Monday, September 22, 2008

Charly wins Plantation Fields CIC**

What can I say about the weekend... it has taken me 24 hours to begin to absorb all of the excitement and take my first brief look back... Working backwards, we'll start with the results... Havarah's Charly Won the first Plantation Fields CIC** ever!!! To all of those who have helped out, what wonderful joyous news to share with you. The down and dirty backwards in time... double clear show jumping round to take first place, perfect through Sunday's jog-up, a wonderful competitor's party at the Walker's (the competition's landowner), 2.4 time faults on Saturday's beautiful course designed by organizer Dennis Glaccum, a brilliant dressage test, and great coaching by Boyd Martin!

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

BIG weekend ahead...

Plantation Field Horse Trials is this weekend; Ginger is doing a Preliminary HT and Charly is in the CIC **. The course at Plantation is known to be quite BIG but said to ride very nicely. Both horses jumped early this morning and are ready to go. Ginger is seeming very willing and interested in all the new exciting questions that are coming with her jumps and Charly just can't get enough...

Thatch, Alyssa Hatai's young horse is sitting this show out (as they only start at Preliminary) yet was a total super star at his cross country school on Tuesday at Fair Hill. Willing and Able is the perfect name for him!

Monday, September 08, 2008

A trailer full of champions!

The weekend of September 6th and 7th will never be forgotten for many people on the east coast and I have to say that I am happy that I am part of that crowd.

Hurricane Hanna made her way over Washington DC just as Charly, Ginger and Thatch were to enjoy a weekend of competing at Seneca Valley. Luckily the organizers did a great job at moving times around to avoid the worst of the storm and MOST luckily I had great ground support from Bryce over the weekend to be able to get the three horses safely and successfully through despite the very offsetting weather.

Charly was the first of the three horses to compete and he did all three phases back to back on Saturday morning in the very beginning of the storm. Charly hands down did a great job considering the trying conditions. He slipped a few times in the dressage court and cost him his normal spectacular test, but he more than came through for the show jumping and cross country. Jumping clean in both phases he only incurred time penalties which were due to me wanting to have a sound and brave horse for Plantations CIC ** and Fair Hill's CCI ** both coming up very soon :)

Ginger was next in the line up and being slightly young and much less traveled she was rightfully concerned with the horrendous weather that she was put in for her dressage test. After having a few moments of "un-happiness" in the dressage test we got through, loaded into the trailer as quickly as possible and headed to safety to their covered stabling. I then proceeded to fill up water buckets with the amount of water that came out of my boots! The horses all seemed to really enjoy their early day (in stalls by noon!) The rest of their Saturday was filled with eating, drinking and I'm sure some good stories told by each.

The weather made a huge turn Saturday evening and Sunday was an absolutely stellar day. Ginger had her first Preliminary completion jumping clean in both phases and finishing second! GOOOOO GInger! This is a great horse and I'm sure we will see her for years to come in the winners circle. Lots of jealous people on the east coast all said that she is happily owned by a young rider in California.

Last but not least was Thatch aka "Willing and Able", Alyssa Hatai's new young horse. I took Thatch in his first BN on Sunday and he was a total gentleman through the entire event. Dressage warm up made him slightly nervous, and the slippery conditions in the dressage court had him a bit confused as to how he was supposed to canter on such small circles but he was willing to do whatever I asked of him. Thatch jumped clean in Show Jumping and absolutely loved the cross country. This horse was so ambitious jumping into the water I nearly fell off...Alyssa I advise holding on ! :) This is going to be a cross country machine.

Thank you and congratulations!

There are two of my students that I would like to give a bit of a spotlight to. These girls recognized the need for a more intense learning period and went way out of their way to receive this. I hope that each of them realizes how much this has affected their lives and realize how much they can now give back.

The first is Jestine Burch-Butts. Jestine trekked to the east coast in the summer of 2007. That summer she worked day in and day out for a great horseman and very tough boss! :) Jestine learned how to meticulously care for a barn of horses and how to help horses acheive a second career after the race track. I know that there is a lot more to her summer than the above, but I, as a very far away coach, am very excited about her having this intense training program. Since the summer of 2007 Jestine has returned to Sanger, Ca where she has been taking on training projects and sale horse. I am very proud of you girl, keep up the good work!

The second is Lauren Billys. Lauren has just returned to California after a very full-filling summer of work on the east coast. She had some great opportunities presented to her and has already expressed how excited she is to share this with others back in California. While she was back east she learned how horses are correctly kept in shape for the upper levels of eventing and also how to deal with many different types of "problem" horses. I think more than anything Lauren is excited to work with her students back in California on how to prevent problems both under saddle and on the ground. Good luck in your endeavors Lo!

Thank you Jestine for taking what you have learned and applying it to all of your new mounts and Lauren I can't wait to see how sharp you'll get our crew at home!