How professional hunter riders can execute perfect trip after perfect trip—with beautiful jumping efforts and never a missed distance—is a mystery to me. And as is how they can remember 12 different courses in a day. We checked in with a few West Coast riders here at the HITS Desert Circuit in Thermal, Calif., to see what's going through their minds in the seconds before a round, and then what they're thinking during those rounds as well. 

Thermal, Calif.—March 13

The R.W. “Ronnie” Mutch Equitation Championship isn’t an easy class to win.

Thermal, Calif.—Mar. 1  

Glancing down the results for the $50,000 Horseware Ireland Grand Prix at the HITS Thermal Desert Circuit all the usual West Coast suspects appear—Richard Spooner, Rich Fellers, Will Simpson. But one name stands out as new, that of Greg Broderick.

Broderick is an Irish rider, and showing in the United States for the first season. He showed MHS Going Global to the blue just fractions of a second faster than Spooner on Chivas Z.

A month ago, the Chronicle talked to Will Simpson after he’d won four grand prix classes in a row as the HITS Desert Circuit in Thermal, Calif., got underway. That seemed like a pretty remarkable accomplishment.

Ocala, Fla.—Feb. 15  

Redemption was pretty sweet for Laura Kraut. Still sporting a black eye from her mishaps in the Furusiyya FEI Nations Cup with Cedric, where they came to grief in the triple combination in both rounds two days before, she proudly declared him back to his old self.

And he looked it in the $150,000 Ocala Grand Prix, blazing to the top of a jump-off that took fast, faster and fastest to a new level.