Golightly Sport Horses

The tragedy of a one-horse string

2012-01-28T17:28:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of times when I love having one horse. I love giving my undivided attention to one. I love knowing one horse, like he's an extension of my own self (and soul!). I love that I never get tired of riding my one horse. But, this is not one of those weeks. This is one of those weeks when I realize the tragedy of having a one-horse string. This is a week when I want a string of 10 horses. So if one needs a few days off, there are 9 others happily waiting to pick up the slack.

We leave for my first trip ever to Aiken, SC on Friday morning. And wouldn't you know it, Katchi has picked this week to convince Dr. Allen to prescribe 30 days of restricted light work on account of a very sore foot. No Aiken competitions. No Aiken jumping with Phillip. I can do a walking dressage lesson with Silva. Not exactly the stuff dreams are made of. My mom and I talked about cancelling the trip, but we've decided to persevere. So, Katchi will go to Aiken to walk. And to swim. And to watch the USET training sessions. And to come home rested and ready to go back to full work.

As we all know, the more time you spend around horses, the more times you will have your heart broken. And while my heart is pretty broken right now, I'm also so very thankful that the prognosis looks very hopeful that Katchi will be back to full work in no time and we'll be charging full speed into the spring season! And I'm trying to keep the tears to a minimum and keep my mind thinking forward and positive and to all the things we can accomplish while we're walking - perfecting our rein back, turn on the haunches, no stirrups, two-point (with no stirrups?!? AGH!), walking lateral work... there really are a million things you can do at the walk if you think about it.

And just as I've been trying to keep myself focused on an exciting year to come, I found just the pick me up I needed - a new promotional video for Hagyard Midsouth has been released, and wouldn't you know it, there's my Katchi racing around at the T3D's awards ceremony, with me flashing a huge smile! Just seeing my smile atop my favorite and best one horse, reminded me again why it's not so bad having a one-horse string.

Katchi zips past at 3:25

Belly Dancing Eventers - Area II Annual Meeting

2012-01-21T16:05:00.000-08:00

When I headed out on the snow-filled streets of DC this morning, on my way to the Area II Annual Meeting in Leesburg, VA, I can tell you one thing that was definitely not in my mind or plan for the day - belly dancing! Nope, not on my "to do" list. But by 11:00 this morning, I had an orange chiffon sash with 150 coins wrapped around me, and there I was, with 6 other Area II eventers - shakin' our coins!!!

Area II hosted another great Annual Meeting today - although, it seemed like the snow kept away a lot of people (which definitely worked out just fine for those of us bidding on the silent auction - less competition!). Unfortunately, the snow delayed me a bit and I missed the session on the USEA's new online entry system, Xentry. I guess I'll stick to my paper mail-in entries for another year!

Next up was the Adult Riders forum - with such a small crowd, it was a nice opportunity to ask some questions and brainstorm new ideas for developing the program. In 2009, I received an Adult Rider scholarship - a program which has apparently been on hold for the past 2 years on account of USEA restrictions. However, good news is that lots of paperwork is underdevelopment to revamp the program and hopefully scholarships will be back to Area II soon! With so many upper level riders at our fingertips for lessons and clinics in Area II, everyone agreed that scholarships (that allow riders to choose how to allocate the training funds) are the way to go!

Finally, the coffee and food arrived - and no sooner had I wolfed down a full plate and (not enough!) sips of coffee - I was summoned for a little brain testing! A few folks were there from the local hospital to administer the ImPACT testing to establish a cognitive baseline to utilize later in the event that I might have a concussion and need to determine my neurocognitive functioning (especially to obtain approval to "return to plan" earlier than the standard time-out periods). As I sat down to take the test, I definitely regretted that glass of wine last night and the lack of coffee this morning! But, the cognitive scientist in me was ready to have some fun playing mental games! And, I did have fun! The test revealed "correct" or "incorrect" upon each answer, so you had a pretty good idea of how you were doing. My one complaint about the test design was the portion that required you to hit a key on the LEFT every time you saw RED circle - HELLO?!?! Every eventer knows RED on RIGHT!!! That took me a minute just to remember the stupid instructions! Anyhow, it was a fun little game and now I've got my "clinical report" and I'm all ready for the concussion I hope to never have!

Having missed the first portion of the next session, I found my way into "Increasing Your Own Core: Not the Old Pilates Again!" with Allison Woodruff (www.liberatedhips.com), not having any idea what I was walking into! A few minutes later, the one guy in the room excused himself to head elsewhere. And then we were instructed up and out of our chairs. And then to the front of the room. And then we were handed a sash - with 150 coins attached to it. We exchanged glances. We giggled. Slowly, we did as we were told. We've all spent years following instructions in riding lessons. We thought it was silly, but we were game to give it a try. And bit by bit - we might even have started to have fun! We shook our coins and rolled our spines and shimmied our shoulders! And we tried to explain to our teacher that "hip thrust" was a sitting trot, and that "belly tuck" was a half-halt and she said a "half what?"! And we laughed and shook some more! Definitely a new angle to achieving core strength - and we could all feel it working! After an hour of this - we felt great! Strong, relaxed, flexible - and STARVING!! Thankfully lunch was next!

But lunch wasn't just lunch - we were in for quite a treat! Lynn Symansky was our Keynote Speaker, and she was just fabulously inspiring! She spoke to us about her Pan Am experience - from finishing 3rd at the final selection trials, to being named as a team alternate, to being a final-substitution team member the day before flying out. She was a wonderful speaker and her words beamed of heartfelt passion! And she shared some pretty cool "behind the scenes" photos from the trip - which I think made every aspiring rider in the room dream of being on the team one day (although, hopefully at a destination event that doesn't require armed militia at every corner!!). Lynn said over and over again - never give up. With horses, your plans may change 100,000 times, but that's never a reason to give up. She even spoke about spending 3 weeks walking her horse for 2 hours a day, up the O'Connor's "mountain" to maintain fitness while he was suffering/recovering from cellulitus - and going to Dr. Allen's Virginia Equine Imaging on a Tuesday to get the "okay" - and proceeding DIRECTLY to ROLEX - after a final prep of 3 weeks of walking a hill. Not a recommended plan. But she never lost hope. wow.

And then it was awards time!!! So many awards - so many pretty ribbons! And remember Area II folks, to be eligible for one of these fine awards you must "self-enroll" - I'm sure the 2012 forms will be up on the Area II site soon, so don't forget to make yourself a contender!

Katchi was honored with the Reserve Champion award for the Training Level - Open Division. I came home with a beautiful huge ribbon and an elegant silver frame - engraved with "USEA Area II" at the top and "Training Reserve Champion" at the bottom. Something to keep me dreaming of the day when I have my own barn and can adorn the tack room/office with a history of awards that represent a lifetime of hard work, goals, accomplishment, and memories! I can almost see it now - sitting on a shelf of dark stained wood, high above a wall of saddles and bridles...

And then something super fun happened ... I got to be a substitute "Smurf" when I accepted a very special award for my student, Diane Zrimsek, who won the Area II "Smurfette" award - to honor the Area II adult rider who demonstrated outstanding turnout over the year - and strove to improve the turnout of those around her as well! See, there was this little incident at the Virginia Horse Trials this fall when Diane braved a blizzard at 3AM to braid her horse as well as her roommate's horse (after we had made the mutual decision that frostbitten fingers were not worth perfect braids) - but Diane couldn't sleep, with visions of unbraided ponies dancing through her head! Former Hunter-Princess Diane won the Smurfette award fair and square!

The day finished with 2 more outstanding presentations - "Taking the Confusion Out of Supplements" by Dr. Carey Williams and "Deciphering the New Drug Rules" by Dr. Kent Allen. Both were extremely informative, connecting us to the latest research, news, and rules. And, again, taking advantage of the small group - those of us there were privileged to ask lots of questions! One fun tidbit Dr. Allen shared with us - with the roller coaster FEI the past few years - Dr. Allen will be the FEI Delegate Veterinarian at this year's Olympics - and, well, lets just say he said something along the lines "stay tuned folks, it's gonna be a wild ride!" My interpretation... people are gonna try to cheat with drugs. Drug testing is getting better and better. The FEI powers are totally unpredictable (crazy??). There will be drama.

So that was the Area II Annual Meeting in a nutshell. Don't you wish you were there?!?!

Choke. Get it under control.

2012-01-17T17:27:00.000-08:00

And we're onto part 3 of my venture into sports psychology and human performance! Choke. Failure under high pressure. Is it fatal? Is there a cure? Can you self-escape? I bring good news - there is hope!! Through my "real job" last week I had the opportunity to enjoy dinner with Sian Beilock, author of the 2010 book, Choke: What the secrets of the brain reveal about getting it right when you have to. The contents of which have been a major contributor to my last 2 posts. She also writes a blog for Psychology Today that covers a range of topics, including sports psychology. Over a glass of wine on Thursday night, I asked Sian if she had worked with any equestrians - turns out that she's very familiar with the unique challenges of dealing with psychology issues when your golf club (horse) gets nervous too! Her mother competed in show jumping! While it wasn't exactly appropriate to lay down on the couch and spill all my mental demons in the middle of a business dinner, I was thrilled to talk through a few issues with one of America's leading cognitive scientists, while enjoying a glass of wine! Funny enough, we both graduated from UCSD's cognitive science department, Sian just a few years ahead of me - and we even had some of the same professors! Clearly, she's put her degree to better use than I have!

I confessed to Sian that when I read the list of "choke" predictor questions - it was me. But, before I got too obsessive about my failure, Sian was absolutely adamant that research is proving that you can influence your performance success to a much greater degree than most people realize! You can take control of your mind and steer it in the most productive way, but it takes dedication and practice (just like learning the actual skills of riding). As we talked about some of my specific challenges, Sian emphasized a few things that she believes will have a very positive effect on my mental preparedness to compete at the top of my game -

1. Develop a pre-game routine. This has been a work in progress for me over the past 3 years. While I have a pretty solid routine that has a lot of good elements, I'm also starting to realize that it needs some modifications to get me in the right frame of mind. For one thing, I need to make a clear distinction between my coaching role and my riding role - coaching is analytical (left brain) - riding is executing (right brain).

2. Write down my worries. I don't want to do this. I don't want to acknowledge they exist. Yea, I know, I joke about trakehners - but to really write down what actually scares me about them?! Oh boy. But Sian was adamant that there have been tremendous results showing that taking a few minutes to write down our worries allows the brain to let those things go. I'll have to work on getting the guts up to do this. Does writing down that I'm worried about writing down my worries, count as writing down a worry???

3. Stay in the present. Reminiscent of Jimmy saying "stop critiquing your ride in the middle of it" - wasting even a moment thinking that the last jump sucked is no good. I must keep my mind in the present and ride to the next fence rather than living in what did or didn't go right at the last one because that one is done and finished. Sian asked if I'd tried meditating. Um, nope, I don't really relax so well. Thinking back to my need for a GRRR face - I asked, "but won't meditating and finding your zen, make you all soft and relaxed - how does that fit into competitive aggression?" - and then I learned something big... meditating isn't all about peace and quiet and relaxation. It's about clarity of mind. It's about training your mind to focus on the present. Sian's blog article about meditation is here. Mind wandering. Thinking about anything and everything except the present. As I've been riding Katchi the last few days, I realized something - when I'm riding on the flat, I am totally in the present. When I'm jumping, my mind is EVERYWHERE but there! I WAS SHOCKED! It was like a crazy dream sequence - hopping erratically from that jump in the past, and that show jumping course last fall, and that lesson with Phillip, and when Jimmy said... OMG! I couldn't get it to shut off to save my life. No wonder I can't get my S&*! together in show jumping - I'm not even in the ring! So, now I'll be looking for a book on meditation for athletes - any suggestions??

Meditation for horses too???

Okay, so what else?? Here are 2 lists from Sian's book that I've taken the liberty of "interpreting" into the world of eventing as I could. The great thing is all this stuff is so simple - but so often ignored! What power we have at our fingertips!

(Selected) Tips to ensure success under stress (p.174-176)

1. Reaffirm your self-worth. If you've been writing your daily note recognizing something you did well in every ride, it should be pretty easy to recall a few of those things just before you head into the competition ring.

2. Write about your worries. The night before the big competition, take 10 minutes to write down everything you're worried about for the next day. Train your brain not to dwell on these fears - instead, recognize and discard them.

