Kate Chadderton Eventing

Cross country schooling fun!

2012-01-23T10:38:00.000-08:00

Trev loves cross country!

Full steam ahead here in Aiken with the Aiken Horse Sale, first cross country school and a visit back to MD to teach all in the past week! I always find the first cross country schooling session in a while a bit intimidating, not sure why but perhaps it has something to with all the horses VERY happy to be galloping around and VERY happy not to be left in cold MD! Combined with Liberty's eclectic mix of being incredibly brave at jumping anything and being incredibly afraid of pretty well everything else, it's no wonder I put it off a day or two! All jokes aside we headed over to Full Gallop Farm with Trevor, Cole, Liberty, Maverick (Jenny), Raleigh and Chloe's own Mystica. It was Trevor's first time cross country and, as with any 3yo horse that's had only six weeks work, I wasn't sure what to expect. He was super! One would think he was an experienced campaigner! He jumped each ditch without hesitation, trotted straight into the water without a lead and negotiated the down bank in fine style! This guy is a born eventer!

I also attended the Aiken Horse Sale with two of my training level horses. I loved the concept of the sale, not an auction but a great way to show off your horses to a group of buyers all in one place. Both of my horses are top class and they'll be trailed tomorrow. We actually have a great group of sales horses at the moment to keep us busy.

I look forward to starting the eventing season next week and can't wait to see where our winter training has left us!

And so it begins!

2012-01-14T05:37:00.000-08:00

Cole's winning round.

Civil Liberty back doing what he does best!

Finally the competitions have started! We kicked the year off with the PSJ Shows Aiken Winter Classic at Highfields in Aiken. And what a great way to start with a win on Collection Pass (Rege Dvorsky and Jeanne Leone)! And Pat McCuan and my own Civil Liberty was second! This is the third year that I've used this showjumping competition to start back and it's a great indicator of where the horses are in their training and frame of mind. It's quite an intimidating ring for the event horses who aren't accustomed to that type of atmosphere and I find it very useful throughout the year that my horses know how to deal with the pressure. Also, since it's the first show back, it can get a little wild at times! Obviously my horses are ready for the cross country and get excited, while the pure jump riders aren't so excited to share the warm up with us.... And, as my horses mostly look the same, I think they think that I'm jumping 10 rounds on the same horse! Cole jumped extremely well and feels fit and really ready for the year, this was his first win at a AA rated show. Liberty has grown stronger in his hiatus and feels like an even better horse this year.

So with the beginning of the show season, we are officially on the roller coaster that is the show year for 2012! From here on in each weekend, and quite a few weeks, are now taken up with competition and clinics. And 3 weeks ago I was complaining about being bored..... After this weeks show I've headed back to MD where I'm teaching a clinic to my regular students, then it's back first thing Monday morning.

2012-01-02T14:22:00.000-08:00

After traveling down to Aiken on the 31st we're finally settled in! It was a largely uneventful trip until the last hour of our trip when I casually mentioned how smoothly the trip was going and what good time we were making. BIG mistake! Within 20 minutes the rear drivers side tyre on the trailer had blown with an explosion to rival that of a sonic boom. We limped to the nearest petrol station and begged the 6 horses to stand still while Rege did his best NASCAR pit crew impression and changed switched what was left of the tyre for the spare. By the time all was fixed, we arrived about an hour later than planned, but with all 9 horses in one piece. The only stress was whether or not my favourite Mexican restaurant would still be open.... Chloe, Jenny, Rege, Jeanne and I all saw in the New Year together before Rege and Jeanne headed back to MD.
Today was the first day of work, with all the horses schooling on the flat. After an initial minute or two, they all got down to work, picking up where we left off last week. I can't say how excited I am by the coming season. Cole's changes are getting better and better, Liberty's looking super strong, Ronnie's jumping great, Lola's feeling great (ready for her new home) and the two Irish guys are getting better and better. Ti will be down shortly. We kick off the competitive year with a show jumping competition in Aiken next week. I'll have Ron, Cole, Liberty, Trevor and Raleigh.

Woodbine, next stop Aiken!

2011-12-30T16:37:00.000-08:00

My favourite jeans are packed, Sunny's bed is packed and Digger's two favourite sticks are conveniently sitting on the backseat of the truck. So we are FINALLY ready to head south for the winter! Albeit a week late..... After such a mild winter I thought how could a few extra days hurt?! Save some money, earn some more money and sleep in my own bed a few more nights. A decision I seriously regretted the day after we were supposed to leave and it started SNOWING! So tomorrow we head off with two trailers, nine horses, six dogs (only 2 will stay) and five people. Everyone is excited, probably because we haven't had a show in about six weeks and we're all getting a bit of cabin fever. Just to give you a little insight into the life of a travelling competitive barn, this is how the morning will pan out:
Hour 1: Five people arrive at the barn and start wrapping nine horses. Same five people load nine horses onto two trailers. About three words are spoken the whole time.
Hour 2: First Red Bull and cool morning air start to take effect. Dogs sleep. Humans limit conversation to weather, 'how much further' and discussing the new Facebook.
Hour 3: Dogs sleep. No conversation since the MASSIVE Facebook argument. All humans asleep except drivers.
Hour 4: Stop for petrol. Dogs wake up, go for a run then back to sleep. Humans that were arguing switch trucks.
Hour 5: Start to see South Of The Border signs. Dogs sleep.
Hour 6: First 'are we there yet'. More South Of The Border signs.
Hour 7: Stop for more fuel and breakfast. Arguing parties make up agreeing that Facebook, in whatever form, is still pretty cool. Both of them update their statuses accordingly. Head count of horses to make sure we still have all of them.
Hour 8: South Of The Border theme park/rest area/restaurant/motel comes into view. We drive straight past. Dogs sleep.
Hour 9: Every topic expect, including Australia VS America, has been discussed. It's a tie.. Dogs sleep. 50th time someone asks 'are we there yet'.
Hour 10: Final fuel stop. Dogs wake up, then don't go back to sleep.
Hour 10 1/2: Arrive! Unload horses and settle them in for the night. About three words are spoken the whole time. Dogs run around in joy.
Hour 12: Dinner and quiet drink to ring in the NEW YEAR!

Hope everyone has a wonderful New Year where ever you may be! I'm looking forward to a big one!

Update on the new Irish guys!

2011-12-14T06:57:00.000-08:00

Ari with Tate Shaw.

Our two new Irish 3 year olds have had a busy couple of weeks, firstly travelling from Ireland to America. On one day they had their feet on the ground in three different countries, Ireland, England and America! They've now been with us for ten days and are coming along very well. Firstly we had to decide on names, Irish 1 and Irish 2 just didn't really sound personal enough.. The bigger one of the two has incredible charisma that would make him stand out in a herd of a hundred horses. He also has his own agenda and a lot of self confidence, he therefore became Ari Gold after one of my favourite TV characters. If you don't know who Ari Gold is, google 'Entourage, Ari Gold', you'll find out! The other one is super athletic and a fantastic mover that has EVENTER written all over him. Watching him trot around the field you can see every joint and muscle move and can imagine him jumping ANYTHING! And to ride he's already wanting to go on the bit better than a lot of 5 year olds! So he has become Lux Tremendous (Lux being his sire), Trevor for short. Both are green with Trevor being the more experienced of the two. Therefore Tate Shaw, local young jump jockey, has been helping out riding them. Both horses love him and he's doing a great job. Trevor will come to Wellington, FL, with me while Ari will stay in MD to get a few more rides with Tate before heading to Aiken, SC with me at the beginning of January.

Trevor's first time thru a gymnastic exercise. Tate Shaw in the saddle.

Trevor showing off his pretty face!

2011-12-06T09:39:00.000-08:00

Instead of planning and packing for my annual trip back to my home land for Christmas under the sun and blazing hot temperatures, I'm planning and packing for my annual southern migration to the warmer (albeit not blazing hot) temperatures of Florida and South Carolina. This year I'm foregoing my trip home and instead investing that money on more dressage and showjumping training. My regular readers will know that back in May/June I drastically cut back on my teaching in order to focus more on my own training. By going to Wellington before Aiken I get in 10 days of focused, intensive training. This is something I do for myself but also greatly benefits group of students. I always do better when I'm in an intensive environment surrounded by other top level riders. So Cole, Liberty, Ari, Trevor, Ron and I will hit 95 south just as soon as I've eaten my Christmas dinner!
This is my second favourite time of the year: it's a time to reflect on the good, the bad and the unexpected from the year past and plan for the upcoming one. My favourite part is starting the new competition year! I plan on writing another blog to analyse this past year, so I won't go into that here. But I would really like to use this one to thank my supporters and team publicly. Each person, whether they take one lesson a month or own a few of my horses, plays a huge part in keeping this ship afloat!
Amy Gaynor: my manager. Thank you for being the organiser and glue that holds everything together. I'm excited for what you and Cindy will be able to do this spring.
Heather Pettit: our barn manager. Thank you for taking such great care of the horses and being so attentive and observant.
Kaden Weaver: Working student. Thank you for keeping everything running efficiently and getting on all the horses that buck!
Deborah Shuman: Thank you for keeping the financial wheels turning!
Hannah Firth: Working student. Thank you for keeping Kaden under control and laughing at my very funny jokes.
John Loosaririan: Working student. Thank you for your kindness to the horses.
Paula Bollinger: Sunset Hill manager. Thank you for keeping the McCuan horses organised and keeping the farm so well run.
Taylormade Stables: My teaching barn. Thank you to Robert and Kathy for taking care of and supporting our endeavours.
Sunset Hill Farms: My base for my horses: Thank you to the McCuan Family for providing such a lovely facility to train out of.
Rege Dvorksy and Jeanne Leone: owners of my best friend Cole!
Carla MacLeod: Lola's owner.
Pat and Jill McCuan: owners of the McCuan horses, most notably Mario and Liberty.
Amy and Alan Taggart: owners of Ti, Cowboy and Cindara.
Beth Sokohl: owner of Charmer (temporary ride) and at the top end of my favourite student list!
Thanks to my students and other supporters that make my job such a pleasurable one, and that help me get closer to my goals.
Thanks to the organisers and volunteers that enable me to compete week in, week out and provide the base of an industry I earn a living from.
Most of all tho, thank you very very much to the horses that give so willingly and generously each and every day. I may be the trainer, but you are the ultimate teachers and team mates.

2011-11-17T16:20:00.000-08:00

I normally avoid clipping horses at all costs. For me it's in my top 3 most hated jobs, unpacking the trailer after winter being number one. Although I'm very competent (having clipped a lot of horses as a working student) I usually say that I don't know how to, that in Australia our horses don't grow winter coats and we don't even have clippers. This is a lie but again, in my top 3 hated jobs! Unfortunately for me tho one of my best horses is a little bit special in some ways (as all the good ones are!). He has tonnes of ability and along with that comes tonnes of attitude. He has an amazing extended trot, he bucks. He has a super jump, he bucks. He can score a 26 in the dressage without even trying, he also bucks! The attitude also comes out in the barn, most notably this summer by doing his level best to kill both himself and his handler. Both of them ended up in hospital! The horse required surgery and a long break. The handler with a concussion and almost severed finger! And what terrible, cruel, unusual punishment was she attempting on him at the time of the accident?! That's right, clipping him!!! So now heading into winter almost all of my horses have been clipped except this one. His coat has now grown to embarrassing lengths and the job of clipping has become unavoidable. So, given his last display, it's up to me to clip him myself. Put my body on the line. I have to say this horse and I have a very good relationship, he's one of my best friends (weird, yes). So to begin I enlisted the help of Uncle Sedative, just to take the edge off. And by edge I mean put the horse very much into a dreamlike state that he wouldn't even notice if we had another earthquake! I also had the kind and helpful assistance of Rachel Best to stand at his head and warn me if he so much as opened his eyes! Her assistance was involuntary, I just said can you hold this horse for 5 minutes.... So with extra sedative and Rachel in place, I set to work REALLY fast. It was going really well until I got to his stomach and I noticed a swish of his tail. I looked at his head and he seemed fine, his nose was fairly close to the ground. I went back to work thinking I'd imagined his tail swishing. I then got to his back legs and the tail swished again! This time the Rachel Alarm System went off alerting me to the fact that his head was way up in the air and he was very much awake! So a little more sedative and we were back on track. This time I got half way up his neck before the tail started swishing again. I tried to push on but visions of severed fingers and horse hospitals held me back a bit! So I gave him a pat (to tell him I love his fighting spirit) and put him away for the evening. Now I have a 2/3rds clipped horse and round two in the clipping ring facing me tomorrow..... Lucky he can jump!

2011-11-14T17:38:00.001-08:00

Ronnie and I taking in the sights of Autumn.

Autumn for me is a two week period to catch up on everything that I have been putting off all year (eg my record keeping..) and to plan for winter. As winter approaches my barn grows from 20 horses in MD to 20 horses in MD AND 15 plus horses in SC. To SC I not only take the horses but obviously a couple of people (this year John and Chloe) plus a few dogs and a whole barn full of winter needs for horse and rider. And this year with my focus shifting from teaching back to my personal riding goals and sales, there are ever more horses to pack for! There's also the last couple of horses to sell that aren't moving south, Titanium and Raleigh this year. Add to this the preparations for the Irish horses and we keeping pretty busy!

This week I also upgraded my trusty old 4 horse trailer for a 6 horse one which should reduce the trips up and down highway 95 from 4 each way to 3 thereby saving about $2000 in diesel. So there is that to be washed and prepared for the winter also. Last but not least there's my wardrobe to consider. I need to make sure I have fleece lined breeches in the lastest colours!

2011-11-06T14:17:00.000-08:00

Jeanne, myself and Lillian. Not a great shot, but the only one we took on the whole trip!
Cole's year ended well with VA Horse Trials with a top ten finish in the intemediate. I was super happy with his showjumping: of the 35 horses who started, 2 showjumped clear and 4 had one rail down each. Our hard work and experience in the showjumping (it pays to go to a couple of indoor shows) paid off with just one rail down. 10 horses alone had 5 or more rails! So Cole now gets a short break then back into to get ready for winter. He just has a couple more boxes to check (changes!) before his first advanced mid Feb. Lightning had a great test with a 29! Not bad for his second event! Unfortunately he wasn't so keen on the cross country, he just didn't understand why he had to gallop AWAY from the safety of the trailers and the other horses! Ronnie did a combined test, I thought it would be better to wait until there wasn't snow on the ground to do his first training!
Then on to Ireland for a spot of horse shopping. It was my first time there and I'm well and truly impressed with the quality of horses! Jeanne Leone (Cole's co owner, with Rege Dvorsky) came to keep me company and make sure I didn't get carried away with eating sausage rolls! I did eat 6 within the first hour but I digress... We saw some super horses, didn't crash the hire car (I was thankful to be driving on the correct side of the road again, I'm much faster!) and got to see the famous Coolmore stud in the flesh. And now the wait begins as we prepare for the new arrivals at the beginning of December! We were also able to catch up with Lillian Heard (while trialing the wonderful Fernhill horses) and see how she's settled into Irish life. Apparently quite well judging by her new found driving skills and new lilt in her accent! From Potomac to Kilkenny via West Grove, she's gathering some awesome experiences and skills. Back on the home front I want to share this message (Rege's personal blog!) from Cole's owner, Rege. Cole is one of my best horses and I was well assured he was in good hands! I'm also glad to see that the eventing terminology is entering Rege's vocabulary! Hope you enjoy as much as I did:

Rege's Blog
Well, Cole is missing his rider,Kate, while she is in Ireland looking for his replacement.Today was my first ride on Cole, being Kate has left. I immediately noticed Cole hard on the bit with little flexion on his left side.On the flats, he needed some coaxing on the counter-canter and I found it tough to get him on the proper lead.I was hoping to have my helmet cam for this historic ride, but I left it in Jeanne's Jeep and did not have the keys to open the door.Oh, to be back in Pittsburgh.Back to the ride. Cole did well over a sequence of skinny's and corner jumps. But I was surprised to be launched in the air as he bucked me off before the liverpool !!!All this said, I believe I can make him the horse he can be. I will put him on a series of neutracueticals until Kate returns.Conclusion: Cole is like an old woman with a Virginia ham under her arm crying that she has no bread!!!He has the heart, but needs the Chadderton back in his life.The grass is always greener on the other side, NOT....he's allready here.

VA Horse Trials Day 1

2011-10-28T19:38:00.000-07:00

You know it's going to be a rough day when then first item on the agenda is a riders meeting to determine wheter or not to move the cross country forward a day because of the impending snow! My vote obviously was a very definate YES! Let's not cross country in the snow please! Cole's dressage was a 39, not the best, not the worst. The cross country was challenging enough, not so much with the jumping efforts, but with the time. I wasn't able to get going in the first part of the course, however the second half rode a lot better and faster. I was happy that Cole jumped confidently into the water. After a 3am start and a non stop morning/afternoon (literally) I thought it would be beneficial for the younger guys to go in the showjumping competition in the Coluseum. This contest is (from what I could understand) based on Take Your Own Line rules with style points thrown in. So in preparation I put on my best (only) Kingsland jacket and headed to the Coleseum! Let me just point out that this structure is a little bit disappointingly named, there AREN'T any lions or gladiators. Ron and Lightning didn't actually get that memo, (I think Ronnie thought he saw a lion, lightning definitely thought he was a gladiator) so it was good to get them in there jumping around before they actually have to compete. Tomorrow is dressage for Ron, Lightning and sj for Lightning, xc for Ron. Cole has the day off before he has to sj on Sunday. . I'm hoping to wake up tomorrow to clear skies and 70 degrees. Judging by the falling snow outside the windows of my Days Inn hotel I don't like my chances....

Liberty is back!

2011-10-26T07:34:00.000-07:00

Liberty. Le Cheval photo.

As you recall Liberty was injured (self inflicted after he picked a fight with the clippers, blades: 1, horseflesh 0) a couple of days before Bromont. Not one to do things by halves, he then proceeded to get sick and required a trip to the vet hospital. This part all happened while I was at Bromont with Cole. I was only gone for 6 days but when I left he was a happy, healthy (albiet with a limp), fit horse that was 3 day ready and rearing to go. I got back and he'd been so sick that he was almost unrecognisable. Even tho he'd had the best care imaginable, he's a bit of a worry wart when he doesn't know what's going on and the antibiotics he was prescribed where a bit strong for his stomach. He then proceeded to colic at which point I decided it was best if I stay with him in the barn for a couple of nights. Anyone who knows me knows that this is a HUGE deal because I'm afraid of the dark (only thing other than snakes and odd numbers that I'm afraid of) AND we have a couple of ghosts in the barn. At least that's what I'm told and the power of suggestion can be quite real, ask any psychologist.... Also a HUGE deal for Liberty because he has read 'Stranger Danger' and takes the idea VERY seriously! Or at least at that point he did. Therefore a stranger (me, even tho he's seen me everyday since we bought him) sleeping outside of his stall wasn't his idea of a relaxing night in full of colicing and other strategies to cost us more money or send himself to an early grave. He got over that then his original leg injury become complicated which set us back a bit further. All very frustrating for a horse we had just bought and I'd only had to chance to compete half a dozen times! And each time he showed me that he's an absolute superstar in the making. By the time he was over the complication to his leg it was still only a couple of weeks since his injury. So I had a horse that was stall bound dying to get out (almost literally), a bit highly strung and still basically 3 day fit! And our good friend Dr Williams tells me I have to hand walk him! Not a hope I'd be able to hang onto him without him leaping free of the constraining shackles (aka lead rope) that I'd insisted he wear (again, just a lead rope). I had a better chance of staying on his back. 8 weeks of walking with Liberty takes you thru many phases: Denial - I'm NOT injured, I WON'T walk. Only bucking. Anger - I'm injured, but I STILL WON'T walk. Only bucking. Bargaining - If you let me trot I'll stop bucking. Depression -If I'm only allowed walk, then what's the point bucking? O, that's right, it's fun! Acceptance -I must only be allowed walk for the rest of my life, but at least I can still buck!! I have to point out that the bucking wasn't a pain or anger type thing, more of an entertainment ploy for (for Liberty not me!). Some days he would come out bucking, others he'd leave it till he heard something distracting outside of the ring, other times he'd go for days on end without bucking leading me into a false sense of security. Then when I'd finally think it was safe to answer my phone while on him, the bucks would return! After a few weeks of trotting he was allowed to start cantering again.

