Onward & Upward!!

My oh my...I can't believe that time has gone by so fast that I haven't written a blog since SPRING OTTER!!!! YIKES!! Just having returned home from Fall Otter I have a bit of catching up to do! We will start off with a wheelbarrow photo...

Anyway - Otter spring ended up great!! Horses and students were fabulous! After Otter Spring we settled in and got almost all of the kids out at Carriage House Combined Test in June. Hannah won the Advanced with just one rail down. Lucy had her first Training outing with just one rail down finished in 8th. Emily had a successful outing at her first Novice on Tess with only one down. Sammy finished on her dressage score in the Beginner Novice to take 2nd place. Mia took 2nd on her dressage score in the Starter, Olivia jumped clear to finish 4th, Gabi jumped clear to finish 6th, Claire had one down and took 7th & Gabby and Cami finished their first show together with just one rail down! It was a great day for LLE! Congrats girls!

The kids and I had a lot of fun this summer! Lily also purchased her new horse - Boo Ya from Philippa Humphreys and looks forward to competing on him next season!

In June I headed off to Fox River Valley with Emma James & Lisa Borgia. Lucy's first training!!! She was fabulous! She scored a 30.9 and jumped double clear on the cross country and in the show jumping to move up to 3rd place! She was great around the cross country, the water was an easy question and she didn't even bat an eye! Maura Tierney & her horse Dylan finished 6th in their Novice division as well! It was a great weekend with great friends. I love coming to Barrington because I get to see my good friend Jordynn Sahagian and her mom Vicky!! They are always so generous! Lucy was very happy spending the night outside at Jordynn's! Love you!

July was a hot one and we headed off to Roebke's Run! Lucy was fabulous at yet another training - she won her division with clear jumping rounds with a lead of 11 points! Emily completed her first Novice ending on her dressage score, Maura jumped the ditch and took 8th place Novice, Kailey had a good outing at Novice, Sammy finished her first event ever on Cinder in BN taking 8th place, Rika and Jet also finished 8th in BN, Gabby also successfully completed hers and Cami's first show at Starter, Olivia and Taco took 5th in Starter and Claire & Ty 4th in Starter! First shows for a lot, new levels, new horses and many fun new experiences and memories! Many thanks as usual to my irreplaceable groom Maria - our last local show together for awhile :( She is off to Standford in less then a few weeks! So happy to have had her a part of my life & my team for so long! You will be missed! Thanks to all the adults too - you guys make the show and it wouldn't be the same with out you!!!

We had a little bit of a break the rest of July and focused a lot on training and skill work. We also had a lot of fun out on the Lake! I played a lot of volleyball and was able to enjoy the sun! I have also had a great time riding with Ralph throughout the summer at his various clinics!

Hannah at Ralph Clinic hosted at Jane Braddock's Farm.

Fun at Debbie's house on the lake!

Out on the lake!

Bucket of ice cream!

Birthday cake fight!

Gopher game with Mom, John & Jason.

Me & John at the game!

My grandpa, sister & Me!

More ice cream fun!

Chickens?

My first Warrior Dash!!!

Phone cover from Emily!

Rack City Volleyball Team! (L to R: Chelsea Janke, Katie Jones, Jenny Coleman, Kelly Galvin, Me & Maria Schafer)

Girls piling in the car to come watch me ride some training horses!

Learning how to wakesurf!

Catching up with my band on a road show this summer!

Summer tubing or "ubing" at Auntie Debbie's!

Vball champs!!! Go Flying Squirrels!

August brought on our busy fall season, it seems we have almost been non stop since then! The LLE Team headed to Otter Creek Summer for another great show of ups and downs. I unfortunately had a bad fall with Hannah which resulted in her retirement from the upper levels - but happy to report she is sound, healthy and LOVING her new job! Lucy was fabulous at another training & jumped right into both waters and finished in 2nd place. Sammy had an unfortunate stop to finish 7th in the JBNR division. Emily had another successful Novice finishing on her dressage score in 5th place. Claire and Ty won the Starter division with Olivia & Taco in a close 2nd! Congrats to another great weekend & a VERY fun competitor's party as usual at Otter! Thanks to everyone for all of your support & making another FUN show!!!