3. Think differently. Don't think about yourself as, "well, I'm no Phillip Dutton" or "I'm only an amateur with one horse." Instead, think of yourself as an aspiring eventer just like other top level riders in some way - Kevin Keane, an amateur rider with a full time job who was long-listed for the 2011 Pan Am Games - Amy Tryon, a full time fire fighter all the way through her trip to the 2004 Olympics - Julia Wendell who as a middle-age woman decided she wanted to learn to ride and has made it all the way up to the Advanced level. Don't stereotype yourself as a "smurf" - instead focus on the credentials you have that will help you put in a good performance.

4. Reinterpret your reactions. When your heart starts to flutter and you feel the adreneline rushing in - don't think "I'm gonna die in there" - think "I'm ready to CHARGE!" The body's physiological reactions are similar in many circumstances - a first kiss, an exhilarating athletic feat, a surprise or scare - but context lends us to perceive those bodily reactions as different emotions. Train yourselfz to perceive pre-competition excitement to defeat your opponent!

Tips to escape Choking under pressure in sports and performance (p.232)

1. Distract yourself. Think Ralph Hill singing a song while riding XC. Count the rhythm of your strides (as Jimmy says, don't count 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, or 3-2-1... just count until you run out of numbers 1-2-3-4...).

2. Don't slow down. Keep a careful watch on the order of go and don't leave yourself sitting at the in gate waiting for your turn - this gives you too much time to think about what you're about to do - Just do it.

3. Practice under stress. Do you feel pressure when your husband comes to video your lessons? Does having an audience at your lessons make you feel like you're at a show? Then invite them out some more!

4. Don't dwell. Analyzing past performances (failures) can be good - IF you look at them as an opportunity to learn, understand, and improve. Don't beat yourself up over them for eternity - remember the importance of training confidence? Dwelling on a failure without looking for an out trains defeat.

5. Focus on the outcome, not the mechanics.

6. Find a key word. A one-word mantra to keep you focused on the end result rather than the process. Forward. Rhythm. Focus. Straight. Smooth. Clear.

7. Focus on the positive. Don't be helpless.

8. Cure the yips by changing up your grip. When Jimmy encounters a rider who tends to pull up and back on the horse coming into a fence or over the top of it - he often has them change their grip on the reins into a "bicycle grip." Every time I've seen him do this, the pulling has miraculously stopped. I'll have to ask Jimmy if he knows he's a cognitive scientist - because I'm pretty sure he has proven Sian's research that "the alteration in technique reprograms the circuits... clearing your brain and body of the motor hiccup". Interesting.

Well, how's that for giving you all a little homework???

Harness your inner horsepower!

2012-01-04T17:26:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone (especially Eventing Nation!) for your positive feedback on my last post - great to know I have friends also searching for their GRRR face this winter! The fun thing about all this sports psychology stuff is that for someone like me who thinks too much, this has given me some GREAT stuff to think about!

So, this post is about cognitive horsepower. Rev your engines folks - turns out we're not just sitting on horsepower - we've got cognitive horsepower too! And it will lead us to great things if we can figure out how to properly harness it!

The brain's prefrontal cortex is the center of the working memory and attention. It's a flexible mental notepad. It holds information in the mind while you are doing other things at the same time. Like remembering to turn left at C at the same time that you remember your trainer's instructions to keep your horse forward and soft and your shoulders back, chest lifted, hands still... Does the prefrontal cortex fail us sometimes? Yep. And that's when we turn right at C instead of left. And the judge blows the whistle and says, "you were supposed to turn left." And you say, "didn't I?" It happens to the best of the best - at the biggest competitions of their lives. Just watch this video.

2000 Athens Olympics
David O'Connor's gold medal winning show jumping round.
Skip to 3:50 for the start of David's ride.

We all remember that DOC won the gold medal - but he very nearly lost it! We'll never know exactly why his prefrontal cortex failed him in that crucial moment between fence 6 and 7, but scientific research can give us a pretty good idea. Basically, there is only so much multi-tasking the prefrontal cortex can handle at a time. Beyond that and things that you are not directly attending to start disappearing. And here's the kicker - anxiety and worry take up massive amounts of attention. And when you're attending to your anxiety and worry, things you need to know to perform (like turning left or right at C) are not immediately available to your working memory. This is also why students bomb math tests or choke in the SAT and why politicians flub simple answers in high-pressure debates. The key to success in these situations is that you must turn your attention to what is important - and away from what is not: worry and anxiety.

And, here's where it gets really interesting. Most people assume that worry and anxiety causes high performance athletes to choke. But, research shows this isn't the whole story. Like a football player remembers plays or a figure skater remembers her routine - eventers have test patterns and courses and plans of attack that we must attend to precisely. Working memory. Prefrontal cortex. But there's more to it. High performance athletic skills operate largely outside of the working memory. Expert athletes don't attend to what they are doing - their movements are controlled by other parts of the brain. This is why so many post-game interviews with winning athletes go something along the lines of "I don't know, it just all came together and it was brilliant!" and they really have no memory of what the hell happened at all (this is probably why we really love helmet cams - so we can find out what we just did!).

Then why do elite athletes choke? Why do basketball players miss free throws and soccer players miss penalty kicks - when they have all the advantage? Why does the top golfer miss the 3 foot putt - and miss it again! Paralysis by analysis. To deal with worry and anxiety, we desperately try to control everything that could go wrong. We start to attend to movements of our body that we never attend to in practice. In desperation to succeed, we engage our prefrontal cortex in things it should stay out of. When you run down a flight of stairs - you just run. Now think how your running changes when you overly concentrate on not falling down - you run stiffer, slower, and less fluid. You may even fall down. You think the same thing might apply in riding? Start overly monitoring your movements and you actually freeze your movements. And you think your horse doesn't feel that?! Gee, wonder why he always drops rails at shows but never ever when jumping much higher fences at home??

One big thing to remember when thinking about what I've just said is that for a novice in any sport - working memory is critical! You must attend to everything your trainer has told you to do, because it has not yet become an unconscious skill. Think about how hard it was to learn to post the trot and how many things you had to manage in your head to survive. Working memory. Prefrontal cortex. Now you post the trot as easily as you walk. Expert athletes are so well practiced that their movements operate outside conscious control. And it is when they begin to worry so deeply about screwing up, they take conscious control to force themselves to succeed - and this is actually when they fail. Make sense?

Okay, that's enough for one post. So, I'll let you think about this a bit and then I'll be back with good news - there are well researched strategies to keep your prefrontal cortex at just the right level of control!

But let me end with a note about confidence. Just after the USEA annual convention, USEF high performance posted several items from USOC that were given to our high performance riders - sports psychology, nutrition, fitness... it peaked my interest, so I went directly to the USOC website to see what else I could find. And I found some materials for coaches - and here's a key point that really struck me: Confidence has to be trained just like performance skills. Huh. Well, isn't that interesting. As a horse trainer, building a horse's confidence is everything. One of my favorite sayings is "never show a horse what it can't do." So, why don't we train confidence in ourselves? One technique the USOC recommended is to make athletes write down a single line each day of one positive accomplishment - no matter how tough a training session was. Find one thing you did well. "Make building confidence a daily discipline." Gee, how much easier would it be to believe in yourself in the moment of competition if you've actually spent some time believing in yourself before you get to the big test - every single day take a moment to believe in yourself. So simple. Yet, when was the last time you took that moment? I've made this a New Year's resolution for myself.

Get your GRRR face on!

2011-12-27T15:18:00.000-08:00

While Katchi is in his 2nd week of vacation - I've been enjoying the extra time to re-evaluate and motivate! My private lessons with P Dutty over the past weeks have afforded us extra time to not only work on making me right in the saddle, but right in the head too. When I started taking regular lessons with PD this summer, I enjoyed quite a few good chuckles at myself as I looked around the ring. I would sing (in my head, I hope) "One of these things is not like the others" - ME! Who here doesn't have an Olympic medal (or if I felt more generous... a pinque coat!) - OH OH, ME AGAIN! But the great thing about riding in these small "elite" group lessons is we all have the same level horse and PD expects all of us (uhem, me) to give my prelim horse just as fair a chance to succeed as all those Olympic medalists give their prelim horses. Now, it takes him a bit more work with me (which usually starts something like... "Cherie, stop, stop, stop. Come here."), but he never lowers his performance expectations.

Okay, there might be more than one difference between me and those Olympians, but one big difference is confidence. They reek of confidence. And I'm the other kid in the lesson. It really struck me when PD said to me - after I flubbed a line and then came back around to do it just about perfectly - "the only difference between that good ride and last time's mess, was your confidence." Huh. Same technical skills, same take-off spot - totally different ride. In one I surrendered. In the other I fought with effective aggression. Determination. Commitment. Relentless. Willpower. Purpose. Grit. Go Big or Go Home. That's what Olympians are made of.

Okay, fair enough, the Olympics aren't on my short-term goal list. They're not even on my long-term goal list. But each and every one of us wants to succeed - whether success is the tadpole jumper class or Rolex Kentucky! And we all have the same freakin' mental battles to fight in high pressure situations - and don't tell me that tadpole class isn't high pressure! Have you seen people's faces going into the ring? That's no fun and games.

I watched the 2011 Rolex highlights DVD again last weekend - and there's Jimmy saying it over and over again. The difference between the riders that survive that course and those who don't is their determined focus. They all have the skill to be 4* riders. But its the ones with relentless focus on the ball (or next fence), despite all sorts of craziness (stumbles, over jumps, splashing water, lost reins...) those are the ones who get it done. The rest are stunned and surprised when it falls apart in an instant (don't I know that feeling). Gee, I just heard a repeat of my last talk with PD about upping my game to the next level. I have the skill, feeling, and awareness - and bursts of confidence when I ride damn good. But bursts are only bursts. Consistency is key.

I have to get my "GRRR" face on. When I rode with Mike Huber as a young rider, we used to make good fun of his GRRR face - teeth barred and evil eyes - over every fence... from the biggest World Championship fences to a 12" cross rail, Mike brought his GRRR face to every fence. This is what I need. A GRRR face so intense it scares show jumps into submission and makes trakehners shake in their boots (strike that - shake in their ditch!).

Mike Huber's GRRR face - over a novice fence at the 2010 AECs
(photo from the 9/11/10 USEA Blog, photos by Emily Daily and Leslie Threlkeld).

Interestingly, just recently my office work has taken a venture into looking at some cutting-edge human performance research - including sports psychology. Why do some of the best athletes "choke" under pressure? Why do others nail the most important game in their lives? What can we do to make sure we perform our best when it really counts? Performance is only partially about the trained skill. It's also a whole lot about what's going on (or not going on) in your head. And I have way too much in my head.

I'm sure I'll be writing much more about this in the coming months - I am ridiculously analytical and I'm only just beginning to sort through the research and my thoughts. But, I'll leave you with something to ponder from research out of the University of Hong Kong (Dr. Richard Masters and colleagues).

Think about your riding (you might even replace "movement" with "riding"), and rate the following questions with "strongly agree" or "strongly disagree":

I rarely forget the times when my movements have failed me, however slight the failure.

I'm always trying to figure out why my actions failed.

I reflect about my movement a lot.

I am always trying to think about my movements when I carry them out.

I'm self-conscious about the way I look when I am moving.

I sometimes have the feeling that I'm watching myself move.

I'm aware of the way my mind and body works when I am carrying out a movement.

I'm concerned about my style of moving.

If I see my reflection in a shop window, I will examine my movements [okay, this is a bit unfair to those lucky enough to be riding this winter in an indoor with mirrors!]

I am concerned about what people think about me when I am moving.

If (like me) you strongly agree with most of these questions - you are more likely to be the athlete who will "choke under pressure" rather than be the "go-to player" in high-stakes games. Research shows that, in sports (an athlete with well-trained or developed skills - not beginners), excessive performance self-monitoring is one cause of severely disrupted movements (performance failure). Ah, I hear Jimmy saying, "Cherie, stop critiquing your ride in the middle of it!" Stop considering and start committing. Why is it the harder I try to monitor every little thing to perfection - the worse I get? Psychologists are calling it "Paralysis by Analysis". And I'll call the antedote - "Get your GRRR face on!"

Happy Festivus!

2011-12-24T06:02:00.000-08:00

To all our friends and family spread around the world who are celebrating so many things this holiday season - Katchi and I wish you all a "Happy Festivus" (for those who are Seinfeld fans, this should make you smile - to all the rest, we'll just say instead, Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas too!).

Katchi & the Colored Poles

2011-12-18T16:34:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've given a Katchi update, so this post is all about himi! His big news today is that he's been on vacation for 24 hours and hasn't hurt himself yet!