ANYHOW, long story short. Yesterday was Liberty's first full day of serious work (where he's considered to be a competition horse again) and today he will do a little jumping. Very exciting for me to be able to pick up where we left of in June again. I absolutley love this horse and am very excited about the winter season on him. Speaking of winter, I have several very nice horses that MUST be sold by the end of November, email me for more info.

Good bye and good luck Mario

2011-10-18T19:39:00.000-07:00

This post comes, not with sadness, but with the bittersweet feeling of losing something that was not quite mine in the first place. Everyone who follows my blog knows that recently I've branched off into the showjumping world in my spare time with a wonderful horse, McCuan Mario. Although I'm an experienced eventer, he has been my first grand prix showjumper, something I never thought I'd achieve, nor did I set out to do so. With every horse I'm lucky enough to ride and compete I'm always well aware that they ARE NOT MY HORSE! My job is to sell horses and I've sold more than I could recall. Therefore I am prepared at any time to lose one of my close partners, sometimes because they don't make the grade, sometimes because the owner has changed directions in their personal life. But after a certain time with a horse I do admit to developing a closeness that is hard to lose. Mario is obviously a super talented jumper and it's become time for him to persue that career. So he's off to a new owner to continue along that path. Pat and Jill McCuan are wonderful supporters of my career and goals, it was thru close communication and a mutual decision (and my absolute blessing) that we decided to let him go in his direction and I continue mine. The difficult thing for me is that I have only a handful of close friends, equine or human, and I've considered this horse one of my best friends. I've spoken openly about a select few horses that guide and support every rider and for me Mario is one of the most special horses I'll ever come across. He failed as an eventer and I've spent hours hitting my head against a wall (explains a lot of things, I know!) trying to make him into something he's not. Then with the guidance of Marilyn Little-Meredith and her husband Ben (he's also an Aussie!), we found his calling in life. Along the way he has given me some great owners, a super farm to be based at (along with Taylormade of course), improved my jumping skills, some wonderful new friends. And the benefits run down the line: Heather, my barn manager, has many horses now under her care. John, working student, is flat out. Kaden, now back in Australia but a very integral part of the group, had a job in a big active barn. Paula Bollinger (Sunset Hill Manager for the McCuan family) was responsible for choosing me as his rider and has been an integral part of his career. I know Mario can't be credited with all of this, I do have other wonderful horses and owners! But he's certainly been a special partner and his influence will be seen for many years to come. Always there's the 'what-ifs': yes I'd thought about pursuing the showjumping further to see what we could do. Instead I have to think about the 'have dones'! Thank you Pat and Jill, you gave me a great gift with your horse and I hope to repay your faith with Liberty and Ronnie!

Thank you Mario. Good luck. I'll miss you. So will your best buddy Cole.

Interesting Mario facts: Imported from Ireland by Jan Byyny. Lillian Heard's mum was also involved with him. Hans Gerling (P and J McCuan) bought him and campaigned him until he went back to uni. Kelley Williams (A Bit Better Farm) also has been a part of his career, riding him until I moved to Sunset. I'll leave you with my favourite video of us, our first Grand Prix where I fell off at the last jump! Of course I hung onto his neck until we crossed the finish line so we still got a ribbon!

First time helmet cam!

2011-10-08T16:56:00.000-07:00

Loch Moy Horse Trials today and tomorrow. Today Pam Patton brought along her helmet cam for me to try out on Cole. I can't say I've been a fan of the old helmet cam, that is until today!! What a great way for everyone to see what it's like! I know everyone else has already figured that one out! Check it out and let me know what you think. It didn't fit well with the helmet I used and my helmet kept slipping over my eyes, hence the great views of horse neck! Click on the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05HQOgWfNzk

2011-10-03T13:01:00.000-07:00

One big happy family!! Kaden centre back.

Kaden's first winter here was pretty hard work....!

My year began so grandly is coming to an anticlimatic close! A poorly timed allergy means Cole won't go to Fair Hill as he missed a couple of gallops and Morven which means his fitness is not where I want it to be. A bit of a bugger but in the scheme of things it's not life changing. He already has his qualifier from Bromont and we can finish the year with a few more intermediates. This weekend at Loch Moy I have Cole, Ronnie (Pat and Jill McCuan) and Lightning (Julie Scott) so I'll be busy enough. A couple of my students had successful weekends at Morven in the pouring rain; Gibby Booth and Laney 4th. Alex MacLeod and Jim were 3rd in the intermediate after taking it easy xc. She broke her jaw in multiple places only a few weeks ago so it was a good test as to whether or not she's fit enough to head to Fair Hill next week.

This week also saw the end of an era with my favourite working student, Kaden Weaver, heading back to the motherland, Australia. Almost with me in tow, such is the homesickness I often feel particularly for the Australian foods and scenery.. But I digress! After 2 years working with me here he takes back an American wealth of knowledge, experience and great stories! He leaves behind some good friends and great stories that we'll be telling for years to come! For example: the day he went to the feed store and came back with a ferral, all devouring ferret! Or the time I was followed home from dinner by an unwanted suitor and Kaden got out of the car at the first stop sign and told him kindly to go in the opposite direction. And kindly I mean there was a large amount of shouting and the odd fist thrown! Kaden also was the first to put his hand up to get on any horse the was giving anyone trouble. He had the odd nap in the aisle. He was Diggers best friend. He always had everyones best interests at heart. He was the best customer in our vending machines! The hunt will miss him, all of my students will miss him and of course I already do. I had to bed the stalls this morning myself....! Thank you Kaden for everything you have done!!! You left the barn a better place than you found it!

Columbia Classic

2011-09-26T06:31:00.000-07:00

Mario and I at the Columbia Classic. Photo courtesy of my wonderful, super duper, all round greatest groom/help/wonder Jenny Barnhard.

I love eventing with all of my heart but, if I were a man (one of those high profile Wallstreet types) and I had a mistress, it would be showjumping! This weekend I rode McCuan Mario in the Columbia Classic in MD. Patrick and Jill McCuan are fantastic owners and wonderful supporters of my riding and I was excited to show their wonderful horse off to a home town crowd. After torrential rain the day before, that had several high profile riders scratching their horses and the others losing sleep over the footing, the sun came out for 6 minutes and provided us with at least usable footing. These guys would dread to jump in eventing, I swear the mud wasn't that deep.... The reason I stopped eventing Mario (other than his amazing jumping talent) is that he doesn't particularly like when he's not certain of where his feet will be when he puts them down. We ended up mid field, which I'm a little disappointed with (I enjoy winning money!), however they were many more seasoned horses that didn't even make it around. He is the most wonderful horse and we've had some great results together at grand prix level some I'm excited to see where we go from here.

Thank you so much to everyone that came out to support us! I loved that we could show you what we're doing in my 'other' life! And I saw the carefully made signs with our names and that made my day! That's a vision that'll stay in my mind for a long long time. I feel very lucky and proud to have the support that I do on so many levels.

On the eventing front I'm heading to Morven Park this weekend as our last preparation for Fair Hill in two and a half weeks. Tomorrow I'm jumping with Phillip, I just hope it goes better than my horrible dream last night where I lost Cole at a show only to end up seeing him being taken away on the True Prospect trailer!

Upper Marlboro eventing: old school!

2011-09-22T12:23:00.000-07:00

Cole and I at Plantation. Courtesy Tracy McKenna.

I must preface this with a huge thank you to the organisers and voulunteers who run this event, they did a great job. Eventing at Marlborough on the weekend made me feel as tho I was back in Australia! That is except for the fact that the ground was NOT as hard as a rock.... The similarity was that it was a contest of survival of the fittest! It definatley wasn't a dressage competition, some people didn't even make it thru that phase.. On to the showjumping, again claiming multiple riders, a number of whom simply went the wrong way after fence 2. Then the cross country where it was all happening! From the xc warmup and start box all I could hear was 'rider fall at 10', 'refusal at the water', 'runout at the corner', 'stop at fence 3'. Fortunatly for me the worse the course rides, the better I do. Doubly fortunately I was sitting on Cole and riding down a grade. So for us there were no problems of course and he won even with a few time faults. Out of 28 starters, there were only 11 clears and no one made time. I was really happy with how he felt in the dressage and he scored well. Next up for him is Morven Park then onto Fair Hill. Cole's dressage has improved a lot in the last few months to the point where he's now quite ridable in the test and I feel more confident of scoring on him.
With Mario I'm heading to the HCCC Grand Prix in Columbia, MD. This is the biggest grand prix in the state and conveniently located just down the road from my barn. And after jumping him in a lesson today at Raylyn Farms I'm feeling pretty good about how he's going so hopefully we can put up a good show for the one hundred million people who have said they're coming to watch! And to those one hundred million people: please DONT wear the shirts festooned with Mario's name! I'm starting to feel a bit more at home in the showjumping ring now rather than just an eventer getting lucky galloping into some big jumps. Check back on Sunday for a update.

2011-09-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

Danny, the love of my life!!! Perhaps I shouldn't use this intro when I meet guys, in hindsight it may be slightly off putting.....

This week I've a lot to tell you about how which horse is going, where they've been and where they're going. But I won't! I want to tell you about my favourite horse ever, Danny! I had a message from Australia today from the rider who bought him when I moved to the US and that got me thinking. Every rider has a horse that made them. By that I mean a horse that gave them experience, confidence, knowledge and exposure. I first saw Danny when I was 15 years old at Pony Club. I was a hot shot (I thought!) instructor when this lady (Toni Cormie, later became a family friend and long term fan) brought this HUGE chestnut gelding to a lesson. She explained to me that he was freshly broken and experienced in trail riding. And that that experience was limited to the 1 hour she had just ridden him thru the bush to get to the PC grounds. He was 4 years old. I said 'Great! Let's teach him to jump!'. Let me explain at this point that pony club in country Australia is NOTHING like pony club here in the US! For starters here you have matching jumping rails and you teach dressage. Neither of the two were considered to be necessary at Woodford Pony Club! Your horse either had to be a camp drafter (google it if you don't know what it is. It involves cows) or a show jumper. Danny was afraid of cows so I picked the alternative. And boy am I glad I did! I skipped the trotting poles, because I hadn't yet figured out how to measure feet, and went straight to the cross rails. He took to it like a duck to water! Pretty quickly we had him jumping around a small course like he'd been doing it for years. Of course I thought I was pretty special teaching him this in such a short space of time, it wasn't until many years later that I realised he was the special one... Not long after this jumping lesson Toni came to me with the generous offer of a lease (I had no money, zilch, zippo, nada) at which I jumped at the chance. Little did I know where this wonderful horse would take me. We ended up in NSW where I got a job with this tall skinny guy called Boyd Martin (I think he went on later to do quite well in the eventing world....!) at Heath Ryan's place. Heath, as I've described before, was a childhood hero of mine (still is). It was Danny who gave me the ride to get in there. Whilst there he took me from prenovice (training level) to three star and competing in two world championship selection trials and one Olympic selection trail. My entire base of my profession is based on that horse. He taught me how to jump a ditch (gallop!), how to do dressage (keep as still as you can), how to jump the biggest ditch/brush in the world, located at Goulburn (gallop and close your eyes), how to steeplechase (gallop really fast, close your eyes and hold the mane). He also taught me horse management, ie if you do steeplechase really fast with your eyes closed holding onto the mane, you risk injury to your horse! Thru that injury I began my education on lameness diagnosis and rehabilitation and returning to the top level. Both topics I've learnt a LOT about since. Dan also gave me the basics fitness training of the event horse. He allowed me to make mistakes and get away with them. Then he taught me how to learn from them. Together we learnt more dressage than eventing calls for. As well as being an advanced eventer he also was advanced (4th level) dressage, as well as having a crack at prix st george. Together we learnt canter pirouettes, tempi changes. He was spot on every time at all his tempis including one time changes. Not bad for an eventer! When I left Australia he went to a wonderful Young Rider who continued to compete him. He's currently 19 and still going strong.. He also was a member of the Indian eventing team, ridden by a rider who told me his job back home was to KILL anyone who crossed the border! He was also a close confidant of the prince. You can bet I didn't offer him any riding advice!

I forgot to mention that Dan was as horse shy as a horse could get, bucked like a bronco and I fell off him WAY more times than I care to admit! I kept a monkey grip (bucking strap) on my dressage saddle for him. When someone commented on how it must be for young horses that I rode, I'd just smile and agree.....!
Anyhow, that's the horse that started me into this wonderful, enviable career!

Bluey, the second best horse in the world!! My first pony, she was so naughty (with her tendancy to bolt) I wasn't allowed off the lunge for the first year.....

An earthquake, a hurricane and a tornado.

2011-08-27T15:03:00.000-07:00

Either Voldemort is angry because Harry destroyed another Horcrux or this is what an approaching hurricane looks like.....

Each week is pretty well flat out here but this week there was even more going on than normal in the way of natural and unnatural phenomena! First the tornado, aka Heath Ryan. Being the highest level rider in my immediate area has it's obvious advantages, however one of the disadvantages is that it's quite lonely when it comes to bouncing riding ideas around. I've made no secret of the fact that my dressage skills have been on a confusing downturn since moving here which has been very frustrating. So I jumped at the chance to ride with my old trainer, Heath, at Phillip Duttons farm last week, then again for two days at my farm in MD. And worth the wait it was! In Australia I didn't remember any horse NOT being able to do dressage! Suddenly all mine can again, to my HUGE relief. I had been getting a little too clever with 'managing' my horses in front to create a frame, rather than riding them from behind. Heath soon fixed that with a series of encouraging (for want of a better word) terms and expressions! It felt so great to be back in the system I grew up in and rode under for such a long time.

Mother nature was also obviously VERY excited with my breakthrough providing us with an earthquake! So I'm sorry to all those who suffered damage, it was my fault... And now, just a couple of days later, I'm sitting here watching a hurricane build up and throw things around my house! My active imagination is has concluded there isn't one Mother Nature, rather a few, and right now they're in the equivalent of a WWF bout playing tag team wrestling!

On the competition front I kept my horses at home this weekend with only Alex MacLeod on Jimmy competing at Loudoun Horse Trials. She made worthwhile my trip to train her by winning the open prelim in fine style. In fact she showed her true Australian training by being the only person to finish clear and winning by 65 points!!!

Jumperland or Hollywood?

2011-08-22T10:38:00.000-07:00

I did get a bit confused myself yesterday at Culpeper when I found myself sitting in the bleachers next to Robert Duvall! I was there with Mc Cuan Mario (Pat and Jill Mc Cuan) in the grand prix and was waiting for the course to be set. Feeling a bit weary after a whole morning watching hunters and counting Ralph Lauren shirts (I can't count beyond 99 so stopped at that point), I took a seat on the bleachers to renew my conserves of energy. The guy I sat next to did look a bit familiar, I thought he might be a farrier I'd met somewhere or a groom. Then, as there was a storm coming, I was going to ask if he could check the weather on his phone (I'd lost mine) when I started having flashbacks to The Godfather! So in my confusion I figured out it was better to look at the sky instead and figure it out myself! So after a quick 'hi' I went back to studying the course. Mario and I have done a few grand prixs now and I've gotten over the fear of the size of the fences and now can make much more technical plans and ride a lot better lines. The bigger they are, the better he jumps which is pretty handy. The line I was most worried about was the last one. It was a liverpool oxer (which looks the size of the Great Wall of China), 5 short strides to a vertical (tallest on the course, maybe the whole world), one stride to an oxer (easily big enough to double as a garage if you put a tarp over it), one stride to another vertical. The liverpool really encourages you to gallop at it, the danger however is that you land a bit strung out and struggle to get the 5 strides in. Then finishing with the triple is always and bit tricky with the horse being tired (there were 16 jumping efforts). To make it even more challenging it was lined up directly in front of the out gate! Anyway, everything went to plan, ESPECIALLY the last line, and we jumped around clear to finish in 6th place. At the beginning of this year I wouldn't have thought I'd be jumping around Grand Prixs, let alone clear! But then that's one of lifes delights, not knowing what's around the corner! I swear the eventing is in the forefront of my mind and am very much looking forward to Seneca with Cole and Ti. That IS after another jumper show tho......

This week I'm hosting a clinic with my old trainer (and guy I most look up to in the world!), Heath Ryan. I actually went up to Phillip Duttons last week and rode with him there too. He will be at my place on Tuesday and Wednesday teaching my students and I. I look forward to updating you on how it went. Then it's back to Culpeper for some more showjumping!

Mario is not in the least bit impressed by the hunter jumps... They're too small AND rustic looking....

Leesa Miles

2011-08-19T19:37:00.000-07:00

See the trademark smile?! Loved by many, never to be seen again.

It seems as tho I've had some pretty sad blogs this year amongst all the wonderful goings on in the barn. This one will be no different unfortunately. But no matter how bad it gets (floods, fires, family deaths and sicknesses in my own and friends, lost horses etc) the prevailing lesson is: when the going gets tougher, the tough gets going. That and the horse community pulling together. Some people are in your life for a short period, others long but everyone is there for a reason. Leesa Miles presence in everyones life was to somehow better it and support one in only the way a mother/sister/aunt could. And she played that roll to so many people, whether she was giving someone a thoughtful card at their first 3 star or teaching the Korean team how to keep their horses on the bit (VERY difficult!) or to just listen to a youngster who just realised being a working student isn't all cheese and crackers. It's mostly full of crackers... Not that she was all nice and friendly, goodness help you if you didn't take care of your horse! I've never had such a bollocking then when I didn't wash my horse off properly one day, I learnt that day to wash ALL the sweat off! That is, until the water runs clear! There may have been the odd cuss word.... Don't ask who's side from tho! Cancer took Leesa too early from all of her dear friends, as they say 'heaven needed another angel'. Back to the 'tough get going' bit. Please allow me to introduce Paul Pudner. There are two things you need to know about Paul: should you ever need advice on the quality and properties of wine, he's your man. The other is that if you need a guy in your corner, he's there. I know this because I lived with him in semi third world conditions aka The Bunkhouse! Those who knew the bunkhouse would know what I mean.. Anyhow I digress, cancer is one of those things that anyone except science can help with. Paul couldn't save Leesa alone however he's doing everything in his power to ensure as few people as possible feel the heartache and devastation of the loss of a loved one to cancer. I'll let you read his story in the link below. Please please please take the time to do that and pass my blog and link onto anyone you think would be interested in his cause. Imagine being ONE person starting out with an idea. Just run to raise money. I'm a fairly brave person when it comes to backing myself with ambitious ideas but I couldn't imagine doing this. Not to mention all the RUNNING! Read his story. Tell your friends. Oh, that it's a great chance to check out a hot guy in running gear. AND for all the non Australians, he has an accent..

https://www.gofundraise.com.au/page/PaulPudner

Congratulations Julie Scott!

2011-08-10T19:35:00.000-07:00

Julie and Lightning testing the waters at their first ever show together..

Congratulations to Julie with the purchase of her wonderful new gelding, Lightning!! I purchased and started Lightning from the track and look forward to continuing to work with him and Julie. He is a beautiful chestnut gelding with all the athletisism of a gazelle leaping thru the grasslands of Kenya! AND the wisdom and thoughtfulness of an owl planning his dinner!