After Otter I returned back to Otter for their fall dressage show! Both Hannah showed 3rd Level bringing home ribbons each time - Lucy won all of her classes!

Next I headed off with both girls to Richland. I had Hannah running around Training just to give her a good run of confidence before taking on her new kid at the lower levels. She jumped great and clear in both phases. I LOVE THAT HORSE!!! Lucy was great in the dressage leading on a 24.6 and had one down in the show jumping. She was off on the cross country though and wasn't jumping well over anything. Had two stops at the first water and a dirty stop at the second water sending me off her shoulder. Another eventing weekend of ups and downs! Thank you so much to the Turnacliff twins for all of their help at the show! Abby was fabulous getting the girls ready, taking care of them, and helping me out!

Giant table!!!

Between Richland and the AEC's - Elysium Farms hosted a Ralph Hill Clinic & LLE Fundraiser. It was very successful! We had great rides over the two day clinic held in our large grass jump field and a lot of great donors came to the fundraiser! Thanks to EVERYONE who participated!

My trusty groom Maria arrived home from a month of school at Stanford and we headed out on our journey to Georgia for the 2012 AECs! You can follow our trip down with a variety of video blogs found on my facebook page - under the video section! It was a very exciting experience that brought on many changes! Lucy was naughty at the water again which resulted in my asking Lainey Ashker to take her back to Virginia with her to work on her "water problems". Thanks to the fundraising we did this was a possiblity and I have been enjoying regular updates from Lainey - including their win at Seneca Valley PCHT at the Novice level - dominating on their dressage score of a 26.5! Congrats and thanks for all of your hard work & time!!! Lucy heads off to Middleburg this weekend followed by Morven the next weekend at Training level - go Lainey & Lucy!

And now on to the most recent event - Otter Creek Fall Horse Trial!!! What a GREAT weekend - I mean I could seriously be satisfied with showing at Otter the rest of my life - the people, the facility, everything is just wonderful! It was weird not showing - one of the first shows since their first event that I haven't shown at! Maybe one or two in there over the years - but very very rare! Although having 9 kids at the show - it was nice not riding and being able to give 100% of my focus to them! They all did AMAZING too!!! In Novice Emily had a great run at Novice to finish in 7th place & Makenna Rold on Echo finished in 2nd! Beginner Novice Sammy took 2nd, Ellis Rold on Penny took 3rd, Gabi took 4th, Mia took 5th & Lily riding Hannah B took 7th! This was Lily's first ever event and Hannah's first ever Beginner Novice! Soon she will have ridden every level at Otter Creek! Olivia & Taco won the starter division with Claire & Ty close behind them in 2nd!!! I would say it was a MORE THAN SUCCESSFUL weekend for the Liz Lund Event Team!!! GO TEAM!!! You guys are awesome and I am SO PROUD of all of you!!! Thank to all of the adults for making the weekend possible - such a fun time and so many fun memories & new experiences! It is so nice to spend time with the other local trainers and see many friends. I look forward to these shows all of the time!!! Thank you of course to the Warners and all of the organizers and volunteers! Wouldn't be possible without you!!! Check out all of the photos on facebook - we had a great time at the competitor's party - fake eyelashes, colored hair spray, face paint, beads, glow sticks & dancing! Such a fun group!

Now we are on to Roebke's Run and Midsouth in KY! Two more shows & we plan to make them good ones!!! Onward & upward!

I promise more updates more often! Lucy will be showing soon too - stay tuned!

"Sometimes I’m afraid to live. Because when you live you lose, but you also win. And those times you win, make life worth living."

Ride Strong 2012 - Onward & Upward!