Katchi took a few days off after Kentucky in October, and has been back in work since then. While I've dropped gallops off his schedule, we've been doing quite a few trot set days on the hills trying to keep on a solid fitness base before the ground goes all horrid. But, why does that matter when I have months before the first event of 2012?? Because I only have 1 1/2 months!!! Katchi and I are headed to Aiken for 17 days in February!! Honestly, I never ever thought I'd be able to swing that. But, my work agreed to let me work part days from there, and my mom is flying out from California to go with me, and the new truck is just begging for a road trip, so I couldn't resist!

So, our early winter training has been far from a let-up. In fact, it's been pretty intense, and I think we're both ready for our 2 week vacation. Sometimes the stars align and opportunities you could hardly dream of come along, and when you have a dream and a passion, you have to do everything you can to jump on those opportunities. For the past 5 weeks, I've made the 2 hour drive (each way) up to Phillip Dutton's place for a weekend private (or semi-private) lesson (typically scheduled just before his daughter Olivia gets a PD lesson on her pony!). The first lesson - which consisted of about 45 minutes of cantering "properly" over 12"-18" jumps, with about 1.5 minutes of a walk break - left me in pain for 3 days. Can you imagine the look of shock (horror?) when I (why??) admitted this to perhaps the fittest man in eventing? One day, I'll learn to keep my mouth shut. Smile and fake it, right?

Katchi at his weekend home - True Prospect Farm. Notice the NEW truck in the background?!

So, what have I learned from PD the past few weeks? A lot. Number one is to keep Katchi in front of my leg. But not just in front of my leg - he has to have quick hind legs, sending his energy through his body, and stay malleable throughout. 2 big things we've been working on is for me to soften him between fences (especially straight lines when he tends to lock onto the next fence and check out) by pushing him forward into the bridle rather than trying to soften him with my hands (which, duh, of course, makes him argumentative and drop behind my leg). I think I've only been really successful with it a few times, but wow what a feeling. From there it's amazingly easy to either compress for more strides or lengthen for longer strides - with upward balance and snappy hind legs. The second thing we've been working on is to turn (and when I say turn, these are PD 90-degree in 1.5-2 strides turns) by compressing Katchi back onto his haunches and pushing him around the turn with my inside leg to outside rein (rather than letting him drop his inside should and drag me around the turn, which buries us at the base of the fence).

As hard as these lessons have been, I keep reminding myself that the point of suffering through all this really hard stuff and insisting on absolute perfection is so that the tests in the show ring don't seem nearly so hard any more! And the reality is, it is getting easier. My body knows that, but my mind is still trying to catch on. The "unacceptable" jumps would have been considered "acceptable" just a few months ago. Even when we get there "off", it works out okay if I stay determined. But as we get more proficient, PD raises his expectations. We are not yet satisfied. My skill and Katchi's understanding have developed tons in the past few weeks - and the more those 2 come together, the better prepared mentally I will be to tackle the challenges of 2012. As Jimmy says, "the best defense against nerves is preparation."

This past Sunday, Phillip hosted a mini-clinic. I went up for it, but as most of the riders were lower level, Phillip had me ride in a semi-private lesson with a woman who I've ridden with a few times before in regular lessons. As I've been making all these trips by myself, I don't have any videos of our work, but with the mini-clinic day, I was able to capture video of some other riders working through the various exercises. I'm really sorry I didn't catch any of their names! Katchi and I worked through the same (and more) lines in the video below, with higher fences and higher expectations for a forward, active, malleable pony. The expectations of the lower group was pretty much to stay in canter and find a way to make the turns - which was hard enough!

In the video, you saw the sharp serpentine line with the vertical, oxer (with liverpool), and skinny - we also jumped it as a straight line both directions - I tried to take a picture to show the severity of the angles, but the lighting makes it hard to see. But maybe just seeing the angle at the skinny gives enough of the story.

So, for now, it's 2 weeks off to sleep (making progress), clean my house (done), wash saddle pads and polo wraps (done), organize and sort my life (hum...), and reinvigorate for 2012 (I'm almost very nearly excited, but back to that sleep thing...).

Winter Wofford Gymnastics Clinic

2011-12-12T15:46:00.000-08:00

*** 12/28/11 UPDATE *** THE CLINIC DATE HAS BEEN CHANGED TO MARCH 6 (Tuesday).

Jimmy Returns for Leap Year Wednesday! Just what we all need to dust off the snow before the spring season starts - bounces, and bounces, and bounces, and a few "low-wide's" too! GYMNASTICS WITH JIM WOFFORD - you can't go wrong!!

Jim is having ankle surgery this month, so he will be out for a few weeks and FRESH when he comes back to us. As he just posted on his own site, "When I do start again, you can expect a superfluity of cavaletti and gymnastics, and an unrelenting emphasis on correct fundamentals. I am firmly convinced that the events we win later in the season have their existence because of the work we will do in Janurary and early Feburary." I predict this will be a VERY GOOD CLINIC with a VERY INSPIRED WOFFORD.

Mark your calendars:

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

JIM WOFFORD gymnastics clinic at Baywood Farms in Harwood, MD.

To see what this clinic was like last year - check out my blog entry, White Winter Wofford Wednesday.

Contact me with questions and to save your spot - the clinic is already filling fast!

All information, entry forms, and releases are posted on my webpage calendar.

Auditors welcome ($20 fee, pay at the door).

Directions to Baywood Farms at http://www.baywoodfarms.com/

For more information about Jim and his calendar of other clinics: http://jimwofford.blogspot.com/

Lets hope for a warm and sunny clinic day! See you there!

War Horse

2011-12-11T16:12:00.000-08:00

By now, I'm pretty sure every horse person in America has heard about the Steven Spielberg movie, War Horse, coming out later this month. On Thursday, I was able to go to an advance screening. I cried. A lot. It was awesome. Go see it.

So, while I'm tremendously grateful for the free advance screening passes - I must say that whoever came up with the brilliant idea to invite a bunch of horse people into a downtown Washington DC movie theatre - not brilliant. There is no way I can possibly put into words the experience. Gave my spare ticket to a horse friend, also coming from city job, so we were clean and presentable. We chatted with some great ladies waiting in line. We took our seats. All good. Until the seat next to me was selected by a woman who proceeded to spray me down with "herbal germicide." Now you think I'm kidding, and I thought she was kidding, until she sprayed me down for the 3rd time. I realized this was no joke. She assured me it was "legal" - according to the ATF or the theatre, I'm not sure which. I struggled to remember my work's policy on random drug testing!! Shit. Funny how she felt compelled to spray me down - over and over again - but not her nasty straight-from-the-barn Ariat paddock boots. Horse people.

Now, I already covered that the movie was pretty fantastic. I seriously started crying within the first 5 minutes. You know, the first time the horse and boy met. I'm that easy. As horse movies go, it was wonderful to enjoy a film and not spend the entire time critiquing it over this that and the other thing a horse would NEVER do. But, I have 3 little things that only crazy horse people would notice. Let me see if I can poison you enough to make you a little crazy watching the movie!
1. Wow, what a clean shaven nose you have... always... even after years of war! (Sort of like Lawrence of Arabia with his perfect hair during his entire trek across the desert!)
2. The ventriloquist nose blower. That amazing Hollywood horse could blow his nose without even a flutter of a nostril! Good trick! I definitely need to teach that one to Katchi!
3. Another fun audio trick mis-matched the sound of the hoof-steps to the movement of the horse. As I think about it, I can imagine this would be pretty hard for Hollywood audio folks to do, but it sure stuck out to me! Luckily, I think it only happened a few times, so I didn't have to freak out and run out of the theatre screaming or anything!

On principle, I really hate when people over-relate their own lives to movies. But, I have to say that War Horse, aside from being a great story and tremendous movie, renewed my love for the heart of eventing. While we've all heard how eventing has its roots in the military cavalry - to test the precision, training, and bravery of a cavalry officer and his mount. I guess I've imagined I knew, but never really knew the full spectrum of what that meant. Watching the detail of the war horses attack, I have a new appreciation for eventing and our amazing event horses and riders...
Down into a trench, across, and back up the other side (can you say Sunken Road?)
Over a berm, leap over a narrow trench, out over another berm (can you say Coffin?)
Over a tent, and another and another (bounce, one stride, bounce...)
Huge leaps, quick turns, skinnies... all while galloping at top speed under perfect control.
Sound familiar?
The bravery, honestly, and trust those horses demonstrated is unlike anything I can ever express in words. Yea, I cried in the war scenes too - watching these horses, these flight animals, carry their riders into war... wow. It was amazing. And while it breaks my heart to think of the suffering and loss of horses in so many wars, it makes me love and respect them that much more. I gave Katchi a few extra hugs Friday morning. And I thanked him for all that he does for me. And he said, "ah that's sweet, now where's my damn peppermint?" Some war horse.

Truck For Sale... to good home only!

2011-11-28T14:03:00.000-08:00

I have to admit a twinge of sadness writing this post. My old faithful truck is officially for sale. I'm pretty much in love with my new truck. And I mean seriously in love with it. But, this old truck will always have a special place in my heart. I bought it almost 5 years ago, when I just couldn't take on another car loan, and I was desperate for a way to restart my eventing career after so many years away. It just wasn't going to happen without a Katchi mobile. I bought the truck through an ad in the Maryland Equiery. When I went to test drive her, I learned her name was "Nelly" - on account of her sensitive and strong breaks "Whoe Nelly!" And last year, at Marlborough Horse Trials, her old owner was doing dressage bit checks and came by on a break to say hi to Nelly. Damn, she's been a good truck. Unexpectedly, she took on the challenge of getting me safely to Kentucky this fall - and back home again. She's never left me stranded. Slowly but surely, point A to point B, every time. I can't be more thankful. But, I can't ask more from her. She's a local gal - she deserves to be retired from long mountainous road trips. Sadly, her rider has outgrown her. And, so, with a twinge of sadness, I offer her to her next home. She has plenty more years to show new riders the ropes - taking them to lessons, clinics and shows. If you or anyone you know might be interested, send me an email at cheriechauvin@hotmail.com She deserves a good home!

Here's the "official" data:
1989 Ford F-250 XLT Lariat. V8 5.8L, Automatic, gasoline engine, 4x2, regular cab, grey cloth interior, bench seat, long bed (8 foot), 2 gas tanks (holds about 35 gallons total). 151,000 miles (engine “re-built” at 100,000 miles by previous owner). AM/FM radio and cassette. Tekonsha trailer brake controller. $500 Atwood folding ball gooseneck hitch installed October 2009. Passed Maryland emissions test Sept 2011 (valid through June 2013). 8 pin electrical plugs located at bumper pull and gooseneck. 25,000 miles on tires. Exterior paint chipping and minor rust. A/C has identified leak which requires repair. Heater works excellent! Minimal mileage last 5 years pulling horse trailer. It’s slower up hills with a loaded horse trailer, but runs fine on the level and has never left me stranded!
My mechanic says “it’s a work horse and will run forever!” $2,800 OBO

Physics 101: The Dressage Rider... Really???

2011-11-22T16:56:00.000-08:00

When I took physics in high school and college - I may have had visions of dressage horses in my head but I certainly wasn't applying the laws of physics - angles, torque, power, acceleration, resistance - to the dressage rider! I might have gotten a better grade if I'd figured out its relevance to the important stuff in life - riding horses!

To backtrack a bit - in case you are new to my blog - in February, I had a physical therapist work with me in the saddle. It was a pretty enlightening experience that you can read about here. Shortly after that post I received a comment from someone (maybe it was an email!) - I'm so sorry I can't find their name - anyhow, this very kind follower of my blog suggested I take a look at the books of Mary Wanless. It took me a few months to get around to making a purchase and another few weeks before I sat down with a glass of wine and a Mary Wanless book, Ride With Your Mind (turns out, there are quite a few, all with the same-ish title) - ready to see what I could learn. I was less than a page in and I was ready to scream out 'Mary! Where have you been all my life?!' I have to admit that I haven't finished the book. But its already filled with sticky notes, dog earned pages, high lighted text, and notes in the margins. Reading is slow going when you're this into what you're reading!

But hang on - didn't I open this post talking about physics? What does 'riding with your mind' have to do with physics? Apparently, everything.

A few weeks ago I found an ad for a RWYM (as those who are 'in' the club refer to it) clinic here in Maryland at Great Strides. Clear the calendar! Sign me up! Although I was too late to get a riding spot in the 3 day clinic, I was able to clear my calendar to audit the clinic's first day (and drag Kerry along with me). It was everything I hoped it would be and more! And Kerry... she didn't really know what she was getting into, but she went on blind faith - and by the end, she was pretty much giggling over the enormity of what we had stumbled into!