I love my sport

2011-08-07T16:22:00.000-07:00

I love horses that stand for ridiculous photos. This was back in Australia. photo bellaphotoart.

I also love that I can earn a living from my passion. That is eventing, not watching episodes of Entourage and the Simpsons! Although if I thought it were financially viable I would..... I'm home from a weekend competing at Millbrook with Ti, Charmer and Cole. Ti continues his successful run with another ribbon and Charmer felt great, for the most part, around her first xc in quite a few months. Both are classy horses and I'm super happy to be riding them. I was very disappointed with my ride on Cole to the water jump, I got caught pulling when I should have been kicking. This horse is generally super reliable cross country and I was caught a little off guard at the water jump. It comes up quite quickly off a blind turn and I think a combination of me still trying to balance him, the crowd and seeing the water made him rethink his honest nature.. In the past I would have had a bit of a tantrum and it would have ruined my next week, but in light of some of the horrible things that have happened to my friends recently, it's not the last chance I have with him and we sure as hell won't repeat that mistake... Anyway, I digress! What I love about my sport is the home away from home atmosphere, and the friendly rivalry between mates of all levels. I spend a third of my life at one show or another and it doesn't matter where we are, it's still the same. The same friendly faces, the same happy horses and the same crazy dogs running around with their owners (predominantly riders) swearing that that particular dog doesn't belong to them and that theirs is DEFINITELY on a leash...... I love the commentary on cross country, whoever happens to be doing it that weekend. It has such a relaxing feeling that I'm contemplating taping the xc commentary at Waredaca this weekend to use as a sleeping aid should I become an insomniac! I love that if you get bogged there's always a tractor to pull you out. I love dodgy hotels I have to sneak my dog into. I love the new pinney system. I love being able to confidently converse with the truckers at the petrol station about the power in my truck engine. I love the joy on my owners faces when they see their horses do well. I by far and above all, tho, love the horses. Week in and week out they try their best to do the job I give them. They rarely complain, they are brave and look after their riders. At the end of the day they are a riders best friend and the only one who can really understand just how LOOONG that long spot was and how they got their rider out of trouble!

I also love the Smoothie Lady, but that's a different story altogether....

Saugreties update

2011-07-31T18:48:00.000-07:00

After a midnight dash to get back home last night and a full day of teaching and riding today, I can finally give you my Saugreties update! Firstly to Cole, he was a bit of a superstar by jumping a double clear on Friday and picking himself up a HITS on The Hudson ribbon to add to his fairly extensive collection. As I mentioned, it was his first time back in the ring since Bromont and it was a super experience before we head to Millbrook Eventing this weekend. He was careful and jumped a pretty good round. As an eventer it's invaluable experience to be able to get in big rings and jump around. We really only see them when it comes to CIC's or CCI's. Not to mention the courses are a heck of a lot more technical.
Mario was super as always. The ring at Saugreties is huge and it's only the second time he's been in one that big. For him that's a challenge at the moment as it gives him a bit too much of a chance to look around. I had a disappointing rail on Friday that he barely touched and on Saturday he jumped a super round, spoilt only by his first experience with an open water. He remembered back to his eventing days and calmly popped in and bounced out! The amazing thing about that is that when he was eventing I could NEVER get him to calmly jump into water! He's a super jumper and I'm pretty lucky to be along for the ride.
I may have spent too much time in the sun or my glass of wine is potent but I have to say that I really do feel lucky to ride all the horses I do and have the students I have.
Culpepper is Grand Prix is next for Mario and in the mean time I'm taking Ti, Charmer and Cole to Millbrook.

2011-07-28T21:01:00.000-07:00

Mario, Cole and I getting ready to leave. It's impossible to get all three of us to look at the camera at the same time...

Now that the so called 'deadly heat wave', all two days of it, has finished it's the perfect time to get back into full steam ahead again! Today after a full day of teaching and riding (we start early) I headed to Saugreties in New York where I'll spend the next two days competing Mario and Cole. It's a 7/8 hour drive but from what I've heard it's one of the best jumping shows around making it worth the effort. For Mario obviously this is now his career. I'm not doing the grand prix on him tomorrow, not because he's not jumping well (he is, he's jumping out of his skin!), but because I want to consolidate what we've been working on in the 1.40m. And from the research I've done the course designers ask some pretty complicated questions here. We'll be back at the grand prix in Culpepper in two weeks so it's only a brief respite from having to jump that big! I'm also being very careful about using his legs wisely and not just jumping him for the sake of it.

Cole is here to do the 1.20m. For him these shows are all about getting exposure in a high atmosphere ring, something very difficult to get in the eventing until you get to a CCI. After Bromont two star he had some time off (as it was a CCI and he had been competing since January) and I've only jumped him a couple of times since he's been back in work. I have to digress here and tell you about his first jump session after his break! Most horses will give you some type of 'fun' ride jumping after a break,whether it be a playful buck, cheeky spook or other high jinks designed to test the security of your seat! This time Cole's game plan (I could tell he was plotting something as soon as he saw the jump saddle) was to jump his first fence beautifully without changing his rhythm or balance. At this point I was pretty happy with myself for a job well done when he landed and cantered around the ring. This may seem pretty normal to you, but when I say cantered around the ring I mean he put his head down like a Thelwell pony and just cantered. I couldn't stop him! Fortunatley he decided he'd better start working after he'd shown everyone where I stood and proceeded to jump really well. I took him for a lesson with Phillip yesterday and again he jumped super. He just gets better and better with his showjumping. His xc is great, the dressage is coming. So back to the show here, the experience he gains at this shows directly relates to how he showjumps in the eventing. I'll just do two classes on him here as he's doing Millbrook intermediate next weekend.

Please check back again tomorrow for more updates!

This video is from my last show with Mario a few weeks ago.

2011-07-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

The 'Team Chadderton' Synchronised Swimming Team. Pool time occurs only if we start really early and once all of the horses have been ridden. Note the very brown arms and very white bodies...

Summer for my horses is easy, mostly taking a break or learning newer movements (Cole learning changes? A cruel and unusual torture according to him!!) but for Mario and Ti it's a bit more full on. Ti had another great result at Loch Moy and is looking good for the AEC's. With Mario I'm breaking new ground for myself, an eventer competing in the grand prix jumping ring! To be honest this is the most challenging and fun thing I've done for quite a long time, it reminds me of my first advanced season eventing 10 or so years ago. Except if I miss at these jumps they're way scarier because they are HUGE! So aside from tuning up my eye and seeing my distances, I've been working with my students helping them upgrade. So, whilst I'm busy, I'm not quite as busy as normal which gives me a chance to take a breather and prepare for the rest of the show year which kicks off with Saugreties (show jumping) in NY this week then back eventing again at Millbrook, also in NY. This spare time has also allowed me to check out my suggestion box (first time in 2 years, actually first time ever) and it turns out there have been a couple of requests from my working students. Some of them mundane; 'please may we have more food', 'please may we have a heater', 'please may we have an air conditioner' (not sure how tough this crew is...!). Another popular request is that I stop my obsession with watching Entourage. The note reads 'YOU ARE NOT ARI GOLD! You don't run a talent agency in LA, you run a show barn, we don't like when you walk and talk Ari Gold. Plus you're a girl, he's a guy'.

But there was one request that I thought had some legitimacy. It was written in Kaden's handwriting and appeared to have been done in a famished frame of mind and a weakened body. It read: PLEASE CAN YOU BE ON TIME? WHY O WHY MUST YOU BE SO CONSISTENTLY LATE? YOU MAY NOT HAVE A SOCIAL LIFE BUT I DO, WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING THAT WE ARE STILL HERE AT 7PM? My first response is to answer that latter question; working, Kaden, working! Then I thought about it and saw his point, so I thought I'd use this blog to offer him (and Hannah and whomever else is in my barn) a small glossary of terms that are essential in the barn.

5 minutes away: more like 10

Please can you sweep the aisle: should have been done half an hour ago...

Leave the barn (for a show) at 4:20am: we'll leave at 4:38am

10 minutes away: probably going to be at least 15, closer to 20

Please can you clean the tack: why hasn't the tack been cleaned yet

Just ducking home to send an email: I'm going home to have an Icy Pole

I'm going to the bank: I'm going to Burger King

I'll be back in 30 mins: I'll be back in an hour

Change the radio station, the horses don't like it: I don't like it

30 mins away: haven't even left where I am yet. Don't expect to see me for an hour

Good job: well done

Well done: bloody well done

Bloody well done: great job

Great job: sarcasm, means bad job..

Thank you: Thank you very much, you run my barn and business with such efficiency and smoothness that allows me to do my job of riding and teaching!

Now that should clear things up a bit!

Summer eventing!

2011-07-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

For me this summer is all about training my students and helping them move up, and personally all about show jumping with gaining experience at the grand prix level. My upper level horses are either in light work or out with Titanium the only regular ride of mine in work. And also at this time of the year I have a lot of sales horses to market and find good homes for. This weekend I competed at MD horse trials at Loch Moy on the Saturday with Ti who finished in 3rd place on his dressage score. He's really going well at the moment and he will probably be aimed at the American Eventing Championships in GA in September. Mario and I were due to compete at Culpeper, we didn't go but are looking forward to heading north to New York to compete in the coming weeks.

Rosco - Australian Champion

2011-07-05T07:32:00.000-07:00

Everyone, Australian, American (and the rest of the eventing world) knows Boyd Martin. Everyone knows his strength of character, his competitiveness and his 'never say never' attitude. At the moment that strength of character and attitude are being tested by the death of one of the driving forces behind these traits, his father Ross Martin. In Australia the term champion isn't thrown around willy nilly, it's reserved for those who prove they have beyond normal reserves of energy and strength. Ross was just such a man. From competing in the Olympics to running a thriving business, to competing in road races, to competing in open ocean swims, to learning how to ride, to raising a strong, loving family; he was a true champion in every sense of the word. His athletic achievements are many and varied and all awesome but I wanted to use this blog to remember the man I've known for well over a third of my life. The time from his accident to his passing were blessedly short but the shock that such a man could actually leave us will stay around for a long time. The pain was so unexpected and real it took my breath away, and I like to think that I've seen enough by this stage to not be shaken easily. I can't remember the actual day I met Ross because as soon as I did I felt as though I'd know him from day dot. I know it would have been when I first started working for Boyd and it would have been in Lochinvar. One of my earlier memories that stands out clear as it had happened yesterday was stacking hay with Ross. As a working student I can tell you this is one of the most dreaded tasks and one to be avoided at all costs. It's hot, the hay is itchy and after the 200th bale your arms hurt. After the 300th bale you beg for mercy! This particular day Boyd was somewhere else (teaching or otherwise working) so it was left to Rosco and I to unload the trailer of hay that we'd baled the night before. Ross was more inclined to talk about his children than his own achievements but as we unloaded the hay I learnt about his Olympic career, his bike riding, his horse riding and his world travels. To begin with I thought he may be exaggerating, how could one person do so many things? So I did some background research (asked Toy, Boyd's mum) and confirmed it was all true and more! Therefore I developed a strong respect right from the beginning.

As I said, Ross was more about his kids than himself. He was always the guy at the events taking photos of everyone he knew. He was the guy standing by the side of the ring watching his kids proudly claiming them as his own whether they were first, second, last or fell off at the 12th fence. I remember my first CCI 3 star, he was there as always armed with his camera. After I fell off in the water and Danny ran away, he was there to pat me on the back and tell me well done for getting as far as the water! He was also the one to, for the next 10 years, tell everyone he introduced me to, the story of my terrible language sitting in the water in front of the crowd! And that my poor mum had driven 14 hours to see such a display! I can't believe I've heard his retelling of that story for the last time.

It's hard to regret the loss of a life so well lived, but the suddenness of his death and the energy he still had every day make it seriously painful for anyone who knew him. Knowing that the normal 'well done, Katie' or 'your name will be in lights soon' won't follow him reading this blog, is more upsetting than I thought it could be. And that there won't be anymore Ross Martin emails turning up in my inbox makes me not even want to check my emails. From stacking hay back in that boiling hot barn in Lochinvar to randomly running into him at an airport in America, I will cherish every moment and everything I learnt from Ross Martin. It's also important to remember Kevin Bloody Wilson (Australian comedian) also lost his biggest fan. Who will buy his cd's now?

To Toy, Boyd and Brooke. I'm so sorry. You are lucky to have each other. And your husband and dad meant so much to so many people, yet you were always his focus.

Bye Ross. (If you happen to run into my Nanna, can you tell her that I'm sorry I forgot her birthday so many times.)

2011-06-27T18:30:00.000-07:00

This week was super hectic with horses from my barn representing us at SIX shows from Thursday thru Sunday! This included the biggest recognised Horse Trials within an 8 hour drive (Surefire), the biggest dressage show within an 8 hour drive (Ride For Life) and the biggest show jumping show within an 8 hour drive (Swan Lake).Not a bad effort when most of my horses are on a summer break with only Titanium, Lola, Mario and Jerry in full work. We brought home all colored ribbons from blue and downwards. Kaden did a super job on his own Ronnie to convincingly win the local jumper show at Pleasant Prospect. The same day I took Mario to Swan Lake in PA to do a warm up class for the Lightfoot Grand Prix on Sunday. He was great and brought home a ribbon. Saturday was Surefire with Ti. I really enjoyed having him as my only horse at the show, something that hasn't happened before. He relished being the focus and did a good test to score a 36 followed by a great cross country and just tapping down a couple of rails. The rails I was a bit sad about but he just tapped them and they came down, could have just as easily stayed up... This is a quality horse that is using his time well to learn the levels.

Sunday for me found us back at Swan Lake for the Grand Prix. Let me remind you I'm an eventer through and through even tho I can be quite good at the showjumping, I can just as easily make a mistake. Just ask Cole what happens when I try to put 5 strides in a 6 stride line to a double of verticals ala Bromont! So to say I was a little apprehensive sitting by the ring to walk my course may be an understatement. I was relieved to see the jumps weren't as big as I thought a breathed a sigh of relief and started to tell Ben (Meredith, Marilyn Little's husband and my sj trainer in her absence) they weren't as big as I'd anticipated. He looked at me a bit weirdly and went on talking to someone else so I looked back to the ring to see the ring guys raising each fence at least another foot! So much for that! By the time it came to walking the course Ben seemed to find some amusement in my abject terror and the fact I could almost walk under each fence without ducking (if you ever do a grand prix, don't walk under the fences, it's frowned upon..). But his advice and plan of how to ride each stride (the showjumpers count any line 10 strides and under, basically the WHOLE course) made sense and I put together a strategy. After warming up over about 6 fences we went into the ring to do both mine and his first Grand Prix. I thought I would be a lot more nervous about the course but I actually felt quite confident given that I'd done my homework, done my schooling and most importantly of all trust my horse and know he's a super jumper. And jump he did! I had a straight forward vertical down coming into a line that I can easily correct and other than that he didn't even go close to another rail as you can see from the photo above! That's the great news! If you ask the people who know me I think you'd find that I'm pretty easy going but do enjoy crowds and being the centre of attention. It's not a conscious action but just seems to happen. So no one who knows me would find it too hard to believe that after jumping a really really good round that I fell off at the last jump. Yes, I'm serious! Initially I thought I'd just been jumped out of the tack but on further inspection and recollection I figured that my left stirrup leather got stuck behind the knee block of my saddle catapulting me heaven bound. Thankfully I do have a guardian angel up there who advised me strongly to hang onto Mario's neck for all I was worth, telling me the finish line was very close and I wouldn't be eliminatied if I could make it over that line. So hang on I did and make it over the line we did! Thereby completing our first grand prix with a very respectable 1 rail. So the biggest lesson I learnt is why the show jumpers DON'T use cross country saddles and why they DON'T have back knee blocks! Beyond that we had a super experience beating far more seasoned competitors and proving that both Mario and I deserve to be and belong in the Grand Prixs. So now we look forward to Culpepper and New York.

Eventing wise I'm back with my students at Loch Moy I and Ti at Loch Moy II. Ti gets a great chance to show us what he can do this summer. Congratulations to all my students who competed this weekend and thank you to the Taggart family (Ti) and the McCuan family (Mario) for the rides on their wonderful horses. Please take the time to watch the video, link below, of the GP. I'd love to hear your feedback!

Link to video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUUuDJHAYGM&sns=em.

Also if you add Kate Chadderton and Victory Sport Horses on Facebook there are more photos.

Bromont cross country

2011-06-11T17:03:00.000-07:00

After a last minute walk of the course this morning (to check if the worlds biggest 2 star skinny was still in place, it was), a Red Bull and a bacon, egg and ketchup sandwich (try saying that in French) I was ready to make up for the lost ground at Jersey Fresh. And after a brief chat with Cole, in which he told me not to miss coming out of the water (and I told him he's my idol), we set off for cross country. I don't always go fast at the horse trials for two reasons 1, I'm pretty well always on green horses and 2, I like to look after their legs. But a CCI is the time where one should go fast and that was my plan today. We were up on our minute markers and doing great till we got to the first water. At this point we were held for a fall on course, in fact I could see the poor girl laying in the water jump. Now I've been stopped on course more than once in the past for a variety of reasons from the obvious rider falls and fence fixing, to the more obscure waiting for a plane to land on course (the course was partially airstrip, that's how we do things in Australia, versatility!). I've also been the cause of several course hold ups, the odd one involving a trip to the local health facility. But I would have to say this was the biggest fence/line I've been held in front of. In all it was about 10 minutes of walking around, which is quite a while when you're trying to stay in the moment with your horse. As we walked around I tried to keep Cole's attention settled but ready to roll as soon as we needed to. It worked. After jumping a training level fence to warm up we hit our stride and cantered through the water no problem. We even received a huge cheer from the crowd! I like to think it's because he jumped thru there so well, but it may easily have been because the previous rider failed to stay between the red and white flags and left in a beautiful red French Canadian ambulance! It took us a few fences to get back in our rythym. We ended up 11 seconds over time which I know we lost in the mid part of the course. I guess if there's a time to not get the time it's when you're not winning the dressage! We were still on the faster side of things and he jumped like the cross country machine he is. I know he can make time so I'm no too worried. By all accounts the fallen rider is ok too. I do owe her a thanks tho, walking around in front of the water allowed me to sus the crowd out for hot guys whom I may want to impress! Allas they all looked Canadian, and I need an American one... And thanks for the concern, yes I found my missing credit and debit cards. They were in my jacket pocket.

2011-06-10T18:07:00.000-07:00

5B, previously known as the Corner Of Death, now known as the Beautifully Made, Very Jumpable Corner at 5 Right Before the Second Minute Marker!!!

Well our dressage on Thursday was somewhat improved but still off the pace. There were a couple of places that could have been better (ie Cole could have NOT put his head in the air!), but his placings are improving and he's definitely getting better. And frustratingly the horse I know would have put in a super test, Liberty, I had to leave at home... But he won't suffer from his break and will still progress at the same pace with or without this event. And Cole is slowly but surely improving thanks largely to the opportunities his owner provides me with. Today for me was all about course walking. I tend to walk a CCI course 4/5 times (compared to 1/2 times at a horse trials) which is bad for me because I'm quite physically lazy, but also good because I can eat a LOT more M & M's! The two star course is quite big with several related lines that will be influential. I was particularly worried about 5B, the biggest corner ever seen in a 2 star! That was until I walked the course with Phillip and he helped me realise that is in fact well within the height and width regulations for the level. So now of course it'll be no problem! However, I'm now afraid of 13B, a VERY tall skinny which follows a VERY big table! All jokes aside, I'm quite confident. I have a plan for each fence, I know my horse is fit and well schooled, and I know I can ride the lines easily. So, to borrow a line from my 2nd favourite movie Dodgeball, I'm fully pumped and super physched!