OCF Spring 2012 Fri/Sat

Well lets start this blog off with saying...no matter what Otter Creek has always been my favorite show. The people, the farm, the courses, everything. There is too many things to list. First of all, OCF is close to my heart because it is like a second home to me. I went to school at the University of WI - Stout in Menomonie WI and kept Hannah at OCF. I grew very close with the Warner family. It is fun to see the younger generations of OCF kids thriving off of the Warner's knowledge and generosity.

Friday was dressage day. So Hannah knows what her job is when she comes to Otter Creek...and well she definitely doesn't think that it is dressage! We scored a 48.8...the walk was virtually non-existent, and instead it consisted of half rearing, left foot stomping, jigging and head shaking from C-A in well some sort of a diagonal across the arena earning us a well deserved ummmm 2...anyway that put us in last to say the least! I can't help but laugh at that mare sometimes! She is too special for me to worry about her dressage score! As long as she is still happy, sound, fit, jumping well, and teaching me then I guess she gets away with a little bit more than the red mare!

But the red mare picked up her older sister's slack, put in a lovely test scoring a 25.5, placing her first in her final Novice! She is ready for her move up, just trying to figure out which show I'd like it to be at. The debate is between Silverwood, which unfortunately is the same weekend as a Ralph Hill Clinic, or Fox River Valley, which is the following weekend in June. I'm guessing FRV will win because I can't skip out on the opportunity to ride with Ralph! Thanks to Alison for helping warm up both the girls!

The BN kids did well in show jumping both Emily & Janelle jumped clear rounds! So proud of those girls! Both are showing new horses for the first time!

Saturday - the best day of the weekend - was amazing! This weather we have had has been amazing! Almost too hot for what we are used to though! The day started with Lucy! This whole weekend she has been a little odd in her stall, a little frantic, restless, but loves to be around people, she falls right asleep in your arms. Maria showed up in time on Saturday to help out for the day, after 2 hours of sleep after her Senior Prom! Yikes - don't know how she does it, but she does & that is why she is the best! She had all of the other kids running around with tasks helping out as well. Everyone on the LLE team is SO helpful! Lucy warmed up great, was jumping really well! She ran around the course with ease and didn't look at ANYTHING! Not even the two waters! Go Lucy! She galloped everything easily out of stride and we are excited for her big move up to Training!!! She put in a double clean round!

The Novice riders, Maura & Kailey all went later. Unfortunately Morgan's pony Ricky came up lame Sat AM with an abscess! Bummer, but she was such a good sport, stayed positive and cheered on and helped the rest of the team! Maura was having a great round till a scuffle at fence 10, the ditch. Unfortunately, EACH step back and then forward then back again counts as a refusal, so even though she got him over the ditch and the following B element, she was pulled up an Eliminated. Kailey had a GREAT round on Nokomis where she jumped everything with ease!

Hannah the Machine! She is now a "wild" horse in her young age in warm up! She shakes her head and jigs around ready to go! Jumped a few nice warm up fences and off we went! Galloping the fastest I've gone and jumping EVERYTHING out of stride! A little tight in our B element in the first water, her stride has seem to lengthen SO much over the winter - which is great! She was spot on to everything, and VERY honest to her skinnies! She loves XC! Although she had 15 time faults - I swear that was the fastest I have run her! I couldn't have gone faster! Now here's to having a good show jumping round tomorrow!!!

Then the BN kids were off to do some XC! They both had GREAT rounds. Emily jumped clean on Tess and just like she was told went nice and slow (because Tess is known to go quite fast!) and actually acquired some time faults but finished 7th overall! GREAT job! Janelle had an unfortunate stop, but other then that Cleto was very good to everything else! She finished in 10th! Congrats girls!

Photos to come later! Now that I am showered and clean - we are off to Otter's amazingly fun competitor's party and to walk the show jumping course! I'm ready for a little bit of dancing then a lot of sleep!

RIDE STRONG 2012~

Go Otter Creek!

Forward Balanced Rhythm

Foward.

Balanced.

Rhythm.

That is our goal as riders. Not only on our horses, but in life as well.