Right, so what is this whole RWYM physics thing? Let me see if I can say it without appearing too ignorant, should Mary herself read this post some day (?!) ... its the awareness that every force (or lack of force) of the rider effects the horse in either a positive or negative way. Nothing exists in a vacuum. To influence your horse positively you must be an equal creator and master of the energy forces acting in all directions on horse and rider. Ok so what the hell does that mean?

Go buy a RYWM book. Or two or three. Or the videos. Series I, DVD #3 is "The Sitting Trot" - my Christmas wish list just got a whole lot longer.

I can't even begin to recount everything I learned in the 8 hours I spent on Saturday enthralled by Mary. There wasn't a dull moment - and this was 8 hours of dressage lessons. And, oh by the way, very few riders even graduated past the walk. 8 hours of dressage walk lessons. Not for the faint of heart. Actually, everyone graduated to the trot - for a few circles. One cantered. And almost every lesson ended with the riders nearly collapsing from exhaustion! Did I mention they were mostly walking?!

Mary's philosophy is that a trainer's job is to clone "perfect" riders. To assess each student by detecting how they deviate from the "perfect" rider. And, to guide them to alter their angles and forces until they become the "perfect" rider - whereby, they will also allow their horse to move to its full potential. Okay, simple enough.

At the clinic, we had a tremendous opportunity to watch all shapes, sizes, and experiences of riders - from beginners to FEI. The horses were just as diverse. One thing that really struck me was, with very limited exception, Mary never said a word about the horse. She taught the rider. So many lessons I've watched and dressage show warm-ups are all about demanding this and that of the horse - while ignoring blatant and gross defects in the rider. I feel like hitting my head up against the wall watching instructors talk "fancy" about asking the horse and his hind leg, and his vertebrae, and ... when the rider is so blatantly falling apart that its a wonder the horse hasn't just stopped and laughed at the instructor out of sheer pity! One of the things I enjoy about my lessons with Silva is that I feel they are a good balance between fixing the rider and fixing the horse - simultaneously moving us together toward a goal. But, never have I ever witnessed lessons that so excluded the horse (NOT counting group school horse lessons - that just ain't it). The most amazing thing was, when Mary got the rider's angles right, and their forces right, and the energy moving in the right direction - holy crap! You should have seen the horses! Pokey, ground bound, sway backed nothing horses suddenly floated on air, rounded their backs, connected to the bit, and looked stunning!!! I looked around to check for smoke and mirrors - but this was real!

Mary stressed that there is no single mantra for all riders (sit up, sit back, sit tall...) - it's about detecting the deviations from perfect. And about developing words, feelings, visual/mental associations that make sense for the individual. But, in watching all the clinic riders, I came away with 4 basic things that applied to almost everyone:

1) Foot back, foot light. Having your leg and foot under your hip and shoulder is a necessary angle for stability. Without this, you will not be able to rise to the top of the posting trot. If you cannot be responsible for your own body weight, your horse will either 1) slow down to match you (i.e., pokey school horses) or 2) speed up exuberantly to make up for your dead weight (drag you along). Transfer your weight to 80% on the length of your thigh and 20% to your foot. This gives you power. One rider said that to get to the right position, he had to move his foot back 7 inches from where he felt it was "right" (it was actually only about 2 inches, but as Mary said, it's all about perception!).

2) Rotate your thigh over your knee (like a windshield wiper), knee-cap facing down. Again, it's all about angles and power forces. Mary describes the posting trot as feeling like you are kneeling at the alter. The knee moves in two ways - it kicks out below the knee (which moves the foot but does not lift the body) or it rotates above the knee (lifting the body). If your lower leg is kicking out, you are not lifting your body.

3) Keep the water in your bucket. If you imagine a bucket of water as the pelvis, hips, and waist line. Don't let the water spill out. Keep the bucket (pelvis) level. For some riders (who rotate the pelvis under), that means thinking "tail out". For others (who rotate the pelvis down and forward), it means thinking "stomach short".

4) Push against me. To place the upper body and chest in the proper alignment, almost all riders had to think of pushing against Mary's hand placed at their collar bone. It's not about leaning forward, but rather about creating a back to front power inside you that matches the power of the horse.

I have about 20 pages of notes, so be impressed that I was able to pick out just 4 things to say. It was all so important and absolutely fascinating.

But perhaps the most fun part of the day was the hour-long discussion over lunch. Mary pulled out a bag of balloons and led us through breathing exercises - to learn how to create a box out of our body whereby we push all the contents inside solidly against the walls - not letting any edges crumple. Learning not just that "core" strength is important, but how to use it. Now if I can only apply that to my sitting trot!

Now go buy a Mary Wanless 'Riding With Your Mind' book!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Super Size Me!

2011-11-15T16:19:00.000-08:00

Today's post is all about Super Size upgrades - as quite a few of the Golightly Gang have said "Super Size Me" this past week! For mid-November, when the competition season is supposed to be over, and rest and relaxation have taken over, we sure have been shakin' things up!

On Saturday, Susan and Eeyore Super Sized it at Kelly's Ford Horse Trial (the final Area II recognized event for the year) - successfully moving up to NOVICE!! They had a great first run, and despite a reportedly very challenging course, they came home without jump penalties and full of pride! These two have really come a long ways in the short time I've known them, and I can't wait to see where they go next year!

On Sunday, my very first serious eventing student in Maryland, Anna, who I have recently started working with again - boldly spun her OTTB, Abe, around Training level at Loch Moy's starter horse trials. Anna and Abe have been out of the eventing circuit for a few years as Anna has been doing the college and hunter/equitation collegiate team thing, so it was pretty cool to get a very excited email report from her that her return to Training level was one heck of a rush! I rode Abe around his first XC pipe opener at Full Moon Farm several years ago, just to be sure he was safe for Anna - who then rode him around right afterwards, better than I had - he was safe and they were off to great things. After such a break, what fun to see these back in action - and what fun to think towards 2012 with them!

Meanwhile, Kerry and Atticus were having their own adventure at Phillip Dutton's clinic in Pennsylvania. These two have made such great strides at novice the past few months, Kerry went to the clinic with the objective of testing out her skills and identifying any holes for considering a move-up to Training level in the spring. At the end of the clinic, when Kerry asked Phillip his opinion about a move-up, he said "more than ready." SUPER SIZE ME!

But, perhaps the biggest Golightly Super Size upgrade is my own! Yes folks, my old truck has made its last Golightly trip. It was the hero of the year, getting Katchi and me safely to Kentucky and back. But, it has been replaced. By a huge white monster truck! This truck is real. It would make men jealous. But it's a girl's toy!! And oh how I do love it! I can't back it; I can barely turn it; changing lanes is a little frightening; but it is SWEET! And if I do say so myself, Katchi and I are lookin' good in it!

I can't seem to find any "good" pictures of the old truck - funny that! But here is the old truck and trailer 2 years ago, just before the old trailer went to the trailer graveyard.

THE NEW GOLIGHTLY "PIMP MY RIDE"!

P.S. If you know anyone who might be interested... the old truck will be for sale just as soon as I can give it a good washing! It sells for cheap!! And it's one heck of a faithful old truck!! :)

Memories of Kentucky...and visions of spring!

2011-11-06T15:56:00.001-08:00

If you've been reading Eventing Nation this week - I've got so much Eventing Nation karma going on, I'm just about swimming in it! Even the "Chauvin DOG" (a fluffy maltese/poodle mix who lives with my mom in San Diego) made it on EN this week - seriously, that's good EN Karma! So how did the California dog make it on there?? My mom made a visit to Galway Downs to watch Friday's dressage, and she took "Muffin" along to meet a horse (first time ever!) and instead (it was raining and muddy, so her precious white fur had to stay away from the ponies) she met Samantha Clark, EN reporter and photographer extraordinaire. And she managed to get my name pasted next to her photo on EN. Wow. (See last photo on this EN post to see Muffin.)

Right, so back to the title of this post... just as the memories of Kentucky were starting to fade, the video from rnsvideomedia.com arrived! I realized that I never gave a full report of our show jumping round, so it's with great pleasure that I provide video! And I'm thrilled to say that it looks as good in film as it felt in person!

I've been thinking a lot about the Three-Day experience - whether I'd do it again; how it was different from my one-star long format in 1994; whether I'd recommend it to students; whether it was everything I thought it would be. And I think the answer is yes. On Sunday night - when the Horse Park turned into a sudden ghost town - I was so relieved to see that the horses stabled across the aisle didn't seem to be getting packed up. When I inquired whether they would be staying the night so Katchi would have a few friends, I was offered a cocktail, which I promptly accepted! Turns out, I was enjoying a cocktail with the T3D winner (THAT woman who just edged me out of the win!), her 2 sisters (ALSO competing in KY that weekend!), mother, and a whole gang of a support crew! And they got me so laughing so hard I was almost crying! Not only did we talk about the highs-and-lows and general craziness of the entire competition process, but also the process of getting there. The process of horse and rider getting fit together especially: getting out of the ring and off the groomed XC course, and into the "wild" of trot sets and sustained gallops for what felt like hours at a time! For a horse like Katchi, and Lela's winning OTTB, whose fear of mushrooms, sticks, and leaf piles is serious business - just going through that fitness process and arriving at the first jog with out a broken anything was a serious accomplishment. It made me push out of my comfort zone - just me and Katchi, off on our own, with a plan. It's so easy to say, "oh, well, he's a little spooky today, so we better stay in the safety of the ring" - but when you're faced with Phases A, B, C, and D just weeks away - you have to suck it up and get your butt out there. You can't show up at the 10 minute box and tell the vets that your horse hasn't recovered enough to run XC because you missed 4 conditioning days because he was a little spooky. That just doesn't cut it. So, as I enjoyed my cocktail and laughed with these lovely ladies (and gentlemen!), I thought - yea, this is what the long format is all about! It's not what it used to be, but it's still priceless, and I'm so thankful to have enjoyed it once again!

With Kentucky behind us, Katchi enjoyed a few days off, and is now back to work until Phillip and Silva head south (when he'll get a proper 3-4 week vacation). So, yesterday, it was back to work with Silva, and wow did we work! I always find this time of year hard for motivation - show season is over and Katchi's vacation is on the horizon. It would be so nice to just go for a lazy walk (in the ring - safety zone!!) and pat my good pony over and over again. But, we've got work to do if we're going to come out in the spring in the shape I have planned for us! So, I spoke with Silva yesterday about filling in some holes in Katchi's Second Level dressage work and even looking towards the Intermediate dressage tests. Flying lead changes being one thing that we've just never been able to tackle. Katchi's canter was such a disaster for the first 3 years I was riding him that I could barely sit in the saddle - he just towed me along and it was horrid! His canter is my favorite gait now, and while it's still reminiscent of his OTTB past, it's getting pretty darn good and he's even earned a few dressage judge's comments this past year of "the canter was the highlight of this test" - Really, Seriously?? When I mentioned the lead changes to Silva, she basically grimaced and said something along the lines of, "well, it's gonna be ugly." I knew that was coming, but I was still a little heartbroken. But, we went to work - with Silva drilling me with 20m, 15 m, and 10 m canter circles - to walk - to canter - to counter canter - to 10 m circle - etc etc. Relentlessly followed by the horrid sitting trot for leg yields, shoulder ins, and renvers (which thankfully I read about on wikipedia last week - and translated into the English "haunches-in" [CORRECTION: Thanks to my readers' comments for setting me straight as I STILL had this wrong. Yes, okay, got it - "renvers = haunches-out"... "travers = haunches-in" - now to figure out how to remember that!]). Just at the point when I was pretty sure I was going to die (has anyone actually died in the middle of a dressage lesson? It must have happened.)... Silva said she'd get on Katchi and give his lead changes a try. She thought she might be able to get something close in at least one direction. And wouldn't you know it - it was sort of okay! When she got off, she said "well, I thought that was going to be a total disaster, but that was pretty good!" OH KATCHI! GOOD BOY! I never really saw a flying change, but after the scuffle of dirt, Katchi came out on the other side on the other lead, and Silva was singing "good boy!" and patting his neck profusely, so something worked! We ride with Silva again next weekend, and we already agreed that we have the same lesson plan. Now I remember why I love winter training - it's the time to throw caution to the wind and see where you can get! No worries about making a mistake this week that costs you a point in the show ring next weekend - it's all about pushing yourself to the next level without all those worries of being perfect.

In The News!!

2011-11-01T16:26:00.000-07:00

Wow - I almost feel famous today!