Honestly, this does look more jumpable in real life..

Certainly the feel is different to Jersey. I have the same horse, the same training, the same skills, same fitness but this just feels right. Something at Jersey was off. So tomorrow I'll be the only one holding up this Australian flag at this very international event, 6 nations represented (I think). And trying to ignore the fact that the organisers didn't mention Australia (best country in the world) in their promo material about the diversity of this event! This is actually my favourite event and will be back next year and every one after that I'm fortunate enough to earn a living from my passion.

On a side note, if anyone has seen my credit card or debit card please let me know, I've managed to lose both in one day. Also if anyone has any ideas of how to get from Canada to Maryland without having to pay for fuel should I not find said cards, please let me know.

2011-06-08T19:02:00.000-07:00

I guess this is how they roll in Canadian Eventing.... My active imagination likes to think that someone evaded Border Control at the border and the local constabulary are on the job!

Today was the trot up (US speak, jog) and Cole obviously passed quite well. Almost equally importantly I thought I would be a leader in the fashion stakes. And although I'm sure I was right up there, I don't think I was the best dressed. That honour would have to go to Christian Landholt, who is a member of the ground jury. Hopefully he reads my blog and is sufficiently impressed by my shout out that he gives me an 80 percent tomorrow.... I'm quite excited for my test actually, this is unusual, I normally look forward the jumping more! We ride at 1057 which is the perfect time as far as I'm concerned. The course looks great and has obviously been prepared well. I can't say enough how much I love this event. They really go out of the way to make sure everything works for the riders. This event is obviously the focus, the baby, of the organisers and it shows. Check back tomorrow for more.

Bromont!!!!

2011-06-07T15:02:00.000-07:00

LOVING the Bromont quarter sheets!!!!

Yesterday we began our trip to Bromont CCI by driving the short distance to Phillip Duttons farm for a jump lesson which went really well. I was really happy to see a couple of my friends, who were involved in the fire, getting about their business as normal, albeit subdued. And that one of my students, Alex MacLeod, seems to be fitting in quite well. I unfortunately had to leave Liberty (Civil Liberty) at home due to a minor cut that will heal very quickly, just bad timing. I thought it would be counter productive for him to stand on the trailer for 12 hours trying to heal! Disappointing, but in light of the last weeks tragedies, I'm just glad I have a horse that is going to be fine in a few days, it could be much worse.

I know I'm like everyone else and finding it difficult to move on from the fire, even tho I wasn't personally involved. I have competed against each of the lost horses on many occasions and know Nev and Finn quite well from Australia. Plus the thought of what could of happened to my friends, and knowing they are in a place I can't imagine at the moment, just makes it still a topic close to heart. I can tell you I've taken extra time to enjoy each of the horses in my barn this week...

And therefore Bromont creates a welcome and exciting distraction, and proves life goes on! From TPF it's an 11 hour drive for me, which I have to say I started out in winning form by leaving the farm first this morning! AND arriving at Bromont first! So I already feel like a winner (no need to go into the fact that no one else was aware there was a race...!). Bromont 2010 was my first year here and I thoroughly enjoyed it, even tho pretty well everything is in French. I was a little apprehensive that the French I learnt last year would have escaped me, but my fears were unfounded! Arret still means STOP! Thank you to the stop/go sign guy for refreshing my memory... Anyhow, Cole has settled in well and I'm currently deciding which outfit to wear for the trot up tomorrow. I've decided that I need to be a little more proactive in my fashion sense if I'm to make any 'best dressed' list! I'll keep you updated through out the week.

How to help the victims of the barn fire.

2011-06-02T19:05:00.000-07:00

This post is for my regular readers and supporters. As you will be aware now Boyd Martin suffered the incomprehensible and senseless tragedy of a barn fire on Monday night resulting in the death of six of his horses. Boyd absolutely adores and is in love with each of his horses so is obviously devastated. And also by now you'll also be aware that two of Boyd's workers (Lillian Heard and Caitlin Silliman) and his best friend (Ryan Wood) were also living in the apartment above the barn. They lost everything they owned and the roof over their head. It was these three who were first on scene and literally leapt into the fire to save as many lives as possible. Boyd was shortly on the scene dragging his World Games mount to safety with the help of Phillip Dutton. They all went against the laws of nature and self preservation and the orders of the firemen to rescue who they could. Unfortunately six beautiful horses (including Lillian's own wonderful mare) lost their lives, fortunately five survived and fortunately their were no human fatalities. For the last few days I've done what every other horse owner/rider/trainer/lover has done and recreated the scenario in my head. Going over everything from the first smell of smoke (Lillian, thank God for her or no one may have made it) to the ensuing minutes of utter chaos and terror. Waking up to the smell of smoke not knowing that your heart and soul are about to be ripped apart with no hope of repair. I couldn't bear it and know these guys are feeling a pain that hopefully none of us will ever experience. As a bystander our first reaction is to want to help, to give, to soften the pain. We can't do that. Time and life will. But I know that many of my regular readers want to help and below I've listed SOME of the ways you can. Also be aware NONE of them have put their hand out and asked for help. Right now all they need is each other and time to comprehend what happened. The other thing we can do is make our own barns as fire proof as possible. Fire extinguishers, sledge hammers, crow bars, escape plans. Have them ALL, KNOW how to use them. Above all thank god for your own good fortune and precious horses, and pray he helps our friends.

Ryan Wood and Caitlin Silliman http://www.scesports.org/Biographies.html. scroll down to Ryan Wood. This is tax deductible.
Lillian Heard http://www.lillianjheard.com/
Boyd Martin www.boydandsilvamartin.com

My heart goes out to Boyd.

2011-05-31T10:30:00.000-07:00

Homebred and imported Australian warmblood Jerry at his first ever competition!

This weekend was quite a busy one with 3 horses competing dressage in MD and another 3 competing at Fair Hill eventing. Cole and Liberty were both placed fifth in the prelim and intermediate, both scoring very well on the flat. Lois Lane and Jerry also won ribbons at the dressage show as did Kaden on his new horse Ronnie.

As a professional rider you tend to be quite tough when things don't go quite right, and growing up on the farm there's a saying 'where there's livestock, there's deadstock'. Still nothing prepared me for the absolutely devastating news this morning that Boyd Martins barn had burnt down with several horses unable to escape. The heroic efforts of two of his workers, Lillian Heard and Caitlin Silliman, and his best friend Ryan Wood, enable four horses to make it out. They had to be restrained by the firefighters to stop them going back in for more. For those of you who don't know Boyd, he is in love with each and every one of his horses and right now is still at the hospital with the ones who did make it but are in need of treatment. I can't even begin to feel what he must be going thru. I think of what it would be like if my horses were in that situation, I couldn't bear it. Every horse, whether he's not careful and has rails or doesn't understand shoulder in, tries his/her absolute hardest for me and I would be inconsolable in the same situation. So today, instead of worrying about the couple of rails I had at Fair Hill or the test that wasn't so good on Saturday, I'm going to thank and appreciate my four legged partners and perhaps even give them a carrot of two. Whether you know Boyd or Silva or not, keep them in your thoughts. And pockets when it comes to rebuilding.

A big thank you to my owners for entrusting me with your horses, I know you love them as much as I do.

Whomever said Jersy's fun, is WRONG!

2011-05-18T18:21:00.000-07:00

I'm the type of person who likes to give things names. For example when jumping there Long Spots, Deep Spots, Close Your Eyes/Pray To God Spots, Training Distances (which incorporate the afore mentioned, and most often used when I'm attempting to look good even tho I missed!). And of course there's the Perfect Distance, which obviously I see a lot (I wish!). Then there are Hot Attached Guys (the bane of my existence), Hot Gay Guys (loads of fun and super trendy) and Hot Available/Interested Guys (a VERY rare species!). Then there are drives. Just Up The Road to PA to compete. Just Down The Road to a jumper show in NC. Floating Home On Air when I've won. Finally there's the Long Drive Home. The most dreaded of all and the absolutely demoralising. Unfortunately I'm had to experience this one quite a few times, fortunately I've experienced the opposite WAY more times! And although over time my good:bad ratio has improved considerably (as it should), the bad ones are still there... And let me tell you, the pain certainly does not diminish with time and experience. Of course this is a LONG story to update you on my latest show, Jersey Fresh CCI with Cole. From the beginning it didn't go well. The dressage test was one best left in the past. I made a couple of mistakes for which I won't forgive myself, as my horse did try quite hard. If you're a regular reader you will understand the challenges and improvements we've made in the short time we've been together. His owner/s are super supportive and have enabled me to seek further help in this area, for which I'm immensely grateful. However it was seriously depressing none the less, just ask the couple of unfortunate recipients of my distressed calls immediately after I got off! I decided to run cross country as it would still be a qualifier and this horse has far bigger fish to fry at a higher level to get too worked up. He is super solid cross country and seems to just read my mind on course. Either that or he's been checking out the course map while I'm not looking and already knows what to do before hand! So I was mindful that to finish on our dressage score, very likely given his record and current fitness, would at least put us in the top ten and also give us the qualifier. So with that in mind we headed off to cross country. As always, no matter how straight forward a course seems, I gave it my utmost attention (given that it's possible to trip over even a 2 foot fence, and that's embarrassing). There were definately plenty of questions, but none that Cole wasn't prepared for. So it came as a bit of a shock to come out of the first water (ominously named the Jersey Shore) on a half stride and have a run out at the skinny. In the midst of the utter disappointment I at least still retained some common sense. Let's leave it for another day, Bromont is in a month, he can go there and we get a second chance. So back to the barn we went (certainly not something I thought I'd be doing 3 mins earlier, I'd pictured myself at that point jumping up the banks), me incredibly disappointed with myself but still very happy to have a healthy, sound horse underneath me. Always it's onwards and upwards to the next show (Liberty and Ti at VA Horse Trials this weekend), but still very depressing indeed. No amount of consoling myself with 'at least it wasn't at Rolex', or 'at least I'm not starving in Africa', or 'at least there weren't any hot guys in the crowd' helped. I know I lead a very charmed existence but it's all relative, I didn't smile all week.

I probably should have seen this coming tho, Cole has very definatley made it clear in the past that he can't stand the Jersey Shore (he's scared of Snooki, as am I), and he's very much more interested in the class and fevour of the French (even if it's French-Canadian) so Bromont it is! Plus he gets to hang out with Liberty (who's also going) for a week. . The next few weeks for us will see us jumping with Phillip Dutton, Boyd Martin and Marilyn Meredith-Little and dressaging a LOT. It is fair to mention that the same jump caught out an Olympic gold medalist, a 3 time Rolex winner and several other very good riders. Not an excuse in any way, but a tiny tiny comfort. Every tunnel has it's end and eventingnation posted a clip of Cole and I jumping clear at Fair Hill CIC 2 star (thanks Julie Scott for alerting me!) and I was smiling ear to ear and ready for our next challenge!

O, I nearly forgot, it was a Long Drive Home from Jersey.......

2011-05-02T12:07:00.000-07:00

This weekend I didn't compete any of my horses, I'm still taking care of an annoying head injury that's taking a little while longer than expected to dissipate.... Therefore I'm only doing the shows I really need to in order to qualify each horse. Riding at home is all back to normal, just making sure I'm healthy again before starting to compete full on again. That doesn't mean it was a quiet weekend with my students tho! At Loudoun Darcy Swain attempted to continue her unbeaten winning streak, which looked positive after the dressage, however a rail relegated them to 4 th place.. Still a ribbon's a ribbon! Beth Sokohl made her first outing since last year a successful one with a close 2nd. A costly mistake in the canter in the dressage cost them a higher place but it was definitely a great start to the season! Amy Gaynor riding her own Cindy finished on her dressage score to end up 2nd at Potomac. This is great as her dressage continues to improve. Meghan Avella convincingly won her division which was great to see. Sometime student but always Australian, Ema Klugman also won her division! She's worked very very hard with her mare and deserved her blue ribbon!

The obvious conclusion to be drawn from this weekend is that I don't actually need to be competing in order for my team to be bringing home the ribbons! Just the excuse I needed to escape to the Bahamas for a week.... I wish!

I think there was some other show on this weekend too. Rolex something? May have been in Kentucky.... And it may have led to me being a VERY distracted trainer obsessed with checking my phone for scores every two minutes... Thanks Julie, Beth and Jenny for pretending to not notice! Congratulations to Mary King for dominating the weekend finishing 1st and 2nd.

This blog is about my (owners) horses, career and the show results of my students. It's a personal collection of results, thoughts and updates, therefore I don't normally talk about anything outside of that (noone wants to hear the inner workings of my brain aside from the horsey bits!). However Lisa Kurr is one of my favourite and most committed students (I have a few) as well as team supporter. She had a very routine operation to repair her meniscus (skiing injury) that unfortunately turned bad. She developed a horrible infection that's left her in a lot of pain and laid up for 3 weeks and counting. My point is GET BETTER LISA! I know there are far worse problems to have in the world (like who ran into the side of my new truck...) but I'm sure you understand her despair of not being able to ride her horse.

Culpepper SJ and Fair Hill International.

2011-04-27T14:53:00.000-07:00

Civil Liberty in the dressage.

I LOVE this time of the year, Badminton and Rolex just one week apart! Who can contain themselves in this two weeks?! I'm permanently stuck to my phone checking results. My competitions for the last week started on Wednesday show jumping with Mario in the 1.40 at the HITS Culpepper series. He jumped super well and placed 5th and 6th. Our jump offs need some work. Then it was straight to Fair Hill International with Ti, Cole and Bert. The biggest thing to come out of this event is that I really need to focus up a bit more on my dressage. They all jumped super. I was very conservative cross country due to the deep mud. My focus is on keeping them sound so between the fences I just cantered. They all got the qualifying scores they needed so I was happy.

Alex MacLeod made her international debut with Jim and finished 10th. At Redland Horse Trials Lisa Kurr and Rocco finished on their dressage score, no easy feat in the conditions. Darcy Swain won her class.

2011-04-11T12:52:00.000-07:00

From left: Ti, Cole, me, Mario, Bert.

No competitions this past weekend due to me recovering from a head injury (I fell on my head). This means riding only on the flat but still full steam ahead with teaching, I'm getting more sensible each year that passes! So I thought I would share with you the criteria I use when choosing an event horse. To do this I thought I'd use some of the horses in my team as examples. It's no secret that I'm the luckiest rider in MD in terms of the support I receive from my owners (MacLeod family, Taggart family, Rege Dvorsky and Jeanne Leonne, McCuan Farms) so these horses are basically as ideal as I have been able to find. Anyway, enough sucking up and onto the horses!

I have two criteria that stand out when it comes to selecting a horse: 1) Jumping ability, it's important to remember that eventing is still two thirds jumping, it's not a dressage competition although that's obviously important. But generally if a horse is a great jumper then he has great balance and the ability to carry himself which makes the dressage trainable. 2) and most important is HEART! If a horse believes he can do something he will! I've seen the oddest horses compete 3/4 star and the most beautiful, perfectly conformed horses not make it past training.

Collection Pass

Cole is known around the barn as 'little Cole' (he's small) or 'pony club horse Cole'(He's quiet). The latter being time consuming to say we typically stick with little Cole.... He's so laid back that his owner's 7 yo granddaughter Addison has been able to ride him unaided! I'll get to his conformation in a moment but Cole represents the prime example of heart means everything. Dressage is a learnt skill for him but the jumping and desire to go to a fence comes naturally. He has a careful, suspicious nature that makes him want to get off the ground, basically his instincts tell him that if it's scary, jump a bit bigger. Add to this his bravity and desire to please and there's nothing that he can't do in his mind. Which for me sitting on his back is a great thing, all I have to do is steer and stay on! He has straight, strong (without being thick) legs that are proportional to his body. You can see his hind legs want to stand under him, fantastic shoulder (which he's learning to use in the dressage!) and good length neck. His athleticism means he can add in or take out strides as the course or situation needs and being a thoroughbred he can gallop.

Civil Liberty

Bert (name change, sorry Sue...) is quite a character. This is one of the things that appealed to me about him, he's not afraid to challenge you if he thinks he knows better. But on the other hand, if you're able to convince him that you as the rider do know better (there definitely ISN'T a goblin in the liverpool!) then he will throw everything he has into whatever task you give him. Heart is no problem for him, it's present in large quantities. Back to the quirkiness, you may have heard that 'all the best horses are quirky', (often used as a sales tactic by the seller describing why the horse you're trying for sale just bucked you off and is now running across the paddock), it is true. Whether the horse be a windsucker (cribber), cold backed (bucks at the sight of the saddle!), puts their head on the ground when the see the bridle (Cole) or looks at you as tho he's never seen a human before when you go to catch him, all the good ones have something in their personality that would be described as lateral thinking. Bert has none of the above poor behaviour (except the odd excited buck) but he is definatley quirky when it comes to warming up, goodness help you if you venture too close to another horse coming towards you! Conformationally he (as with Cole) stands under himself. He is short in the back, which often means the horse is powerful with his jump. And he has a very kind, generous eye. Good angles on his legs. You can just see him pinging over the biggest brush into water without a problem. And once again he can gallop.

Titanium

First of all, yes I'm aware of the other Titanium, the famous one that's about to go around Rolex. They are no relation, sharing only colour and athleticism! Ti is one of my favourite types. To look at him all you see is an athlete. From the length and angle of his legs, to his proportional body and once again the fact that he stands so well underneath himself. Add to this his stunning looks and it's easy to see why he stands out in a group! His neck comes out of his shoulder beautifully, which enables freedom thru his shoulders. Open thru his gullet so he can obviously bend his neck. Short back makes it easy to jump off the ground. And he is built uphill which makes the dressage easier. Quirkiness and heart also are their in abundance, particularly once you know him. I swear he doesn't realise he inhabits the same planet as us mere mortals, his brain is in a perpetual computer game where he is lord. He also has the inability to walk around his paddock. Eating and need to go to the waterer? Why walk when you can canter! Resting and need to eat? Why walk to the grass when you can canter the 10 metre distance!

Digger

Doesn't quite realise yet that he's not a horse and doesn't have to pose for such photos..... Although he shows quite good conformation and LOADS of character!

Mario

Mario (or Mario Stop it! as he's often known in the barn due to his propensity for getting into mischief!) is the type of horse that would live in your pocket if you gave him the chance. He MUST know everything, and MUST be involved with everything! Just as well he is one of the most powerful and most athletic horses I've ever met! As you can see he has a short, strong back. As with the others he stands underneath himself. Strong hindquarters. Kind, intelligent eye. And near perfect angles with his legs. Mario has competed to 1 star successfully but he lacks the speed and stamina required (that the TB's so easily have) for higher levels. Fortunately this is not entirely bad news as he is a freak jumper! He is currently competing in the 1.40m classes and mini prix'. This height is very scary for eventing horses but he is as brave as a bull and careful as a cat. Both good things when galloping into a 1.40m oxer wondering why you ever wanted to showjump when you have a barn full eventers at home! Back to his conformation, he is as close to ideal as you can get, just a little too heavy.

Danny

Dan displays none of the above conformation qualities. He's out behind, he's not even tracking up. He's over at the knee, predisposing him to soundness issues. All his weight is on his front end, making him on the forehand. He's long in the back, much longer than this photo shows. His shoulder is too big. Legs too small for his body. Why I am I showing him to you? The one thing he had in masses was heart. Dan was my first 3 star horse whom I competed for 8/9 years. I competed in a World Cup. He went around Sydney 3 star multiple times. He galloped. He jumped (until the end, a few too many misses and he decided he was more suited to the lower levels!). I trained and competed him to Prix St George dressage. Together we learnt our tempi changes and could do 9 one time changes pretty easily. He did canter pirouettes. We won dressage. We won SJ. How did he do it with all these conformation faults? Neither he nor I knew he shouldn't be able to do it. So we did it! This is why, to this day, I put far greater faith in the horses honesty, heart and desire to please. With these things you can learn the rest! Another 3 star/World Cup horse I had was half pony (his mum was 13.2). After a falling out with the owner he went to Boyd's barn and a couple of months later went onto a 4 star.