We had an AMAZING weekend in Lexington KY at the Kentucky Horse Park watching the top competitors in our sport dual it our for a chance at winning the watch at the ROLEX 4* 3 Day Event.

Thanks to The Shirley Family & Tracy Adams Kooman for allowing me this wonderful experience. The weather was absolutely wonderful. We had a great group! We also saw other friends, students and many, many fellow eventers and fans there. Nothing re-energizes you more like going and watching these amazing athletes (both horses & humans) gallop miles across the beautiful horse park, jumping fences that are as big as cars!

Someday I hope to have a crowd there watching me gallop across those beautiful rolling hills!

Shortly after returning from ROLEX we loaded up and headed south to Iowa City for Catalpa Corner Charity Spring Horse Trials. I brought Lucy to compete in the Novice A division. She was fabulous. I thought she was going to be a little hot in the dressage because all she wanted to do in the warm up was extended trot and passage...but she was perfect in the ring! Very steady. She earned a 30 to put her in 3rd place in a tough trainer division. Due to the bad weather and all of the rain, they changed the format of the show so that we would do everything in one day. We were to head right from show jumping to cross country. Next time that happens I will be sure to put on Lucy's show jumping boots first! We had two rails down in show jumping on a tough course, where many others were having rails. She was double clean on the cross country and bravely went into a tough water complex! Hopefully that means she is growing up! One more Novice then the plan is to move her up to training! She finished 3rd overall in her division. We packed up and headed home to arrive just in time for a crazy lightening and rain storm. By the time we all settled in at home we were ready for a quick warm shower and hopefully in bed by 330am! Successful weekend!

This weekend was perfectly amazing! The weather was absolutely beautiful and we crammed so many fun activities into the weekend! First it started with a great Friday night at the farm with lessons and rating prep. The kids were great helping one another out and helping each other get horses and equipment ready for the next day's Pony Club ratings. Saturday morning was an early one for them as they all worked hard to pass their ratings - which they did! Congrats! Then we all headed down the road on horse back to the Polo Fields where the Long Lake Hunt was hosting a Steeplechase! It was a BLAST! The kids had so much fun! It gave everyone, riders and horses, the confidence they needed in the spring! The weather was amazing and you couldn't have asked for a nicer crowd of people! Sunday, Mother's Day, we all went off cross country schooling at Deb Stern's beautiful farm Meadow Breeze. Again - the kids were all great! More then willing to do everything, horses became braver, kids a little more cocky and everyone left on a great note!

On a different note - Bracelets came in! $10 each - let me know if you want one! Here are the photos of them:

Also I am doing another order for clothing - just sent out an email! If you did not receive it and would like to put in an order - please contact me and I can send you the information! eventrider@lizlund.com

So now the final days count down this week until Otter Creek Spring Horse Trials! We all had a great tune up this weekend and I really am looking forward to getting Hannah out! I have gotten a lot done in preparation due to this nice spring weather and feel really prepared! Hannah is nice and fit, a little crazy, but fit! Lucy is all ready to do her best after her Catalpa warm up show. I know these weekends are going to fly by as they are packed with fun and (hopefully) nice weather! A typical XC run at Otter Creek Spring involves some sort of a down pour at some point in the day on Saturday...usually when the upper level riders are running! Hoping for sunny weather and a cool breeze!

The next weekend, Memorial Day Weekend, we are headed off to the Schweiss Farm to go Cross Country schooling! It is open to anyone - please contact me if you are interested in riding!

My game is all that and more.

"When the game is over I want to look at myself in the mirror, win or lose, and know I gave it everything I had." - Joe Montana

Keep up the hard work - RIDE STRONG 2012!

Ride Strong 2012!

Ride Strong 2012! Live Strong, Ride Stronger!