Last week, Susan Salk at Off-Track Thoroughbreds.com interviewed me, as Katchi's spokesperson! She wrote up such a lovely article that I could hardly belive the story belonged to me and my awesome pony! The article is titled: "A Day in Kabul leads to racehorse, joyous life"
http://offtrackthoroughbreds.com/2011/11/01/a-day-in-kabul-leads-to-racehorse-joyous-life/

And, as if this wasn't enough excitement for my day - as I was heading home tonight, I pulled up Eventing Nation to see what was up - and it was me and Katchi again! Months ago, I sent in my eventing profile to win a copy of Jim Wofford's latest book (didn't win, had to buy it), and wouldn't you know it, they picked today to publish my profile!
http://eventingnation.com/home/2011/11/eventing-profile-of-the-week-10.html

I kind of feel like I'm all over the internet today! It's very cool but a very odd feeling to keep discovering my name and photo on sites that aren't me writing about me! :)

Hagyard MidSouth Kentucky: More Photos and Quotes!

2011-10-27T11:45:00.000-07:00

Katchi and I made it home safe and sound Monday night - the old truck and I managed to shave off 45 minutes on our return trip, so it only took us just under 12 hours! And that included a stop at a West Virginia gas station where I had an interesting conversation with a man with 3 teeth about whether Katchi had any "Morgan horse" in him - yep, I'm sure, not a Morgan. That was just one of many moments when I really wished Katchi wasn't my sole travel companion! But, the good news is that Katchi and I successfully completed a 12 hour road trip, and we're still speaking. I guess that says something about the strength of our relationship!

I have a lot of thoughts about the T3D experience that I want to share, but that will have to wait until my lazy weekend. But, for now, thanks to my lovely mom who made a quick call Saturday night to purchase all the T3D photos of me and Katchi - I have photos! And for those looking for a little humor today, I came up with my 5 favorite quotes of the event ...

“I did a one-star long format in 1994.” [Cherie] “Wow, that was 17 years ago! I was born that year!” [P3D rider]

“He’s fine.” [The answer to any and all questions at the 1st horse inspection.]

“He lost a shoe yesterday.” [The answer to any and all questions at the final horse inspection.]

“Do you want a beer?” [Every groom on Saturday night, to every rider with a stop on XC plus a few others.]

“My God. Are you seriously braiding me again?” [Every horse in the 3 day]

And now photos from Xpress Foto - great pics!!

First Horse Inspection

Dressage

Check out that super cool quarter mark!! I got skiilllzzz!

Both very pleased with ourselves! :)

Steeplechase

What steeplechase looks like when a horse doesn't understand to go THROUGH the brush!!

Cross Country!

Yea, still not getting the brush concept.

Picture perfect last fence! GOOD BOY!

2nd place finish in Kentucky!

2011-10-23T18:29:00.000-07:00

WOO HOO KATCHI!!!

After a foot perfect double clear show jumping round late this afternoon, Katchi moved up the placings to finish in 2nd!!! What an amazing ending to an amazing experience!

Lots more pictures and stories to come later, but for now, I'm off to bed - Katchi and I start the 12 hour drive back home first thing tomorrow morning.

We got some serious loot for our efforts this week - awesome stuff!!! Saddle pad, tote, hat, fly spray, linament, shampoo, cowboy magic... but no horse treats for Katchi - he was so devastated!!

What a show jumping view - if we couldn't be in the WEG/Rolex arena, at least we could be next to it!

The last fence on course - check out my big fat smile!

Be sure to check out all of Eventing Nation's coverage of this event (especially Samantha's Blog) - I must thank them for all the EN karma this week - it sure came in handy!!

Show Jumping photos by Xpress Foto

XC morning nerves have nothing on jog morning nerves

2011-10-23T07:40:00.000-07:00

Last horse inspection is over. We passed. Eventually.

I was nearly headed to the bar for a shot at 9:15 this morning.

Katchi looked great this morning. A little tired, but his legs looked great, and when I jogged him on the pavement for the farrier, he was perfect. Iced again, braided, shined up and ready - we headed to this morning's jog full of confidence. Down the jog path and back, when I hear, "#65 please go to the hold area." WHAT?!?!?! Tendons all checked out perfect. No reaction to the hoof testers. All perfect. And then I got the privilege of running him back and forth for the vets about 6 more times. Accompanied with instructions, "run faster" "hold onto the right rein" "keep his head straight" "run even faster". The jog area footing was pretty well packed, but uneven from horse hoofprints, and let me tell you, this "run faster" crap was sucking quick. Then they asked me if I wanted to represent. HELL YES. I know Katchi, and I know he was good to go. Whatever was going wrong was my inability to jog him properly. So, they tell me again, "run faster and hold the right rein steady." Walking back to represent, I was keenly aware that it all hung on "run faster, Cherie". God I'm not a runner.

We ran back and forth, and I was pretty sure I was going to fall down. I couldn't keep up to save my life, and it all hung on this one run. The ground jury said "thank you." WHAT DOES THANK YOU MEAN??? "Thank you, now go pack up your shit." Or "Thank you, have a wonderful show jumping round" ?!?!?! Moments later, I hear, "Approved." I burst into tears and threw my arms around Katchi's neck. I hugged a steward, and maybe even a vet. I can't remember exactly. I also found Eventing Nation's Samantha and gave her a hug too! I might have been pretty happy. So now we rest until show jumping later this afternoon. What a day.

Jog outfit #2 - thanks so much to Shane for the use of her beautiful velvet coat!

Eventing Nation Pictures!

2011-10-22T18:34:00.000-07:00

Well, I was 1 foot from bed when I decided to pull up Eventing Nation once more (nope, I'm not obsessed at all) - nothing about Hagyard Three Day yet, so I went to Samantha's Blog on EN to see if it was there yet... and now I have the biggest smile on my face any girl has had all day long!!!! YOU MUST CHECK OUT THE PICTURES OF KATCHI!!!! I'm just tickled to death to see those pictures and read her very kind words. I so hope I can track Samantha down tomorrow to thank her - and, if I don't scare her, maybe I'll even give her a big hug for making my wonderful day have a simply fabulous ending! GOOD BOY KATCHI!!!

http://eventingnation.com/samanthalclark/2011/10/hagyard-midsouth-three-day-saturday.html

Endurance Day!

2011-10-22T17:06:00.000-07:00

Well, that was fun!

Today was the big endurance day at the Kentucky Horse Park - it's the reason I made this trip! For the chance to experience the heart of three day eventing at the location of the biggest event in the US - to remember what eventing used to be along the very same paths so many of our greatest American (and international!) event horses have tread. And today did not disappoint! It was absolutely wonderful.

And it was especially wonderful because my pony was just super! He was a little confused, and I think he had a few "ah ha" moments out there - "oh, I get it - this is why we've been doing all that boring trotting, up and down all those big hills - well, okay, yea, this is okay!" Katchi was just a total star in my eyes today. The giraffe stayed back in the barn and he was all business. He couldn't have been more lovely on roads and tracks, and it was just such a wonderful time spent with my very best friend. Amanda even caught some video of us. So, get ready for the excitement, the suspense, the drama, the insanity.... of Roads & Tracks on video!!

I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed with the steeplechase course when I saw it Thursday - only 3 fences (2 the first minute, then 1 minute 15 sec gallop around a tear-drop turn, then one last fence and the finish line - I think we kinda got cheated on that, but anyhow...). When Katchi came out of the start box, I had to laugh at him - how could he have known what was coming? But he practically leaped out of the start box, just how I imagine a racehorse feels coming out of the gate. He galloped strong up to the first, got a little spooky, and leaped 6 feet in the air. That was when I was dead thankful I only had to survive 2 more steeplechase jumps. My cute little pony just doesn't understand the concept of brushing through brush. He jumps over brush, with room to spare. So, onto the second - even bigger jump, but we land running - only trouble is I'm trying to kick my stirrup off my heel where it planted intself on the landing of this enormous leap. A couple of months ago, I took the plunge to modern technology and replaced my old faithful stirrups with a new hi-tech lightweight plastic version. Not a good idea. The stirrup slipped back so far, it was practically stuck on my heel, and because it has no weight of its own, I couldn't get it to come back down to my toe. We're flying, and I'm shaking my leg around like a spaz. I'm just ready to give up, when I decide to give it one more try. SHIT! Came right off my toe. Now we're galloping down the hill into the final turn to the final jump - no stirrup and that left leg aint' holding me. And I can't get my toe into the stirrup because Mr. Lightweight Stirrup isn't hanging where it should be! And there's no way in hell I'm going to survive over that last jump with one stirrup. So, I tell Katchi, I'm so sorry, you have to stop. Now he's really confused. I get him slowed down just enough that I can get the stirrup back where it should be and my toe in it, and I dig my spurs into Katchi and he is flying now!! Damn I don't want time penalties. I look at my watch at the last 30 second marker and we're only down a few seconds - we fly over the last jump and charge at the finish... 1 second over time, 0.8 penalty points, dropped 2 places to 5th. Ugh, heart breaker. But what a tremendously fabulous pony I have - go, stop, go - and he did it all, just as I asked!

XC was great too - just the confidence boost we needed! As I was afraid, the small jumps rode a bit crap - Katchi just couldn't figure out why they were so small and he was a bit spooky at them, adding strides, and jumping like a llama. But, when the jumps finally got bigger and the questions harder - he rode like a charm! Even right through the ditch combination towards the end that I was worried wouldn't quite go to plan. But, he was great! And I'm also super thrilled that neither of us felt all that tired at the end of the course!

Amanda cooling Katchi out after XC

Here's the breakdown in speeds and distances for today's' endurance day:
Roads & Tracks, Phase A: 3520 M @220 MPM 16 minutes
Steeplechase, Phase B: 1300 M @520 MPM 2:30 minutes
Roads & Tracks, Phase C: 4000 M @ 160 MPM 25 minutes
10 minute vet box hold
XC, Phase D: 3009M @ 450 MPM 6:42 minutes

So, tonight Katchi is resting all poulticed, wrapped, and feet packed. He's always a tough one to keep comfortable, so we have our work cut out for us in the morning before the final jog. Please keep fingers, toes, hooves, and paws crossed for us tomorrow morning. And then it's show jumping around 4:00 tomorrow afternoon - another long day! And with that, I am off to bed!

Kentucky Dressage!

2011-10-21T16:52:00.000-07:00

Today was nearly as exciting as yesterday, but all in a good way this time! When Amanda and I walked out of the hotel this morning, it was 37 degrees (internet said it felt like 31), and it felt almost like summer compared to yesterday's Arctic hell! No rain or wind - we couldn't be any luckier for dressage day! And Katchi sure did me proud today! 40 horses are entered in Kentucky's Training Three Day, and Katchi and I are sitting tied for 3rd after dressage! The scores are very close, so we don't have a point to waste, but I'm thrilled with this great start!

When in tails, do not touch fuzz. Erin Durst gets de-fuzzed by duct tape!

I sas so pleased with my test, that I totally forgot to get pictures of Katchi and me all fancied up! But I did click this picture before heading out - check out those snazzy quarter marks!

Amanda taking out Katchi's braids, while he catches up on his beauty sleep!

As the three day is an "educational" competition, they allowed us to head out on phases A & C for some hacking - here we are before we headed out, before Katchi turned into a giraffe!

This is not Katchi. This is a giraffe. This is what a giraffe looks like when it's trying to poke its rider's eyes out with its ears. I am SO thankful we had a chance to take a "walk" (jig, panic, stop, go, panic, stare...) around out there today. We might have a chance at surviving tomorrow. Or I might well get my ass dumped on Roads & Tracks. That would be fun.

Even from the back of a giraffe, it sure is a pretty view!

And here are a few of tomorrow's XC jumps...

Pretty cool water jump - coop in, left turn to rolltop out, 2 strides, to another rolltop. Should be fun!!

The one thing on the course that has me a little worried - ditch on angle, 2 strides to hedge - but, hello?! Check out that driving marathon practically in the landing! That's one heck of a gymnastic jumping line if you don't make the left turn up the hill!!

The last jump - I hear they've shaved down the back a bit and given us some flowered wings - sort of a tough last jump at 6 min 42 seconds, eh?!

Katchi Kapshi... Accepted!

2011-10-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

The first big test of Kentucky is done - and Katchi passed! After a 12 hour and 15 minute drive yesterday (the old truck held steady at 35 mph through the mountains - good truck, but oh so painfully slow!) , a 40 degree temperature drop, rain, wind, and general chaos - and my last hope for a groom for this weekend won't make it here for another 2 hours - just showing up at the jog was some kind of miracle. Passing it - with braids in and no green slobber on either of us - was definitely a miracle. Thanks so much to my Area 2 buds who stripped off Katchi's cooler as we ran past. And a huge thanks to the Kentucky event organizers who took pity on us all and moved the jog into the Alltech indoor arena.