So the end of the story is that I'm so thankful to have horses that combine great conformation and great intestinal fortitude! Now to just get that damn dressage sorted out... Hopefully you have a good idea of what to look for in your next eventing partner!

Interesting winter statistics

2011-04-05T06:20:00.000-07:00

Morven Park was last weekend but more about that later. I thought it would be interesting to go over a few statistics from my winter. These are by no means exhaustive and only relate to the traveling between the two states. I'm not much of a person for recording stuff like this and I only starting thinking about it when I was wondering why I have been off the social scene (I say that like I was hitting up all the fancy do's around town, I wasn't!) for the past six months. The opportunity to train and compete in the south in the winter (where it's warm, for the Aussies reading) comes from my students allowing me to leave and travel back once a week to teach everyone on my day off, Monday. Typically I fly to MD out of Augusta on Sunday night then back on Tuesday morning. This means that the horses don't miss any rides, Monday's are also their day off. As I don't have a second vehicle I used a mix of rental cars and the generosity of Beth Sokohl, her car. 32 flights (38 hours flying) 5860 miles driven between MD and SC 100 hours driving $2200 fuel 6 horses qualified for the AEC's at prelim and intermediate Schedule for last week: Saturday SC to MD Saturday teaching Sunday MD to SC Sunday ride SC horses Tuesday SC to MD Tuesday teaching Wednesday MD to SC Wednesday ride SC horses Thursday Showjumping in Atlanta, GA Friday SC to MD Friday Morven course walk and ride Morven horses That was 66 hours driving, 20 lessons and 2 horse shows in 2 states within 6 days. Obviously the real reason behind the complilation and presentation of these figures is that I'm seeking a joint sponsorship from Red Bull and Pandora radio! The only reason I'm able to stay awake. Oh that and a bit of help from Verizon would be great too! I'm scared to open my latest phone bill.... I use the time difference (I typically drive at night) to stay in touch with my Australian friends. I went down with 10 horses and a dog and came back with 11 horses and 2 dogs. Go figure! At least the horses were different horses and the team came back stronger. Briefly to Morven and Atlanta. Cole was 3rd in the Intermediate, Bert finished on his dressage score of 38 in his first prelim (novice for the aussies), Pheobe scored a 28. I also took the opportunity to test my air vest (it works!) in a small tumble in the prelim. Alex MacLeod was second in the intermediate. Alex is 18 yo and this is her 2nd intermediate horse to be in the ribbons. Not a bad effort considering she's a full time uni student and only has one horse in work at a time. Darcy Swain won her division on a 22! Amy Gaynor and Lisa Kurr both posted clear cross country and had good show jumping round. I competed Mario in the 1.3m and 1.4m (BIG!!) classes at the Altanta Spring Classic where he jumped clear in the first class and had one rail in the second. I look forward to continuing his career in the jumper ring this year. Thanks for reading and staying up to date. I love the feedback I get, keep it coming!

New Horse - Press Release.

2011-03-22T09:48:00.000-07:00

Civil Liberty is the latest horse to join Kate Chadderton's team of eventers Burt (as he's known in the barn) is an American TB gelding and is 7 years old. Currently competing at Training level, he will move up to the Preliminary level at Movern Park Spring horse trials in VA. He has been produced and purchased from Sue Southard of VA who campaigned him from Beginner Novice thru Training. From Kate 'Sue has done a super great job of guiding his early training, a task which I'm sure wasn't the easiest given his boisterous and creative nature! I'm very excited about our future together and I also have to thank Sunset Hill, McCuan Farms, for their continued faith and support'. Kate and Burt have completed two events in the last two weekends finishing in the ribbons on both occasions, what a great start! He will make his international debut at Fair Hill in April and is aimed towards Bromont, Canada, 1 star at the end of spring.

Kate's team also enjoys the continued enthusiasm and support of the MacLeod family, the Taggart family, Rege Dvorsky and Jeanne Leonne plus my students.

2011-03-18T16:26:00.000-07:00

Ti jumping his way into the ribbons again.

Excitingly winter has come to an end but sadly this means the end of the winter show season in Aiken. At Full Gallop I had Checkout the Charmer, Titanium and Civil Liberty. The other three horses from my barn at the show were Key, Lola and Jimmy. Ti and Burt ended up in the ribbons but the star of the show was working student Kaden.

Being a young guy working in a barn full of women isn't as ideal or as fun as it sounds. EG: listening to endless chatter to our horses, crying over broken nails, pinning up pictures of the latest sexiest man alive, being made to read Cosmo aloud while driving to shows, you get the picture! Somehow Kaden manages to have kept his head down all winter and happily his work is turning into show results. After several setbacks with his own horse I put him on Keystone Miranda and watched the magic happen! They've both now successfully completed their first two prelims and last weekend finishing on their dressage score coming 4th! So congratulations Kaden!

Take the time to checkout the latest blog from the Equiery.

www.equiery.com/sporting/eventing/

2011-03-03T07:10:00.000-08:00

Since moving to America I've had the most incredible support from my owners, students and other supporters, for which I'm hugely grateful! I didn't come here with many resources, in fact it was just Rocco and I that got off the plane in Newark, NJ! Since that cold (40 degrees, cold to an Aussie) May morning I've come a long way. It was just Rocco and I for a bit, then Boo came, then Mario, then Cole, Lola and Ti. None of these horses were upper level horses so it was a bit like starting from scratch. We lost Boo along the way to soundness issues and a differing of outlooks on his future. Lesson 1: being a 49% owner gives you all the expenses and no rights. Lesson 2: owners are like any other relationship, both parties need to respect and trust each other and make decisions based on the well being and good health of the HORSE. For the horse is the reason we are all here. On a side note, interestingly when I moved here I thought I would come across a wonderland of fancily bred warmbloods creatures who galloped like Pharlap, dressaged (I think I just made that word up!) like Tortilas and jumped like Sapphire! Ironically my team of five horses consists of 4 thoroughbreds who came off the track. So much for the warmbloods! I think this shows what I've suspected all along, a good horse is a good horse and each should be taken on face value. Anyhow, I inherited Mario from a rider heading back to college and Cole came thru Robert and Kathy Taylor and I started Lola and Ti (he'd had a little education) off the track. Each has their own past where they've developed habits that we work on improving on a daily basis. By now I'm sure you're wondering where I'm going with all this, if you're reading this then you already have a knowledge of my background, my point is that small improvements are often the best and it's a long way starting out to getting back in the mix! This brings me to Pine Top Advanced last weekend where Cole scored a 38 in the dressage! Not a score to set the world on fire but it was a 6 point improvement from Pine Top II! This is very exciting because I really rate this horse, he'll definitely be an advanced horse and I believe he'll even surprise us and go beyond that. I've ridden less talented, less clever horses at advanced!

This weekend will be super busy with Ti, Civil Liberty (more on that next week) and Charmer (another example of a wonderful TB that's competitive against the WBs) going to Sporting Days on Saturday, then I will have Mario in the Mini Prix on Sunday at Highfields. Sporting Days also marks the return of one of the most competitive young riders in the country, Alex MacLeod on Jimmie. She will also be riding Lola. Kaden has been prepping Key for her first prelim and will be going early in the morning on Saturday too. Then for me it's back to MD Sunday night to teach on Monday.

Lastly, I hope you all saw the link to my blog on eventings most up to date, popular and accurate news website, Eventing Nation. Albeit as a reference to the polo ponies Cole and I met in Wellington, but hey, any publicity is good publicity so I'll take it! I guess I'll just have to start writing more interesting, entertaining blogs.....

Wellington Training!

2011-02-22T18:40:00.000-08:00

There are several ways to do fitness work, I generally choose to do one or two horses at a time, polo players are a little more time efficient, twelve at once!

Wellington, FL is the playground of the rich, famous and elite, horsey and otherwise. To play here you need to be famous to get in, elite to be competitive and rich to afford it! OR you can have a couple of good horses and a couple of good trainers that welcome you in and enthusiastically help horse and rider to become better riders. This week I have taken Mario and Cole, with thanks to their owners, to Wellington to improve our dressage and show jumping. For the show jumping I'm working with grand prix rider (recently turned eventer) Marilyn Little-Meredith, whom I also work with back in MD. With Mario we're working on improving his slight left drift and his rideability between fences. Cole is a different kettle of fish and requires and obviously requires a different ride. He's careful but not to the same point as Mario. Australian dressage rider Nicholas Fyffe is helping me on the flat. I know Nicholas from Australia where he also helped me and he's reminding me of small habits I've allowed to slip since moving to America. For example we've been working on my seat and the effectiveness of aids. He has also been focusing on making a more established half halt and having my horses quicker on my aids. I have one more day here and then I'm really looking forward to getting back to Aiken to focus up on the horses I have left there, particularly Lola, Ti and Charmer, all of who are competing at Sporting Days and Full Gallop. Cole is my only starter this weekend at Pine Top and I look forward to bringing you my results after the training we have been receiving. Mario will next compete at the March Madness in Aiken, SC.

2011-02-14T09:14:00.000-08:00

I know it's only a tiny jump but check out his back end!! That's the athleticism that makes me happy to canter into 1.50 metre fences! Students: ignore both my pink jumper and my position, I don't know what I was thinking....

The eventing season is starting to really kick into gear with most of top horses and riders out competing at Pine Top this weekend. Cole was 8th in the intermediate, and I have to say there were three mistakes in the three phases and they were all mine. He tried very had and his dressage is definitely improving. This concluded a very 14 days that included 5 events! Next I'm heading to Florida with Mario and Cole for showjumping and dressage lessons. Then it's back to Pine Top, Sporting Days, Full Gallop, Southern Pines I and II, Atlanta for some SJ, Morven Park, the Fork then home! In between all that my weekly visits back to MD.

As a side note, check page number 40 in http://www.theaikenhorse.com/. Another cover page!

2011-02-06T05:55:00.000-08:00

Sporting Days was how eventing should be; rain, mud and good courses! I had two horses entered who both did quite well in the dressage, Ti being the best of the two scoring a 31.8. He finished on that score to come second and start his eventing year off to a solid start. This is a horse that I rate quite highly and am lucky to have the ride to see just where he'll go. He did place in a couple of show jumping classes early in January so it's good to see his dressage showing the type of work I've always known he is capable of. When I say it was wet, I mean the dressage was done by battling thru 30cms of mud! I didn't run Lola cross country as I have a bit of work to do on her jumping and as she's a very nice horse, equally talented as Ti, Mario and Cole, I don't want to hurry her. I already made the mistake of starting her last week when I knew she wasn't ready, so I won't be in a hurry to do that again.
In a side note, I'm not sure what it says about Australians, but of the four competing at the event we pretty well had each class covered as far as prizes go! Not exactly sure how all that galloping around on the rock hard ground of Goondiwindi and Albury helped, but I guess it must have!

The eventing year begins!

2011-01-31T08:19:00.000-08:00

Tate Shaw with Mr Mc Cuan's Mario enjoying the sunshine!

What a great start to the year at Pine Top I this weekend! We had great weather (75 and sunshine), great courses and great horses. This weekend was for Mario, Cole and Beth Sohkohl's Charmer. Charmer and Cole did well in the dressage but Mario wasn't on his best form, suddenly finding the dressage ring to be a little lonely and neighing throughout the entire test! The judges comments were along the lines of 'lacking focus' and 'a little unsettled' today! He was still good enough to be in 4th place, but I was disappointed given his work was far better outside the ring. He did redeem himself cross country however by giving me the best ride of the three, which was a surprise to me as Charmer and Cole are typically xc machines. They were both good but I think a little insulted by the small size of the jumps. While neither of them took it seriously at least Charmer was polite and pretended to be interested. Cole was downright rude and explained to me that I was wasting his time. They will be back there in two weeks in the prelim and intermediate so I hope that makes them happier! It defiantly was great to be back out galloping between those red and white flags, I think there shouldn't be any break over the holidays for eventing!

Lola, Ti and Key start they year at Full Gallop this Wednesday.

Whilst living down south for the eventing is great for the training and the horses (it's the best time of the year in that respect), it is a huge strain on the finances and time.. I'm very committed to the students I leave behind in MD and travel back each week to teach them. This is what a typical weekly schedule looks like starting from Thursdays.

Thursday - XC school 4 horses. Ride another 4 at home. 1 or 2 lessons.

Friday - Ride 8 horses and prepare for show.

Saturday - 5am start taking 4 horses to a show. Get home ride 3.

Sunday - 5am start back to show. Get home ride 3. Break every speed limit to get to the airport (located in GA) in time for first of two flights. 11.30pm arrive in MD, go hire car, get to house at 1.30am.

Monday - 7.30am till 9.30pm teach.

Tuesday - 3.45am leave house to return car and catch first of two flights back to GA. 11am back in farm in SC to ride 8 horses.

Wednesday - sleep in till 8 then jump 4 horses and ride 4. Teach a lesson or two.

Even with this hectic schedule I still only just break even and am VERY VERY appreciative of my students and owners continued loyalty, support and commitment to my horses and their own endevours. I feel truly lucky to live the life I do.

2011-01-23T17:05:00.000-08:00

For all the Australian's wondering if it is really necessary to move EVERYTHING south for the winter. This is the side mirror of my truck. Yes, ice! This happened on one of the drives down..

After a great holiday in Australia (some spent on the beach working on my non existent tan!), it was back to MD on Christmas day and straight to work. The week between Christmas and New Year is always hectic and this one was no different. Teaching, riding, packing plus teaching, riding and packing! The first load of horses went on January the first to Aiken. Followed by the second load on the third and the last load a week later. That's 66 hours on the road for me just to get them team relocated to avoid the winter cold! The 'South of the Border' signs, once a source of entertainment and joy, get a little less amusing each time I drive past them.........

Whilst the eventing doesn't start until next weekend I thought I'd blow out the jumping cobwebs and by competing in the Aiken showjumping winter classic. Very successful show with Checkout the Charmer winning (owner Beth Sokohl on enforced break), Titanium (Amy Taggart) winning a couple of thirds and Mario (Sunset Hills) jumping a super double clear in the 1.30m and having a rail in the Mini Prix.

The schooling and training is going very well with all the horses appreciating the sun and sand. Cole is going well and really getting way better on the flat. And Lola is loving her jumping!

Teaching Down Under and Analysis of the year that was.

2010-12-16T20:59:00.000-08:00

Teaching country Queensland style Down Under.

After a long, successful year of competing and teaching I headed back to Australia for Christmas with my family and a bit of R and R. Of course that means I still teach, who doesn't on their holidays! As you can see it's a little different than the East Coast of America!

This is the time of the year also that I analyse each horses performance from the year and plan the coming one. I'll run thru a few of them, please bear in mind that the goals for myself and these horses are very personal and by sharing them my intention is to give you an insight into the emotional and physical commitment I make to each horse.

McCuan Mario

Mario had an excellent start to the year with a 3rd in the Aiken Mini Prix, one of only two eventers in the class and the only one to jump clear. This was on top of his other numerous placings. In the eventing he has made leaps and bounds, literally! Last year he his dressage and cross country were very fragile but this year he was able to consistently score in the 20's in the dressage and has the cross country figured out. Unfortunately he suffered an injury at Plantation Field in April which had him out for the rest of the year. He's back and in full work and as fit as a fiddle! His 2011 plans will see him starting with showjumping in Aiken in January then eventing with a goal of a 1 star mid year followed by a 2 star toward the end of the year. His show jumping career will also continue.

Collection Pass

Cole has been the surprise star of the year! He's an unassuming little horse that you would trust with your grandkids! He's quickly moved up from training level in March to now competing successfully at the intermediate level. His weaknesses are the dressage and showjumping, both of which we've worked extremely hard on. The show jumping was all about getting him a bit bolder and not so backed off. I did this by taking him to a couple of big jumper shows to where I could use the arena to school this area. Now he's got that figured out and is confidently jumping around 1.25m classes.The challenge with the dressage was to get and keep his head down! As simple as that! This has taken the most time and with the introduction of a double bridle are well on our way. Next year he will start with show jumping then straight into the eventing. He'll do a 2 star at Bromont then a 3 star late in the year.

Lola and Ti

Unfortunately my photo collection here doesn't contain any of either of these horses..... These two young horses are seriously exciting horses for the future. Similar in their build, they have different ways of going. Lola works on trust and her own intuition whereas Ti (I think) sees the whole thing as a video game! He gallops around thinking he's a character in Avatar taking on the evil human race by using his awesome athletic talents to be able to jump anything! He had a late start to the year with me and will start next year show jumping then head for a 1 star at Bromont. Lola sadly had about 6 months off competing with a pesky abscess and an annoying splint. She had several good places in eventing and a win in some show jumping. She will come out at training level and move up from there.

Thanks again for all the positive feedback through out the year. And congratulations to my students on their many and varied successes! MOST OF ALL, THANK YOU TO MY OWNERS AND SUPPORTERS FOR ENABLING TO CONTINUE MY QUEST TO ACHIEVE MY GOALS, MY SUCCESSES ARE AS MUCH YOURS AS MY OWN!

New Zealand

2010-12-09T23:06:00.000-08:00

The final resting place of Champion of Champions, Sir Tristram, Cambridge Stud, Hamilton, NZ.

After making the long flight (25 hours all up) home to Brisbane, Australia, I took the time to have a quick shower, peek at the new arrival (who's tentatively called Sophie until we finalise her name) then it was straight back to Brisbane International airport for the 3 and a half hour flight to Australia's closest neighbour, and little brother, New Zealand. The trip was not a holiday, way more exciting, a shopping trip to find the next superstar to take on the US horses! And what a group we saw, all beautifully presented, talented and well performed at varying levels. It also served as a reminder of just how tough these Down Under horses are, they have a whole other set of lungs and reinforced tendons! I can tell you it would be very difficult to turn down some of these guys, all potential superstars. In particular a little black fellow by the name of Blackie that will turn up on an Australian, American or British team in the future. Without giving away too much, hopefully we'll have a Kiwi speaking horse on our team soon enough!

Whilst there I also had to great fortune of running into not one, not two but three legends of the horse world. One being Mark Todd, greatest eventer/horseman of all time. I tried out 5 horses on the same arena he was teaching. Having the great Toddy in such proximity was a massive motivation to keep my heels down and not miss into anything! Then I was fortunate enough to be a guest at the world famous Cambridge stud with my host who has a mare at the farm. There I saw the mighty Zabeel, sire of multiple group one winners incl Melbourne Cup). I also visited the grave (the farms centre piece) of the mighty Sir Tristram, sire of many, many group one winners, sires and champion producing fillies. As much as he meant to the racing community he also means to us jumpers. His bloodlines can be found in the many of the most successful jumping horses to come out of Australia and NZ. So obviously this was a huge privilege and honour for me!

I'm now back in Australia as of this morning visiting my family for Christmas and enjoying some warmer weather!!!! Whereever you are, try to keep either warm or cool, depending on the hemisphere!!

NEW ADDITION!!!

2010-12-01T11:29:00.000-08:00

Now that competition season has finished I am analysing the year past and planning for the next as well as trying to keep warm. Whilst all this is going on approx 15 242 k's away (as the crow flies), 2015 5 Year Old Young Event Horse champions of America are being born! This filly was foaled about 48 hours ago on my mum's farm in Australia. The foal is out of Jerry's (readers would remember he came over from Australia a couple of months ago) mother and carries the world famous Sandro, Pik Bube and Ramiro Z bloodlines on his father's side. She'll spend the next couple of years growing up in Australia before coming over here to be broken in and campaigned.

