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Mariah Orms and her horse Shanaclough Quality Clover tore through the water jumps.
Nathan Miller
AMENIA — Competitors and spectators endured through high heat, rain and a smoky haze for the 40th annual Millbrook Horse Trials at Coole Park.
Four hours of dressage on Thursday, July 24, opened up the competition that puts riders and their horses through a triathlon of equestrian sports. Cross country jumping began on Friday, followed by stadium jumping on Saturday.
Over the last 40 years, the Millbrook Horse Trials has built a reputation that draws athletes and visitors from great distances. Numbering among the competitors were riders at the highest level of the sport of evening, including Olympian Boyd Martin. Martin finished the weekend with a win in the advanced division after a clean run around the showjumping ring on the horse Miss LuLu Herself on Sunday.
That was during a light drizzle that hung in the air over the event grounds on Amenia-Bangall Road. The weekend started with high heat on Thursday and Friday and towering thunder clouds threatening rain for much of Friday afternoon. Partly cloudy skies made way for a smoky haze on Saturday that triggered an air quality alert for the region.
Volunteer parking monitor Alexander King didn’t let the erratic weather keep him down, and he said he didn’t see a drop in numbers either. “Yesterday we probably had, give or take, 300 to 400 people,” he said on Sunday, the final day of the competition.
King travelled from Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife to attend the event.
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AMENIA — With the goal of engaging with the Planning Board by describing potential short and long-term changes to the Silo Ridge Master Plan of Development, representatives of Silo Ridge led a workshop session at the regular meeting of the Planning Board on Wednesday, July 23.
An application currently under consideration and public hearing that will continue at the Planning Board’s Aug. 13 meeting would eliminate planning for 13 townhouse units, substituting 10 condominium units located on a single lot within the Silo Ridge development. The workshop session reviewed conceptual drawings showing potential future units and other amenities to enhance the future whole.
“We are seeking to work with the town in a constructive way,” said Silo Ridge President Saul Scherl as the workshop began. His comment echoed a similar statement offered at a September, 2024, Planning Board meeting at which administrative reorganization of Silo Ridge was announced. At that meeting, Scherl had spoken of working together with town officials to achieve goals.
Before introducing Patrick O’Leary, Silo Ridge consultant, to review the master plan, Scherl invited the Planning Board to arrange a visit and tour of the Silo Ridge community in the coming weeks. After the tour, Silo Ridge would continue with a series of workshop sessions with the board.
“We are seeking a method for agreeing to a system of planning units to avoid the need to return for plan modification approvals,” O’Leary explained.
Specificity was seen as key to progressing toward such an approval system in the view of Planning Board member Ken Topolsky.
Topolsky thanked the Silo Ridge administration for last winter’s opening of the skating rink to the community on selected days, for the new Silo Bakery recently opened in the town center, and the active engagement of Silo Ridge residents in the town’s efforts toward community development planning.
“These efforts are not going unnoticed,” Topolsky said.
Planning Board member James Walsh was seeking more representation of aesthetics in the conceptualized drawings, more horizontal views rather than overheads. O’Leary replied that such details would be presented following the workshops.
“We’re not expanding; we’re just moving pieces around,” O’Leary said in response to Walsh’s inquiry about provision for workforce housing. He added that there are no plans to house workers internally on site at Silo Ridge.
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