If day days 2, 3 and 4 are 1/2 as exciting as day 1, I'm in trouble. They keep saying the weather is going to improve, but riding Katchi this morning - in the freezing windy rain - I just kept saying to myself, if you want to play with the big boys, get used to it! It was that or cry and go home, and I'm not ready for that drive again yet. Katchi did a lot of cantering this morning and finally started breathing properly about 15 minutes in. Oh - and I very nearly fell off before my butt even hit the saddle! I cautiously walked the fragile pony up to the practice rings, hopping and skipping and dancing around. As I tried to get up in the ring, saddle went a little slippery, and cute pony decided to leave. But I was already committed to the mount - so I graciously sat my ass on his back... clean and clear ... 4 inches behind the saddle. And cute pony was still leaving. All I could think was "Damn this beast. I'm gonna have to fall off to get outta this. dammit." Somehow I managed to wrangle pony to a stop and flip my leg up over the cantle and deposit butt where it belonged - IN the saddle. Did a quick look around, and it appears that either a) the other riders in the ring were occupied enough with their own wild beasts to not notice, or b) were gracious enough to pretend it never happened! Luckily, the ride improved from there. Like I said, can't wait to see what excitement day 2 brings with it.

Katchi is currently napping, and I'm just about to head out to survey the land - dressage rings, xc course and sj. Drove around Phases A, B, and C a bit this morning - it actually appears to be a course requiring some memorization! Roads and Tracks with rollback turns. Interesting. Lots more pictures and news to come soon!

During the drive yesterday, I kept thinking, why am I doing this?! This morning, as the sun came up and Katchi and I had a look across the cross country course and the Rolex stadium in the distance - I remembered why. It was the most beautiful sight in the world.

JOG OUTFIT! Did I pick a good one?! So much for winning "best presented" this year - Katchi didn't even get a final brush off... but, mom, I got my lipstick on!

Katchi's tried to find a windbreak in his stall. It's not very effective, but he's enjoying his nap anyhow. He actually pretty much hates me right now. If anyone wants a horse, he's looking for a new owner - preferably who lives in Florida or California!

Fair Hill Fun on Foot!

2011-10-16T15:05:00.000-07:00

All the "real" eventing sites have all the Fair Hill news and horse photos, so this post is full of the "other" pictures - proof of how FUN Fair Hill is on foot! I'm absolutely swamped with trying to get everything ready to leave for Kentucky at o'dark-thirty on Wednesday morning, but with this beautiful fall weather, I just couldn't miss Fair Hill! And what fun we had!!! We had a whole gang out... up to no good all weekend!

The whole group out by the "haunted corner"!

XC Tailgaters!

Random spectators (at the coffin)

I saw several public announcements last week about the coming of the ATM machine to Fair Hill. This is not exactly what I expected! Notice the low-jack on the front tire!

Possibly overheard at the wine tasting table along the long walk from the XC start/finish back to the vendors: "Hey, I know you from the other bar!" Dooh!

The Vendor Fair

DUBARRY!!!!

The pictures say it all!

Debi - she's in the Dubarry club now!

My old boots didn't look so old until they stood next to a new pair! Well loved.

I own the new pair now. I'm imagining a trophy case in my dream barn to display Dubarries over a lifetime - each retired pair resting in honor!

SHOW JUMPING!

Aren't you jealous that you weren't there?!?! See you in 2012!

Loch Moy: 3 Ribbons and a Heartbreaker

2011-10-10T12:11:00.000-07:00

After this weekend at the Maryland Horse Trials at Loch Moy, I am especially thankful that I have such wonderful students! They each rode absolutely superb and kept me smiling all weekend long, despite my own heartbreak on Sunday morning. But, first the 3 ribbons...

Diane and Lincoln had another great day at their third Training level event, bringing home the coveted brown ribbon (8th place)! Loch Moy's classes are always large and competitive, and 8th place is quite an achievement, especially because Lincoln didn't have his best dressage test. We've been working so hard on his dressage, and he's come miles in the past couple of months. But, it's always disappointing when it doesn't quite come together the way you know it can. But, big boy Lincoln more than made up for it by skipping around the XC and giving Diane one heck of a ride! Interestingly, we heard (from the horse's mouth, so to speak) that the course designer made the Training XC slightly easier than the July "move up" event. I thought that was a little curious. Anyhow, anyone heading to the Area II Training Level championships better watch out for "Mr. President" cuz he is the man in charge!

Later on Saturday, Susan and Eeyore took BN by storm! We've been working furiously to develop Eeyore's dressage, and Susan reaped the benefits this weekend! Scoring a 30, they were tied for 4th after dressage - certainly an enviable position in such a large class! And then it was onto the jumping where Eeyore made his debut in the gag bit! For those who don't remember, check out my post about the gag bit assembly process. I was absolutely tickled to see that all my pain and suffering paid off as Eeyore cantered around beautifully, loving his gag bit! No more wild running, circles to regain control, or accidental escapes through the white ropes! Eeyore cantered around on a soft rein, only to be checked remindedhere and there to keep a regular pace - no arguments, no craziness - happy horse and happy rider! And then the day got even happier when we saw the scoreboard - a WIN for Susan and Eeyore!!! And with their qualification now secured, they are also off to the Area II Beginner Novice Championships - go girl!!

Diane and Susan with their well deserved ribbons.

Kerry & Atticus were the last to go on Sunday afternoon - riding Novice. Also scoring a 30 in dressage, Kerry started off her day in prime position - and it kept on getting better! After a bit of water disaster at Loch Moy in July and earning 2 stops, Atticus is officially over his water phobia. He practically towed Kerry into both water jumps yesterday. No more "square wheels" (as Lucinda Green says... a hump and a bump and a stutter and a hop...) - it was race car Atticus into the water! And at the end of the day, Kerry was also well rewarded for her efforts with a 3rd place ribbon.

So, it was ribbons all the way around for the Golightly gang. But, hang on, what about Katchi? Sadly, there would be no ribbon for Katchi this weekend. It was a heartbreaker instead. We started with a lovely dressage test, that placed us as the leader of "the others" in the division (i.e., those without olympic medals, pink jackets, or Fair Hill 3-star entries next weekend!). Katchi warmed up for show jumping superbly and started with the most beautiful round! The deep footing was really difficult for him, but he stayedin front of my leg, hitt all his distances, jumping perfectly - it was even better than Marlborough! Through the oxer-t0-vertical one stride, perfect! A little close to the liverpool, awkward, but okay. Roll back to the yellow and white fan jump. And that's where it all went wrong. Horribly wrong. The only thing I can figure out is that Katchi never saw the jump. Just never saw it. We hit the take off point and didn't take off. Suddenly there were poles everywhere, Katchi jumped into the air, landed in a thud, slammed my face into his neck (my cheekbone is a little tingly today, small bruise under my chin, but generally unharmed). But, here's the problem - I'm now in the middle of the show jumping ring, stopped, a little dazed, and 5 1/2 strides from the triple. I've been scouring the rule book trying to understand what I could have or should have done, but I think, left or right, up or down - I was screwed. Scoreboard now had me with a knockdown (or knock-through!) and 1 refusal (any stopping on course is a refusal). I guess I've joined the elite group of riders who have managed to earn a refusal on the landing side of a jump. Shit. That's just not right. I tried to back Katchi as far as I could into the corner without crossing my path, took a breath, and dug my spurs into him. 7 strides. Over the vertical. One stride. Katchi sees the oxer and I actually felt him move backwards while we were still going forward. Leap into the air, crawling over the oxer, moving hard left, losing all power. I'm not sure if at this point I was trying to stop him or pull him right, but we ended up, 2 and a shuffle strides later, with our noses in the left hand wing standard of the 3rd element. 2nd stop. Day over. The Brits have the only phrase that can explain my disappointment - I was totally gutted. And still am. I actually feel like I am a gutted fish. We could have done that triple. I know it. And we could have done it with perfect steps and no rails. But if I'd galloped around the ring to get going again, I would have crossed my path and been eliminated before I even got to the first element. Why couldn't he have just stopped at the fan jump so they could have reset it, and we could have had a proper do-over?! I was in a totally no win situation and all I could do was try. I should have had my bat ready and wacked him over the vertical - but using my bat in show jumping still isn't in my instincts. Maybe it will be now. So, there you have it, the end of Katchi's first prelim season with a big fat E in show jumping. Right in the middle of our best round ever. I guess that's how it goes sometimes. Next week, we're off to Kentucky for the Training 3 Day. The good news about that format is that no matter what happens in show jumping, we'll at least get to run cross country - because I'm not getting eliminated in dressage!!!!

Photos of Prelim XC jumps we didn't get to jump:

Nothing says fall to me like bunnies, cross country jumps, and colored leaves. Is there anything better in life??

A bank, bounce to tiny log - oh how I wanted to give this a try! Katchi hasn't done a bank bounce before, and I thought this was a perfect introduction. While it's marked as shared with intermediate, they made the log about a foot lower for Prelim - oh my heart aches for this bounce!

My heart doesn't ache for this GINORMOUS log into the first water, but I was keen to give it a go. I took a look at the log after all the Prelim horses ran and it was well scuffed up on the top. The horses really put their feet down in the air on this one, and I heard several stops announced at it.

Another one I was really looking forward to: in July this rolltop was followed by a down hillbending line, up the hill to a smaller rolltop. This looked like a fun variation of down the hill and to the wedge - and after the SKINNY chevrons we've been jumping at Phillip's all summer, this wedge looked 100 feet wide and FUN!

And my final words for today... DON'T FORGET... starting tomorrow night (Tuesday Oct 11) - VOTE FOR RILEY!!!! Read all about it on my blog post about Four Socks Riley. My friend Bridget and her horse Riley will be featured on the TV show, America's Favorite Trail Horse, tomorrow night. To continue onto the finals episode, they need your votes!!! Place your votes Tuesday - Thursday, here (be sure to uncheck all the sponsors' boxes before you vote, or you will receive a whole lot more emails!).

America Votes! Four Socks Riley

2011-10-04T16:49:00.000-07:00

VOTE!!! VOTE!!! VOTE!!!

October 11-13, America votes... for Four Socks Riley to be crowned America's Favorite Trail Horse!!!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE!

Now, why, you ask, am I blogging about voting for a trail horse?!? Because this trail horse (and his mom, Bridget!) is a special friend of mine, and he's even got an eventing history when he made a quick BN appearance at Waredaca in 2009. But, eventing wasn't Riley's calling - HOLLYWOOD was calling his name! And this year, Riley had his big break. He and Bridget travelled all the way from Maryland to Texas to spend a week in front of the bright lights and big cameras! And, now, America, Four Socks Riley is coming to the tv in your living room (on the internet too!). Lets face it, that's pretty cool, period. But it gets cooler - after his episode airs next Tuesday (October 11), it will be up to you America... VOTE FOR RILEY TO BE AMERICA'S FAVORITE TRAIL HORSE!!!

Riley during his eventing days

Voting will be open Oct 11-13 - vote here! (be sure to unclick the boxes next to the sponsor's names or you will receive a whole lot more emails every day!!)

Dear XC Course Designers... Katchi has one word for you: NO. Actually, two words: F*@# NO.

Go Bridget! Rockin' the English saddle and helmet among all those cowboys!

Want to hear more about the awesome story of Riley and Bridget? Read on (in the words of Riley's mom)...

By all rights and horse sense, Four Socks Riley (Riley) and I should never have found each other let alone become #264 on America’s Favorite Trail Horse.

FOUR SOCKS RILEY
As a yearling, I’m not sure that Four Socks Riley had aspirations for anything more than enjoying a good pasture under the Florida sun. But life had different plans for him - Riley was shipped from Florida to Maryland to pony race horses. However, at 2 ½ years old and with no training, Riley was in no position to pony temperamental thoroughbreds and his young owner couldn’t pay for his board. Cutting her losses, Riley’s owner abandoned him and he found himself enjoying a good pasture under the Maryland sun.

BRIDGET McCULLOUGH
I grew up with a passion for horses that as a child was heightened by reading every Marguerite Henry book and morphing speeding cars on the highway into sleek thoroughbreds racing on the track, but only managed one summer on the back of a horse at age 12. Come to think of it, I even selected my college because it was in Kentucky and I associated that with horses. As an adult, I lived my passion vicariously through my children as they took riding lessons on old school horses. Finally, at the age of 45, following a 23 year career in the Army, I was ready to live my dream.

