We have a lot of new and exciting changes for the 2014 show season with kids on new horses and moving up the levels. Sammy purchased a new mount, Someday Never Comes aka Stella from Sue Martin late this winter. She did her first horse trials on Stella at Rocking Horse Spring and finished 6th in the Jr Training division. She then competed at Sring Bay Horse Trials finishing in 6th place as well.
I in the meantime purchased a new mare (girl power!) Flash Mob aka Roxy from Kristin Commers. She has been home a short while and has made huge improvements!! She is a 6 year old OTTB mare just my size at 15.3 hands high. All bay with a small white star. It has been exciting to get to know her and build a relationship.
I have been working hard with Marcia O'Hagan's Minnesota Bound aka Milo too. I took Milo & Roxy to Geneva Equestrian in early May to work with Brad Hall and do a mini-event. It was fun to get them both out. Milo finished the Novice in 2nd place and Roxy finished in 4th in the Beginner Novice. With the rain and the EHV outbreak, it was nice to finally get off the property and outside! Some of the kids were able to get out and go cross country schooling at Otter Creek Farm with Jenny Warner as well.
I made the trip down to Lexington, Kentucky to watch ROLEX and had a blast hanging out at the KHP. The excitement of a 4* is something I can't wait to experience from the competition side. We had Lainey in for another fabulous clinic hosted at My Legacy Farm. She had great exercises to get us forward and back into the game. It was a great prep for Otter Creek Spring Horse Trials.
As I said earlier we just returned from OCF Spring HT. It was a great weekend with lots of memories and experiences! Otter Creek is by far my favorite venue. I had three horses competing this weekend, Roxy in the Beginner Novice, Artie in the Beginner Novice and Milo in the Novice. They were all wonderful! Milo led the dressage on a well deserved 30, and Roxy had a great trip in the sandbox scoring a 33 while Artie was working through a little bit of tension he scored a 40. Roxy & Artie both put in great clear show jumping rounds later that day. All three of them stepped up to the plate for cross country as well. Milo ran first and put in a double clear coming in just one second under optimum time. Artie jumped around, less-deer like and more horse-like which is a great improvement for him! Roxy locked on to all of her BN jumps and spooked at all of the other fences and spectators on course, but that will come in time. We picked upped a 20 due to her balking at the Intermediate ditch & brush placed behind one of our fences but once she realized we weren't jumping the ditch & brush sideways she found her fence and jumped it wonderfully. On Sunday Milo had a great show jumping round with one rail down to finish in 3rd. Artie finished in the ribbons taking home 7th and Roxy sat just outside. She will get it!
Emily & her new mount Raptor made their debut at Training. They had some tension in the dressage ring but showed their stuff out on the XC and in the SJ ring putting in one of the few double clear XC rounds and a double clear SJ round finishing in 4th place. Sammy & Stella also had a great run, still have some sorting out to do in the sandbox but had wonderful XC and SJ rounds to finish in 8th place. Lily & Boo went out on XC like they had last fall, nice and forward jumping out of stride. They had one unfortunate rail in SJ but placed 7th nonetheless. Claire & Emma made their debut at Novice with great success. They had a wonderful dressage ride, after Emma was feeling a little fresh in the box Claire took it nice and slow making easy work of the jumps but added some time to their score. She took it nice and steady around the SJ course to complete their first Novice horse trials! Deb & Oliver had a tough weekend but Deb is now the proud grandmother to a beautiful baby boy! They had an unplanned separation on the XC but put in a wonderful SJ curtesy round. They were able to hit the XC after the horse show and cleaned up their mishap and finished the course wonderful and ready for more! Kailey Giancola & her newest mount Peterbuild had a great weekend winning the SR Novice division! It has been so fun to have Kailey back for the summers between her college time! Olivia & Hannah made their team debut at Beginner Novice and had a wonderful weekend finishing 2nd! So proud of Olivia for stepping up to the plate and really showing me what she knows! Mariah & Grady had their first outing at Starter together and unfortunately had a parting of ways in the SJ ring. She had a great lesson on Saturday and was able to school the XC course on Sunday after the show! She is making huge improvements. Maitland & Cinder were with us as non-competes and had some fun lessons in the warm up rings and were also able to go XC schooling on Sunday! Glad to have Maitland back in one piece and ready for more action! Overall it was a GREAT weekend and lots of learning took place!
Big shout out to all of my sponsors, clients, parents, students, horses, horse show staff, volunteers, trainers - everyone and anyone who has anything to do with making these wonderful weekends possible! There are a lot of moving parts and we like to run like a well oiled machine and we sure do! Great support from everyone over the weekend! Thanks Emily for all your hard work put into grooming my horses and helping organize packing, set up, unpacking, repacking, schedule making etc! I really appreciate all the hard work. Thanks to ALL of the others for helping as well, everything you do makes it all work, even as little as offering kind words to one another goes a long way! You guys mean the world to me! Can't wait for our next outing! It is so great to pull into my wonderful home base of Elysium Farms! I can't thank Tracy & Peter Kooman enough for letting me run my business from their beautiful farm!
We are busy busy busy! I head off to Kentucky on Weds morning with four horses. Emily and Raptor will be doing the P/T, Claire & Emma and Lily & Boo will be doing Novice at May Daze Horse Trials and I will be bringing Lucy to make our Prix St Georges debut at the KDA Spring Dressage Show! It will be a fun weekend! Zach will be helping drive and some of the parents will fly in to help out as well! I look forward to a fun event and dressage show at the wonderful Kentucky Horse Park.
After that we head to St. Croix Dressage Show on 5/31 and Carriage House Combined Test on 6/1. Competing in the St. Croix Dressage Show will be myself on Lucy, Emily on Raptor, Olivia on Hannah, Claire on Emma, Lily on Boo and Sammy on Stella & Mo. At Carriage House we have: me on Milo - Training me on Roxy - Novice Emily on Raptor - Prelim Sammy on Stella - Prelim Claire on Emma - Training Lily on Boo - Training Olivia on Hannah - Novice Deb on Oliver - Novice Maura on Artie - Beginner Novice Marcia on Milo - Beginner Novice Sammy on Mo - Beginner Novice Mariah on Grady - Starter Maitland on Cinder - Starter It will be a busy weekend!
Then we bring Lainey in for another educational fun weekend at the Schweiss Farm!
Later in June we have a large group heading to Fox River Valley! me on Milo - Training me on Roxy - Novice Emily on Raptor - Prelim Sammy on Stella - Prelim Claire on Emma - Novice Lily on Boo - Novice Deb on Oliver - Novice Maura on Artie - Beginner Novice Olivia on Hannah - Beginner Novice
So until I have more time after a few more exciting events to blog again - keep your heels down and eyes up! Ride on!
1 comment:
How the heck did you have time to write this? Thank you for all your help and dedication. You have done a wonderful job helping me bring Artie along! Maura
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