I truly thought all of the stars were aligning at Rolex with The Eagle in 2017. He absolutely did a smoking hot dressage test and was sitting pretty on a 46. The XC course was riding very tough all day, and not many were getting around. I decided to have a real crack on Eddie. He was seriously flying. We were jumping everything like it was nothing. Being a former race horse, I knew he could do the time. We were about three quarters around the course and he was hardly blowing.
I remember spurting him up the hill towards the Normandy Bank. He had plenty in the tank. Unfortunately we had a sharp turn towards the narrow after the bank. In a split second, Eddie was on the ground like a pancake. He had lost his feet and completely slipped over. I was crushed. I took the saddle off and had the lonely walk back to the barn thinking about how close we came.
