Hilltop News
Two months can go by remarkably fast! Michael Bragdell took eight horses down for winter training and showing options in Florida this year and we can hardly believe their season is already done. We keep our time in Florida shorter to allow the stallions to come home for the start of breeding season. Special highlights of this winter show season included Iris Aberbach’s Boxster A (Bugatti-Weltbekannt) earning the FEI High-Score Award at Global Dressage 3, Mitch & Lara Mitchelson’s Faberge Blue (Contango-Democraat) move up to the Developing Prix St. Georges with consistent top placings, Hilltop’s Sternlicht (Soliman de Hus-Rascalino) earning all scores of 73-78% in his FEI 7-year old and Prix St. Georges classes, and Bvlgari’s (Bordeaux-Rohdiamant) win of the Fourth Level AA class at Global 6 with owner Beth Custalow. All four of these talented horses are US-bred too!
The other horses with Michael used the training time to prepare for their moves up later in the spring. All have left Florida early this morning and we’re anxious to get everyone safely home. Thank you to Lady Jean Ranch for sharing your beautiful facility with us, to Brookledge Horse Vans who we trust to take us to/from Florida each year, and to all the owners who took part in this Florida experience.
Stallion News
Hilltop Archives
With great sadness, we must announce that our beautiful Holsteiner stallion Cor Noir was put down November 3, 2003 for humane reasons. Cor Noir gave tremendous quality to our Hilltop Farm breeding program, producing our top broodmares and the foundation for so much of our success today.
Hilltop Farm's Christopher Hickey and Cabana Boy (Contucci-Bordeaux) attended the 2010 Collecting Gaits Farm/USEF Dressage Festival of Champions on August 6-8 at the historic USET headquarters in Gladstone, NJ. At only 8 years old, this was already Cabana Boy's 2nd trip to the Championships. It was especially rewarding to have Hilltop's owner Jane MacElree and her daughters Ann and Leslie on hand to enjoy the show.
Hilltop Articles & Interviews
The manicured grounds of the Lamplight Equestrian Center were superb as was the quality of the equine competitors at the 2009 Markel/United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) National Young Horse Dressage Championships and the 2009 USEF National Developing Horse Dressage Championship, sponsored by the Dutta Corporation and Performance Sales International.
Kristi Nunnink's default expression is a smile. It doesn't matter how hard she's working, what level she's riding or how the horse under her is performing -- her mouth curls faintly upward, unforced. It may just be a coincidence of facial structure, or it may be a product of years of habit. But either way, the expression fits her, because Nunnink may very well be the happiest rider at Rolex Kentucky. At 48, she's heading to her first CCI**** with her horse of a lifetime.