FOUR SOCKS RILEY & BRIDGET MEET
Riley was spending his days grazing and enjoying life but his new barn was unwilling to support the squatter. With an account in arrears and a horse with no experience, the barn owner sent Riley for training and prepared to sell him. It was shortly after Riley’s 30 days of training that I stepped in and solved the dilemma for the barn owner. I bought Riley, broke the golden horse rule that inexperienced riders should not own untrained horses, and discovered the true meaning of “Green + Green = Black and Blue bruises.”

DIFFICULT DAYS for FOUR SOCKS RILEY & BRIDGET
Before Riley came to live on our recently purchased 4 acres, he received an additional 30 days of training which included weekly lessons for myself. Any horseman will tell you that 60 days for green on green is not enough but my optimism told me it was a good start. Wrong… Riley kicked out as he was being lead or any other time he felt the urge, he needed two people to tack him, and we were both still learning the basics of riding. I needed to do something before Riley hurt me or my children. So I turned to Parelli’s natural horsemanship and many patient, remarkable trainers who have guided my journey with Riley and taught me to ride.

SUCCESS for FOUR SOCKS RILEY & BRIDGET
Every day I’m amazed at the progress Riley and I have made. We have become partners. He is such an incredible horse and would have done great things under a more experienced rider. However, Riley patiently waits for me to learn my job. Over the past 7 years, Riley and I have gone from working on ground manners, to riding Western, to trail riding, to riding English, to jumping upwards of 3 feet. We recently began competing when I joined ACTHA two years ago; the only competitions we have ever done. We are far from perfect and that drives us to improve on the basics like his bending and my posture yet does not deter us from trying new things like dressage or cow penning.

THANK YOU FOUR SOCKS RILEY
Four Socks Riley has allowed me to live my dream, a dream that I believe is shared with many middle-aged men and women who have loved horses since they were children but weren’t able to pursue their passion. I am not a professional horse trainer. Despite that, with determination, time, and the guidance of experienced trainers, Four Socks Riley is proof that green is to be respected but not feared. Living our dreams is possible – to enjoy the company of a good horse.

GOOD LUCK to Riley and Bridget as the voting starts! Please remember to take a minute between October 11-13 to cast your vote for this super pair!!
CLICK HERE TO VOTE!

Miracle at Marlborough

2011-09-18T14:32:00.000-07:00

While so many of the East Coast Eventers were at Plantation this weekend, the rest of us were at Marlborough Horse Trials - celebrating their 20th anniversary. And for those who were ringside during my show jumping round, they were in for a special treat. A real miracle - a miracle most didn't even know they had witnessed, but I knew. Mr. Katchi Kapshi jumped like a real show jumper, with hardly a stutter - over a course that was causing havoc left and right with refusals and falls. Thank you Phillip Dutton for making this round possible. I was very nearly in tears coming out of the ring. I think the video speaks for itself.

Thank you Debi for being videographer extraordinaire.

I really like the Marlborough Horse Trials, and not just because it's 15 minutes down the road from Katchi's barn in Harwood, MD. The land is beautiful, the jumps are awesome, and the courses include some super fun galloping through wide wooded paths, open fields, and big hills. Despite the serious flooding only 10 days ago, the land recovered fantastically and we all got to enjoy some seriously good galloping! And the homebaked cookies waiting for us at the awards table - AMAZING! If you go for no other reason, go for the cookies!

At the end of the Prelim divisions, the scoreboard looked nothing short of carnage. Funny, because I told Phillip on Wednesday that the XC course was really soft and no big deal - he said I'm never ever allowed to say that to him again, and no joke, because I picked up a stop at an EASY EASY fence almost at the end of the course. Nothing can make you eat your words like a horse. After a tremendous round, including the water combination where someone later told me that if they'd caught it on video, it would have been the perfect example of how to ride it! Ahhh, you're making me blush... and then I picked up a stop by simply coming in on a bad stride and not closing my leg. Lucinda says, "don't think you had it, know you had it." I thought Katchi had it. I was tired, after all. Back to the treadmill.

Me with angry face at the scene of our "20". When Katchi ducked out left, I yelled out "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! AT THAT?!" - and as I spun him around, I caught the eye of the young-teen-ish boy jump judge - lounging in his chair, laughing. Apparently I was hilarious, and he finally got to write something other than "0" on his score sheet. Glad I made your day, chuckles.

But, at the end of the day - the carnage others faced was worse than mine, and we finished in 2nd!!!! Diane said, "you don't have to be faster than the bear, you only have to be faster than the other guy." Yep, that was my day! Of 9 starters in my division, only 6 finished, and only the winner finished without xc jump penalties. sheesh. I'm never calling a course "soft" again.

Saturday afternoon, Kerry and Atticus were up on the Novice course. After a stellar day and rockin' xc round, Kerry discovered a big fat E next to her name! WHAT?! An inquiry revealed that some numbers were transposed and she was credited with taking about an hour to complete the xc course, thereby exceeding the time limit - um, could we get a sanity check here folks?! Luckily - and let this be a lesson to everyone - Kerry caught the error withing the protest period and was able to save herself from Elimination and claim her very pretty 5th place ribbon! Congrats to Kerry and Atticus!

Saturday night, a whole gang of us headed to the annual BBQ for the Maryland Horse Council, at Larking Hills, just across the road from Katchi's barn. I thought it would be fun to get some good food and listen to a fun band at the end of a horse trial day, but I have a new appreciation for this organization now. If you live in Maryland, have anything to do with horses, and are not a member - become a member! I didn't appreciate how much the MHC has the power to influence - especially city, county, and state government - in ways that seriously affect the horse industry. I spoke briefly with a county councilman who is putting in legislative changes for Anne Arundel county that will hopefully stop the persecution of building anything on horse farms (indoor arena, shavings shed, covered round pen...) - he said Anne Arundel is the least horse-friendly county in Maryland! And for anyone who has visited the area, that's just criminal, because it has some of the best land for horses!

Sunday, it was back to Marlborough to help Diane & Lincoln on the Training course. Lincoln continues to impress me with his businessman-like approach to this whole eventing thing. Every day, he puts on his suit and tie, and shows up for work. And whatever work throws at him, he just gets down to it, and finishes it all in time to clock-out at 5:00, and head home for dinner with the wife and kids. Diane had 3 really solid phases (including 1 of only 2 double clear xc rounds) and was well rewarded with a 2nd place ribbon! Way to go Diane & Lincoln!!!

2010 Training trakehner. Evil. Scary. Airy. Deep.

2011 Training trakehner. Ah, lovin' that groundline!!

Lincoln & Diane - pay no attention to that ditch behind the groundline!

Diane, Lincoln, and his grooms waiting for their reward smoothies from the Smoothie Lady!

I hate groundhogs. My last note about Marlborough is about groundhogs. Katchi found a groundhog tunnel during the walk in his dressage test. Apparently, with all this rain, the ground had softened up enough, that he fell right into a tunnel (not an entrance hole!). I alerted the judge and stewards after my test that it might need some attention - apparently it took 2 buckets of gravel to fill! And another tunnel opened up later, just outside the ring, and a trotting horse when down to its knees. SCARY! I'm a vegetarian. I really like animals - especially cute cuddly looking ones. I officially hate groundhogs. And I'm seriously starting to feel like Bill Murray in Caddyshack - these little bastards are everywhere and they will not go away! And if they destroy Rosaryville Park for the horses, I may become a hunter.

Photo from Photobucket.com

Today also brought a very cool surprise - I finally arranged to collect the MCTA perpetual trophy that Katchi and I won earlier this spring for the lowest dressage score of all MCTA members competing at Shawan Downs. I was actually struck at what an honor it was to receive the trophy and see all the past winner's names engraved on it (including Phillip Dutton)! It sort of made me feel like a part of eventing history! Pretty cool!

(Wet) Ducks in a Row

2011-09-11T10:48:00.000-07:00

Getting your ducks in a row. I love that saying! It's like the type-A, obsessive compulsive version of herding cats (or kittens!) - not good enough to just herd them, you gotta get them in a row! This week, I've gotten quite a few of my ducks in a row - despite the ridiculous rain and flooding - which I've spent way too much time driving in!

First up... Katchi update. We've been doing some remedial training on oxer-one stride-oxer combinations, and I have full intentions of making it to XC at Marlborough next weekend! We also got our collective butts kicked by Silva Martin on Wednesday. We've missed far too many lessons with her this summer, but this lesson covered some serious ground - mostly in counter canter! And on Thursday, Katchi and I braved the flooded beltway back and forth to The Plains where Katchi had his full check-up with Dr. Allen at Virginia Equine Imaging. All systems go! And, so, exciting news... I've submitted my entry for a Training Three Day... at the Kentucky Horse Park!! I cannot tell you how excited I am! At Loch Moy this summer, an old friend, Erin, from Phillip Dutton's 2009 camp put the idea into my head - why not do the 3-day at the Horse Park?!?! She's doing the Prelim Three Day, so we could help each other out! I couldn't stop thinking about doing roads and tracks around the Horse Park, meandering around the Rolex fences! I love Waredaca, but I just couldn't resist Kentucky! And the really fun part is that Kerry is going to take Atticus to run the Novice horse trial, and my old student, Amanda (who now lives in Tenessee) will also be there with her new horse. PARTY!

So, the three day preparation begins! I can do the dressage, I can get Katchi fit for the endurance day, we "can" do the show jumping - but, what about the jogs? Shit, that means fashion?!?! To help me out, my mom went through every Burghley jog outfit and gave me the following rules:
1. My outfit must work with Katchi's color. I may not clash with him!
2. No grey.
3. No yellow.
4. Only Mary King looked good in white pants. I'm not Mary King.
5. The shorter the skirt, the lamer the horse (my mom didn't discover this - it's just an eventing truth). Katchi better be sound, because I'm not wearing a short skirt!

Okay, great. Off to the mall. Ugh. Guess I better change out of my riding clothes and take a shower before I venture to the land of teeney-boppers and normal people. I can't remember the last time I was at a mall.

Just to prove why I'm so stressed about this fashion thing - check me out in 1994 at my CCN*...

Okay, mid-90's, floral thing (understandable, if not acceptable), hair a bit blond but not big (remember, I come from Texas - not big was a huge achievement!), shoulder pads (let me repeat, mid-90's), hum...

And then you see it - white socks and penny loafers?!?! SERIOUSLY?!?! Shoes. I will win in the shoe department in 2011!

Today, I got even more ducks in a row, by finally doing something I've been trying to fit into my schedule for years. After a very full day of teaching yesterday, I managed to keep my Sunday schedule open enough to do a little pre-event help at Rosaryville Park! I broke a rake. Ooops. But, I also identified a few trees that might poke my eye out next Saturday, and I would like to assure all Prelim riders that those pokey limbs have been appropriately dealt with! At the end of our work session, I told Diane, "well, the footing is good, except where it isn't." She laughed at me. But, really - considering the massive flooding just down the road, the park is in pretty good shape. And with the exception of the still running river that the (slightly) Prelim and (mostly) Training courses have to cross, the footing isn't so bad. And I hear gravel is on order. Please, please, no more rain this week. And I also have it on good authority that the scary as hell Training Trakehner from last year is going to be gentled a bit! See, pre-event volunteering has its perks! They're also still looking for some help on competition weekend, so be sure to contact them if you can help out.

And the last bit of this week's ducks in a row... oh, my crystal ball... let me wipe today's rain drops off you, so I can see... is there something long, white, powerful, and beautiful in my future? Does his name begin with an F??

Will you be mine? Maybe...

Heroes and Almost Heroes

2011-09-06T17:06:00.000-07:00

The thing about having a blog is that you have to report the bad along with the good. It's called honesty, or something. Luckily, thanks to my super student Kerry, I have some good to report along with my own bad.

First, Kerry's good. She ran around Seneca Valley's Novice cross country course with mad determination - and she was well rewarded with a 3rd place finish! This year has had its ups and downs for Kerry, who only competed at her first recognized event this spring - ticking off success at Beginner Novice and promptly moving up to Novice. It was all a little too easy at first, and then, as happens to most of us, Kerry came upon a few bumps - or puddles! Atticus started to think he might be smarter than Kerry, and maybe this whole "into the water" thing needed some extra thinking. And coming from hunter land, Kerry wasn't prepared for how to deal with the little princess fretting over getting his twinkle toes wet! A couple of weeks ago, we did some XC schooling at Loch Moy, and we pinned down Kerry's placement and timing of the bat to Mr. Twinkle Toes rump. Let me just tell you that Mr. Twinkle Toes did a full on cannon ball into Seneca's water this weekend, and he had a smile on his face! Problem sorted.