The 2012 season has officially begun! With a few clinics under my belt, I am ready for Catalpa Corner Charity Horse Trials May 5th & 6th! Looking forward to getting Lucy back in the ring, out on a cross country course & jumping around the show ring at the Novice level! Hannah's 2012 debut won't be long after Lucy's at Otter Creek Spring Horse Trials May 18-20 at the Intermediate level. Lucy will also be running another Novice at OCF.

The Spring Forward Clinic at the Leatherdale Equine Center was a success. I rode Hannah with Kate Phillips on Saturday and we worked on the Intermediate Test B that I will be riding at Otter Creek Spring. We worked on improving her walk and canter as well as those fun walk/canter canter/walk transitions that she loves so much! I really enjoyed riding with Kate and hearing her input as to test riding vs. training riding. The next day I rode Lucy with Jane Braddock in the Ride a Course. I jumped Lucy through a few courses, working on keeping a nice forward steady rhythm.

I had a nice 10 day long "vacation" at Ken and Alison's while they were out of town in France. It only added a little more driving and 7 more horses to my work schedule! It is nice to be busy! I love spending time at their farm with their horses, they are so nice and fun to ride. From green babies to school masters. The dogs of course are the best part! Tini & Cozmo!

April 14/15 was a long awaited Ralph Hill Clinic! Held at North Brook Eventing Center, Jan Fisk's farm in Stillwater. It was, as usual, amazing! Both Lucy & Hannah jumped great. The first day we did some grid work and diagonal lines. The second day we weren't able to go out on the XC so we made do with what great stuff Jan had in her indoor to set up a makeshift indoor XC course! Hogsbacks, rolltops, triple bar, fake weldon's wall, chevrons and more! We even had a start box! It was so great to see Ralph doing so well. He has such great advice for all the riders and horses. We tried a new noseband on Hannah and she responded much quicker in it. Look forward to continuing to test it out!

I also took the girls over to Kim Barone's Farm, Raven Ridge, in Watertown, MN for a jump lesson. Kim had some great tips for more ride ability between fences on both the girls. I really enjoy working with Kim - she is a hunter/jumper rider and has really helped our show jumping improve.

Here is another sign that student Sammy Kelly made for me!

So as the winter has come to an end, my new singing, tambourine playing career has begun! I make regular appearances with Chris Brooks and the Silver City Boys Band at a variety of locations. Contact me for more information on our upcoming schedule! :)

Looking ahead we are off to school cross country with Jenny Warner at Otter Creek Farm on Friday April 20th. Looking forward to our first cross country outing! The following weekend we are off to Lexington, Kentucky to attend the ROLEX 4*. So excited! Ralph Hill and Eric Dierks are leading us on a Cross Country walk on Friday! It will be a great experience! Thanks to the Shirley's and Tracy Adams for this great trip!

We are still loving our barn we moved to last fall. Tracy has been nothing but accommodating and amazing! The polo fields right down the road are a GREAT place to do gallop sets, as well as all of the trails to do trot sets on. We are within hacking distance of four different cross country courses as well! I am looking forward to the weather finally warming up and riding in the sun!

Volleyball season has officially begun. My Tuesday women's league, Rack City, won our first game of the year. The Thursday co-ed team, The Flying Squirrels also won our first game! I am subbing on another Thursday team and we lost 1-2, but it is still so fun! I have been working out with Sam Berg at SNAP Fitness in Delano three days a week too! I am signed up to run in the Warrior Dash on July 1st in Afton, MN. It is a 5k obstacle course and looks likes a blast! I am also hoping to do a rollerblading marathon in September! Lots of personal goals!

All my students are doing great as well! Have a few more clients moving into the barn in the next few months, shopping for horses, signing up for shows and having fun! Lucy and Hannah are officially entered in their first shows! April is almost over and then the show season will be underway! I will also be doing another 2012 Liz Lund Eventing clothing order - so stay tuned for details! The Liz Lund Eventing/Ride Strong 2012 Bracelets have been ordered! If interested they are $10 a bracelet - contact me!

So stay tuned for XC schooling updates & ROLEX updates - soon to come! In the meantime have fun and RIDE STRONG!