My mum takes care of the mares and raises the foals making sure they grow up into the performance horses they are bred to be!!

The filly is currently unnamed. We'll take your suggestions and will use the best name as her show name!!! She's Australia born to an Australian mother with all German bloodlines. And as you'll all agree (Australian or American) she's about as pretty as you could get!!

Raleigh Show Jumping

2010-11-24T13:36:00.000-08:00

Cole and I early (very early) one morning making a plan for how his last two shows of the year would be his best!!!

Mario, Cole, Ti and I escaped the chilly MD weather for a few days by competing at the RMI Benefit Show Jumping competition in Raleigh, NC. I compete in several jumper shows each year up to the level of Mini Prix and every time I relish the experience as I learn SO much. This is a lot due to the fact that I'm generally jumping at heights that are much bigger than eventing and it really tests my comfort zone. And at this show I was extremely lucky to have my jump trainer, Marilyn Meredith-Little, there to walk each course, warm us up and analyse every round. Firstly Ti learnt a huge amount by going into a big ring (it's all indoors) and jumping a big course. His results absolutely did not reflect his effort and the benefit he gained. I can't wait to be competing with him next year. He's come a long way in 2011.

As everyone knows I'm extremely excited to have Mario back in the competition arena and he definitely proved why I love him so much! Last year, at this same show, I competed Mario in the same classes and must admit that I was about out of my depth in the biggest class. This year (and with Mario off most of it and only back in work for 4 weeks) I was completely comfortable and was actually hoping they would have been 2 or 3 holes higher! Mario and my partnership continues to build with each outing like this and I'm very proud of what we've been able to achieve in what was a very short year for him.

Cole. He surprised us a little last weekend at the dressage by posting some great scores. This week he was the surprise again in the show jumping! He is one of my favourite horses to ever work with due entirely to his massive heart and desire to please his rider. Being athletic and having a decent jump doesn't hurt either... But in a big ring with big fences he's often intimidated and gets really backed off. He doesn't do this at home so it's hard to practice correcting him. There was none of this in the ring this time in all 3 of his rounds and he jumped a lot bigger than he has to eventing. I was VERY proud of him and the work we've done to overcome his problems. We've been working with Marilyn specifically on his weaknesses and what we've been doing is working very well. I was so happy that she was able to give my horses and me as much time and help as she did.

That was my last competition for the year, which is sad as I love competing, but is also very exciting as it gives me a chance to plan for next year, work very closely with my students (who are very patient with my absences) and take a short break in the warmth of Australia. My favourite part of this time of the year, aside from getting Christmas presents, is all the wonderful food. Especially this American turkey they go crazy for at the end of November. Happy Thanksgiving!

Mario returns to the competition arena!!

2010-11-15T17:22:00.001-08:00

Sunny showing some of the our winnings for the day....

You can tell I'm happy to have my competition partner back by the fact I'm hugging him!

What would normally be an unexciting day competing dressage was made very exciting this weekend by Mario's return to the show ring! Regular readers will remember back in April he injured himself and required some rehab and time away from jumping and the competition circuit. Whilst this is always disappointing with any horse it was even more so with him as he had had a great winter and was on fire to continue. I had big goals for him this year that we weren't able to get to unfortunately. As you may also remember this was pretty upsetting for me as I love all of my horses and invest a lot of personal time and effort into them, it's not just a job for me. Therefore you can imagine my excitement being able to compete him again finally. I was so excited I was even EARLY! I can honestly say, and my students can attest to it, have NEVER been early in my life! Anyhow he won a third and was very happy to be back out as a show horse. Add to this I unexpectedly ran into a friend I haven't seen for a long time (Mary-Beth) and I had a great start to the show.

The best part of the day however was the performance of Cole. He typically finds the dressage very tough and we've been working extremely hard on it. Finally it's paying off with a 3rd at second level and a good score and a 1st in the CIC 2 Star test. For this I must thank EEM event management having the foresight to offer eventing tests of choice. It is SO useful to be able to get the eventers out to dressage to work on that phase alone. On that same page I also think it's important to compete in pure jumping as well which is exactly what I'm doing this week. Cole, Ti, Mario and I are heading to Raleigh SJ in NC. I went to this show last year and found it extremely useful as the courses are BIG and technical. And competing against showjumpers adds a whole new perspective that I love. An added bonus is that my showjump trainer, Marilyn Meredith-Little, will be there and will be able to offer invaluable feedback about my actual competition rounds.

Next week I'll have the round up from that show and hopefully some photos so please keep checking back in.

Finishing the year as we started, in the winners circle!

2010-11-08T11:10:00.000-08:00

Myself, Alex and Lisa in front of the novice 'brush of death', where despite her misgivings, Lisa survived. The boots are part of the team uniform.....

Rubicon Farm Horse Trials in VA was the venue for our last event of year and it was a great way to finish the year. My only ride, Queen of Pheoba, scored a winning 24 in the dressage finishing on that. She's a super mare and I hope that next year brings more success and ribbons for her. Alex MacLeod walked away win another win on the Ryan Wood trained, Railroad Man Jim. Actually walked away is an understatement, she ran away with the blue by 9.5 points. After posting a convincing lead after the dressage, 23, she added only xc time faults to her final score.

Lisa Kurr and Amy Gaynor also had successful starts with Lisa finishing a very close third on Cannyonleigh Sirecho and Amy coming from behind to finish 6th on her own Cindy Lou Who. Lisa did a fantastic job with Rocco, piloting him around for two double clears. Amy and Cindy looked like cross country pro's and are well and truly ready for the next level.

So that's eventing finished for the year and I'm already missing it!

All I have left is dressage with Mario and Cole then I'm heading to Raleigh, NC, for some showjumping in what will hopefully be warmer weather!

Halloween Weekend

2010-10-31T13:10:00.000-07:00

Halloween is a great time to dress up and be creative, which is what some of the more ambitious competitors at Loch Moy did. For Amanda Cross the fear they generated had more to do with Atlantis' perception of the Bumble Bee eating the grey horse it was sitting on than theoretical Zombies knocking on the door at midnight! That hurdle passed tho, she competed with great style (including the unscheduled gymnastics to begin the showjumping) finishing second. This event did include a first for me, I'd never heard a starter start a horse with 'Hi Ho Silver and AWAY'! I think this should be the norm... Gibby Booth entered the dressage with a great looking Laney completing the trot work in great fashion and even a seamless transition to canter. Unfortunately the transitions were too early and the penalties cost her dearly. Her cross country was great considering it's their first competition in a while. Kirsten Chicca and Cadet did very well winning after the dressage and show jumping, unfortunately Cadet stopped at one fence cross country, so she has something to work on there.

Beth Sokohl headed to the prestigious Area II championships this weekend on Bucky. After a sizzling cross country round and in a tough division they finished 7th overall. A great job and a good indication they may move up soon.

Next weekend is our last event of the year at Rubicon then it's dressage and show jumping for the rest of the year.

Alex and Jimmie win Waredaca!

2010-10-24T13:58:00.000-07:00

After retiring Arrow Alex MacLeod has kept up her incredibly successful with a win on her new horse Railroad Man Jim. As she has been doing all year she beat the professionals in an open division with a clear sj and a couple of time faults xc. Darcy Swain has also kept up her winning form taking home a blue ribbon at the BLM dressage championships.

While these guys were competing I had the pleasure of taking the weekend off to attend the wedding of my good friend, and fellow rider, Dom Schramm. His new wife, Jimmie Holotik, is also a rider and their wedding made a fair dent on the entries at Waredaca Horse Trials with Boyd Martin, Ryan Wood, Jennie Brannigan and myself prefering the wedding festivities to cantering around a field in Laytonsville! Also attending was Nicholas Fyffe who is currently living in Germany. Boyd, Nick, Ryan, Dom and myself spent years competing and training together in Australia and it's been a while since we've all been in the same place at the same time so we took the opportunity to have some down time and a couple of quiet beers.

Next up is for my horses is Rubicon although I do have some students going to VA HT next week.

Another winning weekend!

2010-10-19T09:45:00.001-07:00

This weekends winner was Darcy Swain with her wonderful coloured WB, Mozely. Finishing on her dressage score of 26 she convincingly won her class. The only person who could get close to her was Amy Gaynor and Cindy Lou Who with a 30 in the dressage. Clear xc and looking very careful show jumping, a minor pilot error (bypassing fence number 6) kept her out of the placings. However it's great to see Amys hard work paying off with Cindy, she's certainly been patient waiting for her success.

No competitions for me last weekend, I spent the time teaching and planning our winter move. Please express your interest to compete and train in Aiken, SC to Amy by email, amygaynor1@comcast.net.

WEGs and Loch Moy.

2010-10-12T05:42:00.000-07:00

World Equestrian Games! The biggest sporting event in the USA in 2010. And what an event it was! I only made it out for cross country day on the Saturday, driving overnight Friday to get there. Well worth the event to watch Boyd, Jock and Paul go around. I honestly think the Boyd and Jock rode the best rounds of the entire day, but I may be biased...... They other round I loved was Peter Atkins riding for Australia. What a great story, called up at the last minute to represent his country when Jester fell sick on the flight from Australia. Obviously the dressage is a work in progress but his cross country was inspirational to say the least!

This weekend I had Loch Moy Horse Trials in MD with Cole in the Intermediate, Ti and Phoebe in the training. All were great in the cross country but need work in the dressage. And with only one event left, dressage is what we'll be practising for the rest of the year. We are also going to be doing a fair amount of show jumping, competing in some of the shows in NC. This is exciting as it means Mario is back jumping and almost ready to start show jumping.

Horses, horsepower and more horses!

2010-09-26T12:56:00.000-07:00

Rege Dvorsky, Car and Steve Park, NASCAR driver.

Steve Park and I.

Now that the bigger shows of the year are winding up I have a little more free time, which I mostly fill with teaching, but I am also in a position to take advantage of some fantastic opportunities that come my one. One of which was this Friday, I attended my very first NASCAR race! Although to say I attended was a bit of an understatement. Rege Dvorsky (who owns Cole along with Jeanne Leonne) arranged for us (working student, Kaden Weaver, included) to have the whole experience including a tour of the pits and car trailers. I thought riding an event horse was costly and involved a big team, these guys make us look like nothing! Their trailers are semis, they have a crew of 5 working on the car in the pits, then there are the guys who build the engine, put it together, make repairs, marketing the list goes on! Although the tour was fun, the most exciting thing for me was to meet the driver, Steve Park. I love meeting other sports people, I always come away with the knowledge that, although the tools (horses, cars, bikes, swimming pool) are different , the attitude must be the same. And that is focus, attention to detail, focus, accurate input, focus, trustable support crew and FOCUS! So I loved the experience in more ways than one, thank you Rege and Jeanne for the whole experience.

To top off a great couple of days yesterday I attended the Columbia Classic Showjumping at the invitation of Patrick and Jill McCuan. Again another top level sport that isn't my own that was a huge amount of fun to watch. It was also great to have Heather Petit (my barn manager) and Paula Bollinger (Sunset Hill farms manager) joining us at the table, certainly made for an educational and enjoyable afternoon. Thank you Pat and Jill.

In the last two weekends we had three shows. Beth Sokohl won the training division at Marlborough in great style, Cole was 15th at Plantation at the international, improving on his Bromont performance and this weekend Lisa Kurr won the Greystone Combined Test on Rocco. There are more results to come so keep posted!

2010-09-15T17:20:00.000-07:00

Jerry showing the American horses how Australian horses buck!

After a mammoth journey taking in the length of Australia, the breadth of America and THREE countries, Jerry has arrived! Some unfortunate truck related issues cut short my trip to the AEC's (somewhere around Virginia) where I was to pick him up. Luckily Courtney Cooper (of C Square Farm) was able to transport him back to her farm where I picked him up. Let me recap his journey from the middle of nowhere in Australia to the horse hub of America, Maryland.

Brisbane to Melbourne via road - 22 hours

Melbourne to LA via air - 15 hours

LA to Georgia via road - 42 hours

Georgia to Pennsylvania via road - 14 hours

Pennsylvania to Maryland via road - 2 hours

So it's understandable that when I turned him out he wasn't quite sure if this is in fact his new home! The only reason I think he trusted me is because I have a familiar accent.. He'll have a few days off while I'm at Plantation CIC then it'll be on with the training and who knows what lies ahead for him!

2010-08-31T16:56:00.001-07:00

Cole and I in full flight.

It was a case of do as I say, not as I do this weekend at Loudoun Horse Trials. Fortunately my students are good listeners and Alex MacLeod went on to win her second Intermediate this year aboard Arrow. She was also second in the Training with her new horse, Jimmy. Kelsey Schmidbeaur had a gratifying weekend on Marrakesh. Kesh has been giving her all sorts of problems from being anything but submissive in the dressage to stop half way around the cross country and refusing to move in any direction except for up. Not only did she get him around but she won the dressage on a score of 27 and clear showjumping and cross country. Titanium went well for me coming 5th finishing on his dressage score. Unfortunately I made a mistake at one combination in the cross country on Cole which cost us 20 penalties. Completely rider error. I chose at that point it was better for his confidence to head home and leave it for another day.

Next we have Seneca followed by the AEC's in Georgia than Plantation CIC.

2010-08-17T13:24:00.001-07:00

Our new mirrors!!

Whilst the past two weeks of competitions haven't been memorable (horses just learning their jobs and a couple of minor rider errors) there has certainly been a lot of action! Most excitingly Jerry has made it to California where he'll spend the next three weeks with Dom Schramm being started. He had a long flight and all thanks to IRT for their professionalism and care of the horses. Cole is also finding another gear in his dressage so I'm hopeful that he'll do us proud at Loudoun in a couple of weeks. Other big news is that Mario has shown considerable improvement to his leg and is now in medium work! He's also now allowed to have turnout which makes my life easier, I'm not his only outlet for exercise, which means now hopefully he can leave his airs above the ground for out in the field!

As you know I have two bases, Taylormade Stables and Sunset Hill Farm. Taylormade has the best surface I've seen in any barn in MD or America for that matter! Sunset Hill has great arenas and awesome facilities but we've been working very hard on the footing to make it the best in America. We have pretty well succeeded with the upper ring after much work from the guys. Another improvement to Sunset has been the addition of gigantic mirrors to the indoor arena courtesy of Mr Micheal Matson. This is a great relief for me as I LOVE looking at myself in the mirror! And of course it helps with checking on my horses progress, frame, position etc....

Sadly for me Alex Curtiss is off to the University of Pennsylvania studying to become a vet so I'm looking for a replacement. Please contact me for further information.

Newest Australian member to our team.

2010-08-08T15:45:00.000-07:00

Rocco and I on the plane when we arrived 2 years ago (next to him is one of Boyd Martin's horses, they travelled together from Sydney-Melbourne-Aukland-LA-Newark.).

In Australia I have some horses that I have bred using some of the best Australian and European bloodlines. The focus is producing jumping and dressage horses. Jerry (by Regardez Moi out of the 3/4 sister to Centaur) is the first to make the trip to the U S of A! And what a trip it is.

22 hours Brisbane to Melbourne by road.

2 days in sunny Melbourne.

20 hours Melbourne to LA by air.

3 days quarantine.

3 weeks with Dom Schramm being.

44 hours to GA via Texas.

14 hours to MD!

He's currently unbroken and let a very idyllic existence in country Queensland where his friends have been cows and kangaroos! By the time he gets to me he'll have seen 3 countries (Australia, New Zealand and USA), travelled the length of Australia and the width of America! He's flying with IRT (the same company Rocco came with) who are accustomed to transporting million dollar t/b's all over the world and take excellent care of their cargo. Obviously I'm super excited and can't wait, I've already planned the rest of his year. It's sad for my mum who raised him but it's time for him to have a job.

On the competition front we have Waredaca, Loudoun then we head to the American Eventing Championships in Georgia.

2010-08-02T13:57:00.000-07:00

The hot humid weather doesn't slow us down but it does mean some early starts. In the best interests of the horses (and people) we've been starting at 5.30 to avoid working the horses in the hottest part of the day. The exceptions are of course competitions. Maryland HT I and II went very well for us with Cowboy, Phoebe, Key, Cole and Kesh all putting in good performances. Cole's dressage is definitely on the improve, posting a 37, he's really trying hard and the work is paying off. Finally! Olney farm held their annual horse trials this past weekend, I had 4 rides, Pheobe (4th), Cowboy, Cindy (3rd) and Key (7th).

The other competition this weekend was the National Young Riders Championships held in Lexington, KY. Alex MacLeod riding Arrow was selected to ride for Area II and and put in a fine performance. She was selected to be the first rider, trail blazer, and report back to aid the rest of the team. Her and Arrow made short work of the cross country, finding it well within their abilities and training. The only thing she had to report back to her team mates was to be aware of the placement of the roping. She unfortunately found herself on the WRONG side at one point and lost some time finding her way back. In the show jumping she showed everyone how it's done by posting one of only two clear rounds in the competition. Well done Alex, we're all proud of you!

Summer riding.

2010-07-08T17:38:00.000-07:00

Cole galloping cross country showing his super athleticism.

For me summer is a very busy time with a lot of riding and competing, mostly with young horses starting out. When it's so hot it is difficult for the horses to work effectively so start riding at 5.30 am so they can still have their regular work routines. Then I finish around 1pm and start back at about 5 or 6 teaching. I won't say what I do in the middle part of the day but the words 'tan', 'pool' and 'sleep' all spring to mind! Cole is back in work after Bromont and training VERY hard in the dressage arena. The deal is if he goes on the bit and moves like a warmblood I'll give him an entire bag of carrots! We're still in the negotiating stage at this point, I may have to up it to two bags of carrots.... In all seriousness he is definitely improving with both his submission and paces. He can be so frustrating being that he is so athletic and has such a great temperament, he just mentally needs to figure it out. It's fairly new to him so I believe he'll still work thru it. Jumping wise he's more than ready for the intermediate level, we just need the darn dressage!

Loch Moy I and II are the next couple of weekends with Dressage at Lexington next Friday as well. So we are busy busy.

Mario's continued recouperation.

2010-06-16T07:55:00.000-07:00

Mario's new BFF, Brenda. (temporary till he gets back to Paula!)

The roller is to keep his attention away from jumping the edge of the water. I will DEFINITELY take it off when we go cross country again, I love when he jumps the edge of the water...

Mario showing his love of the water. Especially now he's figured out how to go into it!

A couple of days before going to Canada Patrick McCuan (Mario's owner), Paula Bollinger (Mario's manager) and I travelled up to Nor Mar Farm, Freeland MD, to check on Mario's progress. As you can see from the pictures he's a pretty happy horse! Despite a couple hiccups in the beginning, (Mario showing everyone just how great a jumper he is by trying to jump the WHOLE pool!) he's settled in super and is hard at work. He's currently up to 12 minutes in the water on the treadmill which is enough to give him a solid workout where he's really puffed out by the end. The injury is healing just as Dr Cooper expected it to and we are now starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. He'll now be there for another 6 weeks and be rescanned, at which point hopefully he'll be ready to come back and start some work (trotting) under saddle. This will be very controlled exercise and will be timed down to the minute to optimise his recovery.

Bromont Wrap Up

2010-06-16T05:46:00.000-07:00

Cole was his normal brilliant self cross country, showing me that he is definate intermediate/advanced material, by understanding all the questions and jumping boldly and carefully. The only place I wanted to improve was the way he gallped up the hill. I wanted a slower pace but he was more interested in going fast. I knew the hill was long and he would run out of energy but at some point I had to make the decision whether to let him gallop freely or argue with him to go slower. Arguing can often take just as much away from the horse so I let him gallop on. He was right on his minute markers until the last 1 1/2 minutes wher he did tire.

