who also claimed fifth place on GoodKnight in the highly competitive open intermediate division, outdueled Canadian Olympic veteran and Temecula resident Hawley Bennett-Awad, who took second on Five O’Clock Somewhere, her mount at last year’s Pan Am Games. In third was Katie Groesbeck on Oz The Tin Man, and Kristi Nunnink finished fourth on R-Star.

BURBANK – The Southern California Quarter Horse Exhibitors Association calls its winter event at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center the “Show Me The Money” show, but it may be more accurate to label it “Show Me The Fun”.

With 2,243 entries and more than 300 horses, the SCQHEA show lit up the LAEC from Feb. 9-12, featuring four AQHA shows along with an NRHA show and a PCHA reining show. On top of the competition line-up, there were the attractions of “Exhibitor Appreciation Casino Night” on Friday and the Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Association awards banquet on Saturday.

WELLINGTON, Fla. — Richard Spooner and Show Jumping Syndications International’s 14-year-old Holsteiner gelding, Cristallo (Caretino x Cicero), galloped to victory Feb. 25 in Saturday night’s $100,000 Fidelity Investments® CSI 3* Grand Prix at the 2012 FTI Consulting Winter Equestrian Festival. The pair was the fastest by over two seconds over Katie Dinan (USA) and Grant Road Partner’s Nougat Du Vallet, who finished second, and Great Britain’s Ben Maher on Tripple-X III, who finished third.

Sixty-six horse and rider combinations contested the night’s first-round course, set by Olaf Petersen, Jr. of Germany. Seven advanced to the jump-off, which saw four clear rounds.

BURBANK — On the final day of the Mid-Winter Dressage Fair CDI-W/Y/J, competitors vied for top honors in the Intermediaire Freestyle. Young Rider Brandi Roenick topped senior competitors to claim the win with Nobel, a 17-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding (Rohdiamant x Hestella) owned by Tracy Roenick of Scottsdale, Ariz. Her score of 70.417 percent from judges Linda Zang (5* USA), Jean-Michele Roudier (5* FRA), and Eddy de Wolff (4* NED) earned the champion’s sash over Jan Ebeling, who placed second with 68.333% on Deborah Harlan’s Rosenzauber 8, an 11-year-old Dutch Warmblood mare (Rotspon x Shining Sun).

Sixteenth in a series
Now that we’ve worked on resistance in our hands, Les reviews flexion.

In riding terms, flexion is when a horse gives you a smooth, yielding response to a rein cue. In order to do this, of course, the horse’s neck has to be relaxed and supple. When we refer to lateral flexion, it is when the horse willingly and smoothly yields his nose from side to side as a result of direct rein pressure. Later, we will be working on vertical flexion, which is when the horse yields his nose down and back, bending his neck, in response to rein pressure.

Spending lots of time developing lateral flexion here at this level is going to be the best way to get vertical flexion later on because it conditions the horse to yield to light pressure on the bit, and the side-to-side movement is easy for him to understand. If you’ve really done your lateral work until it’s perfect, when you pick up with both of your hands to ask for vertical flexion, your horse should respond quite willingly. If not, the best remedy is more lateral, or side-to-side, work.

EDITOR’S NOTE: More with Les is a regular California Horsetrader column. Les Vogt has won more than 15 World Championships, including two wins at the NRCHA Snaffle Bit Futurity. Although Les still rides and occasionally shows, his focus is giving clinics around the world and developing products for the performance horseman. To learn more about Les and to see his clinic schedule, visit: www.lesvogt.com

Most horse people know that ads placed in your favorite horsetrading publication, the California Horsetrader, also appear online on Horsetrader.com – which gets more than 1,500 unique visitors each day! What you may not know is that you can place classifieds in your favorite national magazines on Horsetrader.com, too! The line-up of horsetrader.com titles is 11 and growing, and it features such best-in-class titles as Equus, Quarter Horse News, Horse & Rider, Barrel Horse News, Practical Horseman, The Trail Rider, Dressage Today, American Cowboy and more! To place an ad, just go to Horsetrader.com, select “Place An Ad”, and after you log in, select “Create New Ad” and “See other publications and websites…”. Or, you can call our office, and we’ll gladly help you compose ads and a program across your favorite titles. By the way, your classified ads placed in any of these magazines also appear online on horstrader.com! Clearly your BEST marketplace is better than ever!

THERMAL – With the opening half of the 2012 HITS Desert Circuit officially in the books, trainers, riders, owners and horses are enjoying a much deserved week off. Entries are up and the sport of show jumping on the west coast appears healthy and active this year.

The facilities at the HITS Desert Horse Park continue to mature and impress, as thousands of exhibitors have flocked to the warm, sunny climate of the Southern California to escape the cold grip of winter.