The show jumping caused a lot of trouble so I was happy with his round even tho he had a couple of rails. The course was big and technical with a lot of changing direction. Add to this the atmosphere and it was easy to have a rail or two, esp on a horse that hasn't had exposure to this type of event. All in all I was very proud of my horse and the way he handled himself. He felt as tho he grew up a lot, in a way that they only can by going to the big competitions. We are no going to focus really hard on the dressage with him and then back out again at Loch Moy in July.

On a side note, there are still some things that remind me I live in America. Like the crossing of the border. EG, the only way I knew we left America and arrived in Canada (expect the guards who look at the papers) was that the roadsigns changed from English to French! On the way back, however, there was NO doubt we were heading back into America!

Bromont CCI Day 2

2010-06-10T14:45:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I have to remind myself that eventing is not a dressage competition, which is what I have to do today! Cole's not a dressage horse by any means and is getting stronger and stronger in that phase but he struggles quite a lot to maintain the quality of paces we're able to achieve schooling. His test was great in places and not so great in others. Let's just say that hopefully his great jumping abilities keep him on that score and he finishes there..

Bromont CCI Day 1

2010-06-09T15:51:00.000-07:00

Cole, me and Alex and Charmer

A bit of background about Bromont three day event, it's in Canada. And it's where they held the 1976 Montreal Olympics. This much I did find out in my research of the event and venue. What my research failed to uncover, however, is that it is in the french province of Quebec and that they speak french. I do not. This is some cause for confusion when after 13 hours of driving we cross the border and all the road signs are in french! They only thing I could figure out from them is that the French/Canadian deer have bigger antlers judging by the pictures on the signs. It only got more interesting, when we hit the town of Bromont, trying to locate the venue and talk to the limited-english speaking guard to find our stalls at 1 o'clock in the morning, when the horses had been standing on the trailer for 14 hours, is not fun. Fortunately the all travelled well and we were able to settle them relatively quickly and head to the hotel for some much appreciated sleep.

With me I have Alex Curtiss, young rider champion, with her mare Charmer, and Leslie Chelmstrom with her mare Cecelia. Cole (Collection Pass, Rege Dvorsky and Jeanne Leonne) is in heaven with his two girlfriends and has been in a super mood ever since we got here. Today was the trot up which I find nerve wrecking having been spun in the past. Today Cole was fine and trotted on thru. The organisers have done a great job with putting together this event to make it run as smoothly as possible for the riders. A very rider friendly event. Tomorrow will be the dressage and I will update further then.

Waredaca eventing

2010-06-02T21:15:00.000-07:00

What a great weekend! A super win by Meghan Avella riding her own Fantastik. Alex MacLeod posting the BEST rounds in the intermediate, finishing 5th in a class on a par with the Rolex, and Chaney beating most of the professionals in the Beginner Novice! Cole (Rege Dvorsky and Jeanne Leonne) had a perfect last run before Bromont CCI 1 star, 36 in the dressage, a showjumping round that needs some improvement and perfect xc!

2010-05-24T11:37:00.000-07:00

Cindy and Amy in the rain...

Continuing my personal training is very important to me as it helps me become a better rider and trainer. Last week I took Cole and Lois to Boyd Martin for some jump training, this weekend I rode both of them with dressage trainer Brendan Curtis. Both horses are completely different rides and it was great to work on their strengths and weaknesses. Lois was great, she's very rewarding as she learns quickly. We worked on getting her softer laterally and developing under saddle the great paces she naturally has. Cole is a different story. We worked very hard on showing off the paces he has by encouraging him to use his back legs a LOT more than is natural for him. He's still figuring out if he likes the whole dressage thing, cross country is much more his style! I think he's growing to enjoy it tho, he doesn't try to spin around anymore so I figure that's progress! Amy Gaynor competed with Cindy in their first event (unrec) and went super with a clear cross country and just one rail in the sj. Now the pressure's on me with her at Waredaca on the weekend!

Fair Hill

2010-05-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

Last weeks eventing was at Fair Hill in northern MD. I rode Cole (Rege Dvorsky and Jeanne Leonne), Cowboy (Amy Taggart) and Pheobe (Jane Gilbert)with all three posting confident, happy clear rounds. Phoebe and Cowboy both ended up on 3rd each in their respective divisions with both of them having a rail each. I do have to draw attention to their dressage scores with both of them acheiving a personal best, Cowboy on a 27! And Phoebe on a 29! I'm enjoying both of these horses progress as they move thru the levels. The highlight of my day tho was Cole having his first start back since injury his foot. While he was healing he was unable to leave the prepared surface of our ring (although he still was able to work) with the exception of just one cross country session (limited). Therefore it was a HUGE relief to me that find that he still remembers how to jump! He jumped a super clear show jumping round, one of few, and jumped beautifully around the cross country. The most exciting thing tho was that his foot held up and he was SO happy to be back. Next for us is Waredaca next weekend. This weekend I am holding a mini clinic for my students to practice their jumping rounds.

2010-05-13T08:59:00.000-07:00

Lois Lane Photo by Pixel Perfect Photography

MacKenzie and Inky

I have been a little slow on my posts recently due to a Laptop malfunction. The malfunction was caused by one of two things, either it was my downloading of songs with viruses (but I really really NEEDED the new Lady Gaga song NOW!), or my ADD and complete lack of patience (leading to too many windows open too often) confusing my poor computer leading ultimately to a mental breakdown (by both myself and the computer). I'm very good at riding, teaching and planning programs for people and horses, not so good with technological stuff so this took a little while to resolve. In the meantime we've continued to be very busy with myself and my students having varying degrees of success. Lois is now training level which she stepped up to nicely at MCTA, but she needs a lot of work to consolidate how she feels about it. Abby Gibbon did a great job by winning the Training at MCTA. Cowboy (Amy Taggart) won a 6th place at Plantation, Alex MacLeod rode a lovely double clear on West Side Story. I had a successful ride on Jane Gilbert's mare, Queen of Pheba. This was my first competition on Phoebe and she also stepped up a level. She was super in the dressage, great cross country. Unfortunately we had a little issue in the show jumping that is now resolved. This weekend I'm very excited to have Collection Pass (Rege Dvorsky and Jeanne Leonne) back in action at Fair Hill. I also have Cowboy and Phoebe going.

As I mentioned in my last update I'm very focused on my students at the moment and am very excited particularly with the progress of Amy Gaynor's horse Cindy. Amy has worked very hard with her competing her at local show's to help the horse get used to competing in a low pressure environment. Now we're getting closer and closer to her first actual event which is looking super exciting! The other thing that's been very exciting is the selection of MacKenzie Taylor on the World Games squad for mounted games!!! Mack is not one of my students, she is the daughter who of Robert and Kathy who own (one of) my fantastic base Taylormade. Mack has been so focused and practiced extremely hard in order to make the squad (it's for under 17's and she's 14) so it's pleasing and inspirational to see how it's paid off. The other cool thing about this is that her pony, Inky, is a rescue and had been left basically to fend for herself and couple of years ago as a horse no one wanted. Now she's on the American games squad to compete at the World Games! Doesn't get much better than that!

Some days are better than others......

2010-04-20T21:21:00.000-07:00

I have one of the most amazing jobs in the world for which I am truly grateful. Generally I wake up in the morning and jump out of bed excited by what the day has to offer, excited by my horses and my students. Generally I can't wait to see what the day has to offer, it's super usually. Generally I can go for months without a day off and not even miss it. Generally my days are filled with huge steps towards achieving my dreams and goals, thanks to my owners and hard work. Then there are the days when I shouldn't have gotten out of bed. These don't happen often but I had a couple this week with three of my best horses having injuries or issues. One more serious than the other but all cause for concern. Cole had a serious overreach in Aiken that possibly needed closer attention at the time. Fortunately with some new shoes and a week off he should still be all systems go for Bromont. Boo is off to a new life as a hunter. Even more upsetting than that is that Mario is on hiatus thru an unexpected and unavoidable injury to one of his front legs. As the saying goes tho 'as one door closes another one opens' or 'up shit creek without a paddle'. Luckily for me tho another door opened and I found a paddle!

Mario is getting great at the dressage, obviously amazing in show jumping and figured out the cross country but we not matter how fast we go we can't make time. This is a problem that can be addressed in a few ways. With his injury we have the opportunity to approach it laterally with aqua therapy. Mario is one of the loves of my life (along with Lois, Cole, Danny, Winny and Legs) but even I have to admit he's more pony in shape than horse which obviously makes fitness tough. Aqua therapy, as the name suggests, involves water exercise. Also included is an under water treadmill, all fascinating to the average observer but to me it's the perfect opportunity to improve Mario's fitness and streamline his profile. So basically this injury will offer us the chance to improve him further and add another piece to the puzzle that is the event horse. So for the next few months whilst Mario is recovering and Cole is improving his foot I will be waking up thinking about how to best improve my favourite horse's fitness after which it'll be back to waking up full steam ahead to our goals with this massive mountain in the road being a bump in the rear view mirror. Thankfully Lois is the star of the show by being a typical mare and showing the boys up! Go mare power!

Plantation Fields

2010-04-11T19:41:00.000-07:00

Mario enjoying his 'show stabling'! I luckily was able to stable my horses overnight at one of the most beautiful farms in PA. This meant they were able to walk around a grass filled paddock all night rather than stuck in a 10 by 10.

I love many facets of my job and this weekend displayed yet another. I got to spend the entire weekend in Unionville, PA aka Horse Heaven! I challenge you to find a more ideal or beautiful area for our fantastic sport of eventing. I only had three horses from my barn at this event but they all did us proud. Very excitingly for me Mario charged around the cross country full of confidence and knowledge of his job. Just some time faults relegating us to 8th. All that's left now is to teach him to gallop. Cole did super with me being very conservative with him and going really slow. He still ended up 14th. The dressage is still a weakness for him but I feel as tho it's only another 2 shows before it clicks for him. And after a poor performance at Morven Park which included a fall, Alex MacLeod excelled herself by winning the prelim (Australian CNC 1 star). After winning Full Gallop intermediate then falling at Morven Park we made the decision to drop her down a level just to reinforce and strengthen the basics we train week in and week out. Obviously this proved to be the right thing to do and she's next headed to Loudoun in two weeks. Cole, Mario and Lois are all going to Loudoun with me. But next on the schedule is Redlands with a bunch of my students and then Culpepper showjumping with Cole and Mario. Perhaps we can we some real money!

2010-04-05T16:07:00.000-07:00

As with all sports, perhaps even more so, eventing is a sport that requires a large team who are visible and not so visible. Even tho it's my name on the website I'm probably the most disposable in the equation! Ever heard the expression 'no foot, no horse'? That's right, without a farrier who knows what he's doing I don't have a sound horse to compete on. Luckily there's Joe Hubschmann. Without a vet to keep them healthy I don't have a horse to compete on. Luckily there's Damascus Equine and Dr Cooper Williams. Without a barn manager to feed the horses and keep things straight I don't have a horse to compete on. Luckily theres's Paula Bollinger, Kathy Taylor and Heather. Without a manager to organise me I wouldn't have the chance to ride the lovely horses I'm lucky enough to ride. Luckily there's Amy Gaynor! Without a working student the horses wouldn't have the attention they get. Luckily I have Kaden Weaver. And obviously, without the owners I have I wouldn't HAVE any horses to ride. Luckily there's Patrick McCuan, The MacLeod family, Rege Dvorsky and Jeanne Leonne, Nancy Dick, Judy Salmon, Amy Taggart and the list goes on. And obviously without my students I would have noone to tell me I'm good! I rather noone to bring me back down to my place! Luckily I have some of the best students in the world. Also the volunteers that make the events run are integral people in the sport. Without them we wouldn't have a sport. We compete most weeks in the year which involves different horses and riders all needing to be prepared to go to different shows in eventing/dressage and show jumping year round. Trailers need to be packed and unpacked. Stalls need to be mucked, horses need to come in and go out, they need to be fed, plaited, washed, groomed, have their manes pulled. Gear needs to be cleaned, aisles need to be swept. The list goes on! And on! Each horse and rider have a show schedule and creating my weekly schedule is a job all of it's own! So please take the time to appreciate all the stuff behind the scenes that goes into watching that one horse go around cross country. Or do a dressage test.

On a different note some of my students attended a couple of shows over the weekend. Amy Gaynor won on her new mare, Cindy. This was a fantastic job as she has only had her a short period of time. Kelsy Schmidbuear won Champion 3' 6" jumper and Meghan Avella was Reserve Champion. Kaden was reserve champion on Amy Taggarts horse Cowboy. Abby Gibbon did well on her mare as well. Glenda Player and her students also had a good weekend. And MOST excitingly of all Lisa Kurr had her first start back on the fabulous Rocco after a series of unfortunate injuries last year. She came 3RD!!!!! This was a huge step back into the ring and I was super psyched for her!

Back to MD

2010-03-29T20:40:00.000-07:00

Most of the last ten days involved moving my team from Aiken, SC, back to Damascus, MD. Not an easy task by any means. Mostly it means I sit in my truck dodging drivers on the 95 north and south. This is between using my ipod as entertainment and arguing with Kaden as to what colour the sky is! I still managed to compete at Southern Pines, NC, and Morven Park, MD, with great results. Morven Park is the first event back up in this area and can mean variable weather conditions. Fortunately for Cole and Lois, the horses I was riding, the footing and weather were absolutely perfect! Lo was 3rd in a tightly contested class, Cole 8th after a super cross country round. This horse is a super jumping horse and is aimed at Bromont three day event in June. Alex MacLeod had her young horse in the novice finishing fifth, a good result. In the intermediate she unfortunately lost a bet with me as to who would be the first to inflate the air vest. She took a tumble which resulted in no injury to her or Arrow, just a little bruised pride and a look back at the drawing board. Tricia Tripp had a super weekend winning the Beg Novice in fine style. I actually think she shouldn't have been allowed in that class due to the competitiveness of her and her horse!

Last weekend in Aiken

2010-03-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

The last weekend finished with a couple of highs and lows, the highs being Lois Lane finishing on her dressage score which kept her in 3rd. I just love this mare, she just tries so hard and showed a lot of improvement by scoring a 31 this weekend. Her class cross countried before they showjumped which works great for me, I always know she's going to jump clear. Alex MacLeod competed in her first intermediate on Arrow and did her best which turned out to be better than anyone else. 1st in her first intermediate is an awesome effort! Particularly as she has just about the busiest schedule of anyone I've ever met by juggling competitive hockey and her last year of school. Not to mention her young horse that she trains and having to travel down to SC from MD each weekend in order to compete. That takes a lot of focus and dedication. Chaney Taggart completed her first event on Titanium with a great result by finishing on her dressage score which meant she ended up second. She's another who's juggling school and riding and has been very diligent with the limited rides she was able to get on Ty due to the fact he was in Aiken. Brittany Meyer has also been going well ending up 2nd today on her own Parker.

Back to Pine Top

2010-03-05T20:11:00.000-08:00

So after a snowy Pine Top we were happy to go back there and find the sun shining and NO snow! Pine Top Advanced Horse Trials is widely considered to be a very tough and prestigious event with only only classes offered being preliminary (CNC 1 star, Australia), intermediate (CNC 2 star, Australia) and advanced (CNC3 star, Australia). The entry list reads like a who's who of Olympic and World Championship riders and horses who are using this as the beginning of their World Equestrian Games preparation. Accordingly the courses are built to height and quite complicated. I had three horses competing, Mario (Patrick McCuan), Collection Pass (Rege Dvorsky and Jeanne Leonne) and Canyonleigh Sirecho (Lisa Kurr). In the past six months I've been working very hard on my showjumping and it shows, three clear rounds. Indeed this year I've had just 3 rails in about 20 or more rounds. Alex MacLeod, student, also jumped clear. Onto to the reason we event, the cross country!

Walking the course kind of made me a little sick, not just because I had to walk so far and I'm not good at physical exercise, because each jump was BIG and WIDE! This doesn't bother me normally but my three horses where green (Cole) or competing at that level for the first time in a long time, Rocco (1 year) and Mario (6 months), I get a bit scared! After the big jumps then it got quite technical with a bounce up a bank to an apex, one stride into the water followed by a one stride out of the water. As I was walking the course with Alex we made the worrying observation that at least half of the course was in the intermediate course from two weeks earlier. Luckily for me my horses are great jumpers therefore I had three clear rounds that were practically perfect and left me feeling on top of the world! This was topped only by Alex's ride which was also clear, a great feeling for her as that was her last prelim before going intermediate next weekend. I can honestly say I love the four horses we had at Pine Top, each one of them has a huge heart and tried their absolute best.

Unfortunately our experiences were not shared by everyone with 16 falls, a few of them being very bad. We wish Jan Byyny and Rebecca Howard the best in their road to recovery. I also want to thank Jan for some extremely useful advice on the best riding technique for Mario in the week before Pine Top. Jan imported Mario from Ireland and fortunately sold him to his current owners and has some tactics pretty specific to him that make him even more of a dream ride than normal.

Today I rode Mario and Lois at a AA rated show with Mario jumping super finishing 3rd and 4th. We had the fastest round in the biggest class but had a couple of rails that relegated us to fourth. This makes a difference from us having the clear jump off with the third fastest time. I enjoy show jumping competitions a lot and a grateful to be riding a horse that makes me competitive in that field. Alex rode Alex and did amazing in the biggest class to end up third. Lois (Carla MacLeod)jumped in the 1.05m class with just one rail, she showed a tonne of heart and I had a huge smile on my face when we finished, I just love her!

Photos will come up soon. Take care of yourselves and your horses.

2010-02-16T11:38:00.001-08:00

I have to stop talking about the weather I think because I seem to jinx each competition I go to! I've ridden in all types of conditions from extreme heat and humidity in Australia, drought, torrential downpours, thunderstorms, cold, winds and since I've been in America I've even ridden dressage on ice. About the only thing left was snow and now, at Pine Top GA, it seems I've checked that one off the list! After a hectic morning competing at Highfields Showjumping (were Lois won) I headed off to Pine Top with Alex MacLeod (young rider) to walk the cross country course for the weekend. It started snowing on the drive over and didn't let up until we'd had about 6 inches. The competition was delayed for a few hours and the organisers did an amazing job to keep the event running. By Sunday (for the cross country) most of the snow had melted but there was still some to gallop through and snow on the jumps. So despite the challenging conditions we still did very well with all three of my horses winning ribbons, Cole 2nd in the Prelim/Training and Mario 3rd. Mario's placing was contriversial given that he was first after the dressage and cross country and show jumped clear. There was an error on behalf on the jumping judge which rendered him third. I'm still proud of his efforts however, despite the fact he didn't bring home the blue ribbon.

Chaney Taggart made the trip down for the weekend worthwhile by doing a couple of good rounds and the PSJ show and by winning the Progressive Jumper class.

2010-02-11T00:00:00.000-08:00

Sporting Days One Day Event was on Sunday, our third in five events within two weeks, and it was a successful one. Brittany, one of my working pupils, was second in the novice and Boo jumped clear around his first prelim (Australian CNC 1 star). When I say he jumped clear I mean he jumped AMAZING! I love him as a cross country horse, I doubt there are any better than him! Dressage is his area for improvement... Mario did great in the dressage again scoring a 28, a new high for him. I didn't run him cross country as he is going again this weekend and I don't need him to be injured. Onto Full Gallop II and Lois was second in the novice, Ty sixth as well. Both horses improved greatly ont their scores from last week, respectively scoring 32 and 33 in the dressage phases. Both then finished on those scores. Brittany went above and beyond duty by winning! Such a super job in the dressage and show jumping followed by an almost perfect round cross country.

To say this event was cold is a GROSS understatement! I was wearing two jumpers, a long sleeve shirt and a big jacket and was STILL cold! Somehow Aiken hasn't turned on it's best for us.....

I want to give a huge thank you to my owners and students who stay dedicated throughout the year and give me a tremendous amount of joy! Basically what I' saying is, thanks for letting me hang out down south. Enjoy the MD snow!

Whatever the weather, where ever you are in this big wide world, enjoy yourself and your horses! Kate.

Full Gallop Farm.

2010-02-05T12:49:00.000-08:00

Lois and Titanium had their first eventing starts of the year mid week at Full Gallop Farm. In fact it was Ty's first eventing start ever and he excelled finishing on his dressage score in 5th place! Lois came 7th and Rocco was 8th in the training. Brittany did great as well coming 3rd in the novice with Jess Jones' Forbidden Colours. Rocco's next start will be Pine Top prelim next weekend. This weekend we're off to Sporting Days with Boo and Mario in the prelim. Brittany is taking her own horse, Parker in the novice.

This is a super busy couple of weeks for us and we're run off our feet!

Eventing off to a great start.

2010-01-31T16:53:00.000-08:00

Not sure what it is with me and the rain but almost EVERY competition I've done in the last year has involved rain... This weekend was no disappointment with sub freezing conditions for the dressage and show jumping. I had four horses Collection Pass, McCuan Mario, Rhythm and Blues and Canyonleigh Sirecho. Mario scored a very satisfying 29 in the dressage, Cole 34 and Rocco 35. All four show jumped clear in their own styles and techniques. Sunday was better weather, and by better weather I mean the sun came out.. There was however still ice in the water jump, not very inviting! All cross countried clear with Mario taking it very slow due to the wet conditions and the fact I wanted to school his brakes! Cole ended up 3rd, Mario 8th, Rocco 4th and Boo 10th.

Then it was a quick trip back to the barn to ride Ti and Lois who are competing on Wednesday then a dash (there may have been some speeding laws broken) to the airport so I could get back to Maryland to teach on Monday. A team can only be as effective as the team members. Brittany Meyer's organisational skills and motivational force make the day to day operations run exceptionally smoothly. This Wednesday Ti and Lois are competing at Full Gallop with me and Brittany is riding Forbidden Colours. Please check back for photos and possibly video in a couple of days. Enjoy the cold! Or heat if you're in Australia!

Show season starts with a super weekend!

2010-01-17T20:28:00.000-08:00

What a great start to the year! On Friday and Sunday I took advantage of the 'AA' rated show jumping competition held in Aiken to test our horses to see where we stand at the beginning of the year. These show can be invaluable guides for the horses schooling, fitness and also for the rider to get back into the swing of things. I rode Cole, Titanium, Mario and Lois on Friday while Brittany Meyer rode Parker and Keifer. Despite the fact that this is the first show for these horses in a while they all jumped very well, particularly the babies Lois and Titanium. I was very proud of Brittany who had an outstanding performance winning a class on Parker. The mini prix was on Sunday and the weather deteriorated quite badly until we were competing in fairly sloppy conditions, in spite of the best efforts of the organisers to improve. Luckily for me Mario was as happy as a duck in water with the conditions and jumped two fantastic clear rounds! There were few clear rounds so even with a conservative jump off (we need to school those) we ended up third. So like I said, I great start to the year! We know the areas we need to improve and had some very positive rounds. I'm back in Maryland teaching early this week so Brittany is holding the fort and keeping everything running smoothly in SC. Please take the time to check out the video from Mario's Mini Prix.

Sunny South!

2010-01-12T17:33:00.000-08:00

For me as soon as the snow starts to fall it's time to leave beautiful Maryland and head to the warmer climate of Aiken, South Carolina. So after Christmas in Australia with my family and a stay with my mum we packed up the horses, dogs and people and hit Interstate 95. After doing the trip twice in one week we are now happily settled with the horses enjoying the sun and sand, the dogs enjoying the change of scenery and the humans enjoying seeing the thermometer find it's way past the teens. Pine Ridge (where we're staying) is a fantastic facility with a big jumping arena, super dressage arena with full length mirrors, sandy trotting track and great hacking. This is also Kadi Eykamps winter base with her team. Mario (Patrick McCuan), Cole(Rege Dvorsky), Boo(Robin Doser) and Lois(Joe and Krista Hubschman) along with Rocco (Lisa Kurr) and Titanium (Chaney Taggart) are all starting their competition season here. Brittany Meyer is with me working for three months and has two horses, her own Parker and Jess Jones' cute paint Keifer.

My first competition is this Friday with the PSJ jumping series held at Highfields followed by a Mini-Prix on Sunday. I'll post some pictures in the next couple of days so keep checking back for more updates.

Showjumping in Raleigh

2009-11-14T08:24:00.001-08:00

Rocco

Mario

Collection Pass

The year has finished as it begun, jumping in the rain!! Kaden and I made the 6 hour drive south on 95 to Raleigh for the RMI Benefit Show with Canyonliegh Sirecho, McCuan Maio and Collection Pass. This was my first show on Cole and I was exciteda and anxious to see how he'd perfom. Owned by Rege Dvorsky and Jeanne Leone, he's only been in my barn a couple of weeks. After an intersting warmup that involved tarpulins and crazy horses he jumped a super first round. I'm really impressed with his talent and 'can do' attitude and am excited to see where he's headed in the future. Rocco jumped consistently and was happy to be jumping in front of a crowd, such a show off! Mario was a bit of a star jumping four great rounds with rider error (my toe kicked a standard knocking it over) to be blamed for one less ribbon. The show was a great way to finish the year, I feel as tho I'm riding really well. For the next six weeks before I head to Aiken I'll be working hard to have the horses prepared for next season.

2009-10-26T17:18:00.000-07:00

Well both the dressage and eventing seasons are coming to a close with the Greater American Insurance Agency (GAIG's) Championships the last of the dressage and Rubicon the last of the eventing. Tony did very well at the GAIG's finishing third which was awesome. He's come a long way in a short space of time and obviously I'm very proud him! Also this weekend was Waredaca One Day Event where I had several students competing including Kaden Weaver on Rocco. This was Kaden's first event in America and he got the call up after Lisa suffered an unfortunate injury. Competing one of my favourite students horse and in front of a crowd (solicited by me..!) of onlookers provided him with enough pressure to keep him on his toes and he finished on his dressage score coming third. Another student to finish the year on a great note was Meghan Avella riding Fantastic. After a tumultuous year she ended up with a well deserved second place.

This coming weekend I am teaching a jumping clinic and the following weekend is Rubicon which will signal the end of the recognised competitions. Over winter we'll compete in some local jumper shows to keep our eyes in, so to speak, and in January head south to Aiken, SC. Hope all is well with your horses and that your year has been as fun and successful as mine!

2009-10-15T18:49:00.000-07:00

Lisa with Rocco, Kaden on Lucy, myself and Brittany on board Parker, aka Parkman.

After winning on the first day at the BLM's we finished the second day with a 2nd place at 2nd level. First day, 1st, second day 2nd. A theme happening there..... Think I'll only ever ride on the FIRST day again! Tony was good, trying hard as he always does, he was just a little tired. Kelsey Schmidbauer had a great weekend finishing 9th at Loch Moy. Glenda Player as did very well winning Champion at the Irish Sport Horse Breeder Championship in Lexington, Va.

This week has mostly involved teaching and catching up on cross country schooling. Yesterday we had a lovely day in the ,albeit cold, sunshine with Brittany on Kiefer and Parker, Kaden on Lucy and Lisa with Rocco. Today wasn't so pleasurable in the cold rain with myself on Lois, Glenda on Catnip, Alex on Wes and Kaden on Lucy(again). As was successful with no one falling off and all the horses improving.

This weekend we're off to the New Jersey Horse Trials in what looks to be wet conditions which suits me just fine. I love competing in the rain, that's what real eventing's all about! Next week I have the GAIG dressage finals to look forward to with Tony.

BLM Championships

2009-10-10T05:09:00.000-07:00

Tony was fantastic today competing at 3rd level (medium in Australia). He warmed up awesome and was great in his first test. Perfect rhythm, very obedient and tried extremely hard. He was first in that test and then for the next next he was a little on the tired side and wasn't active as he had been in the first test. Still has good even to finish in the ribbons and give us a victory lap! Dressage victory laps are very sedate for those who don't know. . . Today we have two more tests and I'm very excited with how they will go.

Update.

2009-10-08T20:51:00.000-07:00

So much has happened since my last update. About 25 shows (a slight exageration!) and a lot of training. Firstly I didn't quite have the show at the AEC's that I'd been anticipating. Mario had gone beautifully at Loudoun and I was all set to take my blue ribbon in Chicago, unfortunately he had different ideas. After his best dressage test ever to leave us in touch with the leader all we had to do was finish on that score and we'd have it in the bag. Apparently Mario has an allergy to either blue ribbons or bank complexes. So long story short it was a long drive home thinking of the would have, could have beens. On the bright side my student Abby Gibbon finished on her dressage score at her first ever American Championships. So back to Maryland to figure out Mario's 'allergy' problem. Since we competed last weekend and won a blue ribbon I can only assume his problem is with banks which will be easy to fix with a little extra cross country schooling. Boo's been going well with a win at a Young Event Horse competition and Lois also picking up a ribbon.

This Friday and Saturday are the prestigious BLM dressage championshis with Tony. He feels great and we're expecting a great show. Already he's settled in and looks fired up ready to go. Please look back for updates.

2009-09-05T15:56:00.000-07:00

This weekend begins a very busy and important six weeks. Today was the last opportunity to qualify Tony for the GAIG championships which will be held in Lexington, VA in October. And qualify he did! He scored a respectable 65% followed by an impressive 72%! Which I believe was the highest score of the day. I was so happy with how he felt. He's new to third level and still finds collection a challenge but I thought he tried very very hard today. This was also his last show before the BLM Championships in NJ in October. Alex McLeod sits her A rating test tomorrow (Sunday) as the youngest rider (the only still in her teens!) in the group to be tested. It's extraordinary the riding skills required for this level but I really think she'll be fine. If she is, it's because of my teaching, if she's not, it's because she went on holidays over summer!!!!

We leave on Tuesday for the American Eventing Championships in Chicago, IL. I'm riding Patrick McCuan's Mario and am feeling confident. Last weekend we competed at Loudoun Horse Trials and I was over the moon with how great he felt. Good dressage, super cross country and clear show jumping. We had a few time faults on the cross country which cost us first or second place but I was very happy with my decision to look after him for next week. I am taking him on Monday to a racetrack to do a little galloping, a skill he's yet to master! Abby Gibbon with her lovely bay mare Prima is also coming to Chicago with us and should be fairly competitive. After the AEC's we have Plantation CIC at the end of September. Buddha was has been impressing me more and more. His cross country is amazing and he's great in the show jump arena. For such a young horse he's showing a lot of maturity. Joe and Krista Hubschman's Lois is also another horse I'm really impressed with. Clear cross country and show jumping at her first novice start and only her second time out. Her dressage needs some work, but as a four year old she has time for that! I will keep you updated on our progress as we go!

2009-08-24T07:17:00.000-07:00

Rachel and Payday

Between eventing I've kept very busy in the last few weeks. Boo made a very successful jump up to training level at Fair Hill with clear show jumping and cross country. He followed that at Waredaca with a 4th, finishing on his dressage score. Lois Lane made her debut finishing on her dressage score. Definately an eventer, she LOVES her job! Rachel Berlage with her horse Payday have had an awesome few weeks by placing in all three of her recognised events. They have certainly overcome their fear of ditches! Abby Gibbon also stepped up to training level with a 2nd at Loch Moy and a win at Difficult Run. Amy Gaynor has been doing well with Jake showjumping him over the summer. Her hard work is paying off with a much more rideable horse.
Tony, the wonder dressage horse, had a very good weekend by qualifying for the BLM's at third level and in the process winning yet another blue ribbon. I love riding this horse and am very excited for the championships we have coming up in October. Next on the schedule is eventing at Loudoun with Mario, Lois and Boo, then it's dressage with Tony, AEC's with Mario followed by Middleburg Horse Trials.
Thanks for reading and have fun with your horses!

Time to Shine!

2009-07-20T07:28:00.000-07:00

Monty the wonder pony!

It's important to keep the jumping skills fine tuned so yesterday Alex MacLeod (my working student) and I headed to Virginia to compete in a show jumping competition. Me with Mario and Boo and Alex with Monty and Wes. Alex has had Monty since before she reach the pedals in her car and has trained him the whole way along, in the process winning national show jumping championships. So it was no surprise that she won her division on him, however it was a surprise just how much she won by. Let's just say that in the jump off she could have sat down and had a cup of tea and still won! Wes also did well by jumping clear in his first time at a show since he hurt himself.

Mario was the superstar of the day winning both of the big classes in style, along the way winning champion! He jumped super and didn't touch a rail all day. Boo jumped in two classes coming second in one and having an unfortunate rail in the other. All in all it was a very productive day were both the horses and riders had positive rides. Thanks for stopping by!

More Blue Ribbons!

2009-07-16T10:42:00.000-07:00

Tony and I had another fantastic win in Lexington, VA, qualifying him for the BLM Championships in the process. His progress through the levels has so far been filled with blue ribbons and this one is one of the most rewarding as the classes were pretty big and the horses and riders tough to beat. The good news keeps on coming this week with the news that Patrick McCuan's Mario and I have qualified for the American Eventing Championships to be held in Chicago. Rhythm and Blues has also qualified for the Young Event Horse Championships.

I'm excited with the newest addition to my team, a chestnut mare by the name of Lois. At four years of age she has a big future ahead of her. One of the most athletic horses I've seen in a long time, her jump is exciting and with her natural movement and great work ethic will have her in the ribbons in no time.

Amy Gaynor has been going well with her own Jake, winning some blue ribbons lately. Abby Gibbon with her mare Prima won second place at Maryland Horse Trials on the weekend, losing only in a count back. Alex Macleod is doing a great job with all of my horses and providing great entertainment throughout the day!

Thanks for taking the time to read my updates, we're enjoying quite a lot of success at the moment! Take care and have fun with your horses!

2009-07-05T16:29:00.000-07:00

This is one of the busiest times of the year for me with a combination of competitions and teaching. This is also one of my favourite times of the year! Rachel Berlage and Alex Macleod have both been spending summer with me working and riding which is hugely beneficial to all of us. Rachel is making leaps and bounds in her riding with Payday proving to be a prize winner already, and Rachel showing her bravado with her feats of courage riding whilst less than in perfect health!! Alex is one of the hardest working, most dedicated young riders I've met and am excited to have have her working and riding for me.

I look forward to bringing you my results from the coming weekend with Rocco, Mario and Tony. Happy 4th of July!

When will it stop raining!

2009-06-21T16:43:00.000-07:00

This week has beenvery busy with shows. I had a successful show at Plantation riding Mario, Tuck adn Boo into placings in all of their classes. The going was very wet for the showjumping and I was embarrased to be towed into yet another competition! Although practically everyone had to be. I was very happy with how my horses jumped, especially cross country.

Seneca Valley PC event was also very wet, particularly on the cross country. Harmony finished on her dressage score and Boo also jumped well adding only a green rail to his score. He is a super horse and has a great future.

On Wednesday I took Mario and Boo to Swan Lake A rated show jumping show. Boo was good but Mario was super jumping clean in the 1.15 round. Pilot error (missing a jump) cost him first place, we still ended up a respectable third tho. Yet another show that was in the rain, we were faced with the probability of being towed out. Thru some expert driving (mine) and a bit of luck, plus about 10 attempts, I managed to make it out without the help of a tractor! Now the truck and trailer just look as they've been off roading and will mean I'll be spending my day off at the car wash! Next week is Surefire event with Tuck, Boo and Mario.

2009-06-08T19:17:00.000-07:00

Alex MacLeod and Arrow have had a fantastic season topped off with a second at the Virginia CCI. She finished on her dressage score in a class where the top five places didn't change.
Walking the course at VHT.

These juniors really can ride! The cross country was tough but fair and the show jumping was big and requird bold riding. It was a great experience for Alex to jump in the coleseum with a crowd and atmosphere.

Another success for us has been Abby Gibbon and her fantastic mare, Prima. They won the Area II Adult Amateur Scholarship. They've been making leaps and bounds and are a hugely exciting combination. Prima's not a big horse, (just don't tell her that!) but certainly has unlimited potential.

Abby and Prima winning at Shawan Downs.

I look forward to bringing you more stories of both my personal success and that of our team over the coming weeks.

Tri State competing.

2009-06-08T18:19:00.000-07:00

Raleigh CDI, North Carolina.

I have had a very busy couple of weekends with two eventing competitions and two dressage shows. First of all Tony and I competed at the Raleigh CDI in North Carolina winning 4 ribbons (seconds and thirds) in 4 different classes. This is exciting as the competition was tough with very good horses and riders. Then it was a dash back to make it in time for Waredaca One Day Event. I need to put a speed camera out on the cross country course with Lisa and Rachel going way too fast and incurring time faults. This weekend I successfully rode Mario, Tuck and Boo at Plantation Fields One Day Event in PA. Each of them placed in spite of the deep going. I was particularly impressed with how Boo felt cross country, he's really getting the hang of things. This is exciting as he's a real quality horse. Sunday was the VADA/NOVA dressage competition at Morven Park, VA, once again with Tony. We ended up third in a big class and qualified for the championships in October.

Next week we're at Seneca One Day Event with Harmony, Tuck and Boo. Amy Gaynor did an awesome job organising a very successful clinic with Boyd Martin which was hosted by Robert and Kathy's Taylormade stables.

Busy weekend Showjumping/Combined Test/Dressage.

2009-05-18T05:48:00.000-07:00

Cathy Butler's Tony made a successful start to his competition year by winning at Morven Park. This was his first time at that level so I was very happy with him. There were some mistakes in his test (like when he fell into the carlike crater half way through what started out to be the worlds best medium trot!) and he felt pretty green. Overall he was fantastic tho, especially with the mud, mud and more mud. On Saturday I rode Robin Doser's Harmony, McCuan Farm's Mario and my partially owned Boo at a jumping show. They were all great and brought home varying ribbons. Alex McCleod took Arrow and rode some very good rounds. Perfect warm up for her three day event next weekend. We competed in a couple of the same classes, nothing like a bit of student/trainer rivalry to spice up the competition!

Amy Gaynor competed at a combined test and wowed them in the dressage! She scored a 30 and one rail in the show jumping had them finishing 3rd. A strong result which is great.

2009-05-13T18:14:00.000-07:00

Mario schooling.

Unfortunatley for our team last weekend's show at Plantation was cancelled. This was due to the huge amount of rain we've had which would have made parking in the paddocks impossible. Instead Amy Gaynor showed at Loch Moy Short Course and finished 7th. MCTA @ Shawan Downs opened up their competition course for schooling this week which I took full advantage of. This is a fantastic course and it was great to be able to use it to train the horses. The coming weekend we'll be competing at Morven Park, hopefully the rain holds off!

MCTA @ Shawan Downs.

2009-05-05T12:31:00.000-07:00

Our show schedule is in full swing with both MCTA at Shawan Downs and Difficult Run events on last weekend. I competed on Sunset Hill's McCuan Mario and Robin Doser and my own Rythm and Blues. Mario is a new ride for me and this was my first competition, he went well and I was happy with how he felt. I didn't run cross country as the going wasn't great and this was his first show in about 6 months. Boo jumped pretty well but unfortunately didn't really take to the dressage arena. Apparently he doesn't think sliding around in the mud is a good use of his time!

Abby Gibbon and Prima won their first Novice with Lisa Kurr fifth in the same class. Brittany Meyer came 2nd at Difficult Run. Next weekend is Plantation Eventing where I'm competing Boo, Mario and Tuck. Robin Doser will be riding Harmony and Alex McLeod on Arrow. I'm hoping for some good weather, it seems that every event is a wet one at the moment!