While Kerry was a hero, I was almost a hero - and almost isn't good enough. Seneca was death by a thousand paper cuts for me. But there were glimmers of glory - 2 fantastic warm ups and a hell of a jumping horse! And I was almost having fun in show jumping! So what the heck happened - why the big E??? I jacked it up with just 2 jumps left. We hit some difficult distances, we cross-cantered the triplebar - but it was working out and Katchi was jumping fantastically!! Except for the combinations. Those damn combinations. We survived the first one - vertical to vertical, one stride. It was ugly, but we survived. The triple was not as forgiving. Oxer-one stride-oxer-2 strides-vertical. With a stop at the vertical and then, on our second try, we picked up a stop at the second oxer, and our day was done. What a terrible end to one of our very best rounds. So, what went wrong?? I went wrong. I've gone over it and over it in my head, and watched the video 1,000 times (THANK YOU DIANE!), and I totally jacked it up - twice. I keep suckering myself into riding into combinations with full determination to collect, prepare, balance, pick, pick, pick - but that's all wrong. Katchi needs to gallop a triple like a triple bar. When will I figure that out and make it happen on course?!?! S...L...O...W ...learner. At best, it was ugly and embarrassing. At worst, it was almost dangerous. I have to get over myself and GALLOP those damn combinations. No more pussy footing around. Problem sorted??

Next time, I'm gonna be the hero Katchi knows I can be and needs me to be!

Another Change in Plans!

2011-09-01T16:54:00.000-07:00

Katchi and I had probably the best jump school we've ever had yesterday - over the biggest fences Katchi's ever jumped! Phillip said run him. So, routine vet appointment is moved to next week, and Seneca is on!! I was absolutely stunned at how well Katchi jumped - his best ever! Is it possible that he grew up a bit running around his first Prelim? I feel good. I feel prepared. And Phillip thought Katchi looked great. I heard more "good"s come out of Phillip's mouth than ever before, and when the man says the horse is good to go, it's hard to argue! So, it's off to Seneca on Saturday. At least those prelim fences will look a bit smaller after the fences Phillip set for us yesterday! YIKES! :)

Hope to see y'all out there!

Plan, Re-plan, and Plan Again

2011-08-30T16:48:00.000-07:00

I'm a planner. I don't cope well when plans change. But, with horses, that's what planning is - it's planning to be ready to change your plan! Ugh.

The past couple of weeks have been such a flurry of changing plans that I can hardly keep up! Katchi came back into work after his short summer vacation, only to promptly come down with cellulitus. Luckily, I figured out the culprit very quickly and had him on antibiotics before things got out of hand. But, it still meant 5 more days out of work, followed by a few light days of work to be sure we were in the clear. And then the hurricane blew in. More changes in plans. In the past 10 days, Katchi extended his vacation to miss 2 jump schools, 2 fitness days, and generally worry me to death. He also missed his "pre-fall season" vet check-up to be sure his joints are all in working order and get approved to charge into the fall season. While he's technically still entered to run Prelim at Seneca this Saturday, it's been a less than ideal lead-up, and I'm feeling under-prepared and a very worried mom.

So, tomorrow, we ride with Phillip. And I was able to just squeeze Katchi in for a make-up vet appointment on Friday. As terribly disappointed as I am, I think I will have to let Seneca go. If the vet says Katchi's 100%, all systems go, then we run. But, I have a fall season to conquer still, so if it needs to start 2 weeks later at Marlborough, that's okay. We'll adjust. Ugh.

As I was torturing myself today, thinking 'do I run' - 'don't I run' - I started thinking about how the top riders go through this over and over again in the weeks leading up to Rolex, Badminton, Burghley, or any other big event. How horrible that must be. It's a weird thing, this sport we have and our relationship with our horses. To scratch, in some ways, feels like we've given up before even trying. If I was the only athlete in this game, I'd give it a try and see how I feel. I wouldn't give up on my goal until I'd tried my hardest and just couldn't pull through. But, adding a horse (that you LOVE and would do anything for, and who trusts you with everything he's got) into the equation complicates things. While we listen to everything our horses say, they don't always say what they should. So, sometimes we walk away from goals to be safe and fair to our horses - to save them for the long run. Wow, is that ever a painfully hard decision.

So, maybe we'll see you at Seneca, maybe we won't. But, we'll see you soon - and we'll have fire in our eyes and big goals to conquer, that I can guarantee you!

Cross Country Camry

2011-08-13T16:29:00.000-07:00

My Camry didn't come with the towing package. It didn't come with a sticker on it's side that says "off road" either. But, today, it was the Cross Country Camry. It went all over Waredaca's Cross Country course and it didn't refuse, run out, or eject me! Good Camry!

With Katchi not competing this month, I decided to sign up to volunteer at Waredaca today. Of course, it's a good thing to do for our sport - but I also needed to get my required volunteer hours done for the Area II Year End Awards (have you signed up yet?!). But, aside from that, volunteering is a great opportunity to learn (or remember!) stuff about eventing. Here's 3 things I remembered today while jump judging...

1. Running an event is incredibly hard and complex! All of us riders who LOVE this sport should be seriously thankful for everything done for us by event organizers, officials, volunteer coordinators, jump builders, and everyone I don't even know exists!

2. If you have been eliminated, it sucks. But it's not okay to be walking off the course and give your horse one more smack with the bat - or two. Let me repeat, Not Okay.

3. Your horse can jump from a standstill, so long as the jump is less than 12 inches high (I looked it up in the rulebook tonight, and it actually says 30 centimeters, which according to the internet is 11.8 inches, but anyhow..) - interestingly, apparently the small log into the water for (I think) the Novice course was 11 inches high, making it perfectly legal to stop and step over it from a standstill. Do you carry your 12" ruler in your pocket when you walk your courses?! :)

So, here are some pics of the Cross Country Camry hard at work!

Manning its field.

A careful eye on the Intermediate 1/2 Coffin.

The Training swail.

Oh yea, and it rained too - in August - so much for the tan I was planning to get during my day of jump judging.

Now lets talk Trakehners for a minute. Here are Waredaca's Prelim and Intermediate Trakehners. If we were to play a little game of which one is more like the horrible evil Prelim Trakehner at Loch Moy, which one would win?

Prelim Trakehner -

1. Nice solid ground line (nope, not at Loch Moy!)

2. Ditch underneath (yep, Loch Moy too - oh, but, Loch Moy's is about twice as deep and twice as wide).

3. Pretty minimal space between ditch and rail.

Intermediate Trakehner -

1. No groundline.

2. Huge ditch.

3. Freaking enormous.

4. Shit, this one's even the same color as Loch Moy's!

My conclusion: Loch Moy Prelim Trakehner = Waredaca Intermediate Trakehner.

Well, the good news is, when Katchi runs Intermediate at Waredaca, I can pretty much tell him to suck it up and jump the Trakehner, because he jumped one just as hard at his first Prelim!!!

If the weather holds tomorrow, I've got 4 headed back out to Win Green for another day of XC schooling - I really should buy a time share down there!

A Prelim Photo Montage

2011-08-11T16:38:00.000-07:00

I HAVE PHOTOS!! I LOVE PHOTOS!! My package from GRC Photo arrived today with their new very cool thumbdrives in a wooden case engraved with my name, Katchi's name, and Maryland Horse Trials - and on that wooden thumbdrive are 113 pieces of photographic evidence that Katchi completed his first Prelim horse trial! So, here's a mini-montage of some of my favorite moments captured on film! It is sort of sad though how pictures just don't do the jumps justice. I keep wondering at what point I'll feel like the jumps in the pictures actually look as HUGE as they seem in person?? Cuz let me tell you, some of these jumps are BIG - I was just sure they'd look like Rolex jumps in the photos! Oh well, they aren't exactly twigs on the ground!

Katchi in his winning dressage test!

Um, yea, this one wasn't part of the plan. That might be "SHIT" coming out of my mouth! Poor Katchi, I put him where he just couldn't do it for me.

That's okay - I got it right the next time around, and Katchi soared! And it wasn't even a helicopter - it was just huge!!

AND THEN IT WAS CROSS COUNTRY TIME - YEE HAA!!

Run Katchi Run!

Take note of the red number above the green number - that's means we shared this HUGE table with the Intermediate course! I think Katchi might be looking down, thinking "how freaking far out does this thing go, mom?!?"

Big Freakin' Table!

Outta da' water!

And over da' house!

And even a water to water!

Oh, I love these pictures!!! Thanks so much to GRC for capturing my memories forever!

In other news... last weekend was full of dressage! Katchi and I were able to get our first dressage lesson with Silva Martin in ages, and Katchi was a star! Silva rode him for quite a while, and he was dead pooped by the time she turned him over to me! But, oh, didn't he feel lovely after she worked her magic! Kerry and Atticus also came along and had a stunning lesson - I'm still in awe with how much they have improved in the brief 1.5 years since we first met. Last weekend, I also had the great privilege of sitting on my good friend Eeyore for the first time! I think one of the most rewarding parts about riding is helping a horse to see that first glimmer of light about connection, forward, and relaxation - I think Eeyore got a good glimpse of his future, and he felt stunning! Watch out folks - he's gonna knock your socks off very soon! AND, lastly, a HUGE congrats to Karrie and Baggio who survived their first dressage show together (PVDA at CDI) - they scored in the 60s in both their tests, with Karrie making a solid 5 point improvement between tests. As a coach, it's absolutely fabulous when a student listens carefully to your thoughts, makes the changes, and reaps the benefits!

August continues to be a month of refocus and re-invigoration for me - Katchi has enjoyed 4 days vacation (part of a promised week-long vacation that will end prematurely tomorrow as he's getting into WAY too much trouble being too fit and too bored) - and I've been taking some time to ramp up my fitness work and refocus my mind in hope of taking on the fall season with full power. If anyone is looking for a rider-focused fitness regime, give Debbie Rodriquez' DVDs a go - she'll hurt you - seriously!

Cupcakes, Beer, & A Gag Bit

2011-08-02T16:41:00.000-07:00

I bring news of victory! The gag bit succumbed to my pliers. But it did not give up easily - it took me over an hour of carefully applied torture by plier before those cheekpieces admitted defeat! Seriously, gag cheekpieces should come with some sort of consumer warning about risk of injury or death. No joke.

But, it was not in vain! On Sunday, Katchi and I took 3 others out to Win Green for an absolutely beautiful day of XC schooling. And Eeyore got to try out the new gag bit - and there is strong evidence that he likes it! At least, he had a fantastic day of schooling in it, so that's a start! And his mom brought be a big ol' beer for my troubles!

Eeyore & Susan at MDHT II - after he enjoyed a little extra distance on the course! :)

I cannot put into words just how much I love going to Win Green! It is Disneyland for baby eventers (and big eventers too!). I am in absolute awe of the puzzles that Leslie has put into action at her farm. And all 4 ponies were fantastic in her puzzles! Katchi was a bit bored, as he was only there to pop over some ditches and into the water (and get a few reminder wacks about the "look AND jump" rule). But he was a good sport. Karrie and Baggio made their first real XC voyage and wow did they impress! As we were just about finished, I asked Karrie if there was anything else she wanted to do - she said, "I'm feeling brave, challenge me!" That from the girl who 2 hours before was happy to have trotted around the big field and still be alive! And Eeyore, sporting his fancy gag bit, was perhaps the bravest of all! He's right on the cusp of figuring out that XC is just about the most fun any horse could ever wish for - and what fun it is to watch his eyes and ears (big floppy Eeyore ears!) as he sees how amazing life can be! I'm actually not sure who was wearing the bigger smile - Eeyore or Susan! And then there was Lincoln - don't be mistaken, he is the President! He took on the big boy challenges one by one and said - is that all you got?!

And to end an absolutely lovely day in the XC field - we sat around in the shade for a bit, talkig horses, and enjoying cupcakes and beer! Is there any better summer day possible?! Cupcakes, beer, and a gag bit!

The Gag Bit: Some Assembly Required

2011-07-28T04:28:00.000-07:00

10:00 last night. Standing in my kitchen in my pajamas. Blinds drawn tightly. A glass of wine waiting on the counter for inspiration and consolation. Lathered up to my elbows in cheap olive oil (I'm an olive oil snob and this was a job for cheap olive oil!). Twisting and turning, and pulling and pushing - metal, rope, leather - and a can opener (lets just say that my horse trailer comes prepared for any emergency; my house does not). The not often disclosed life of a rider.

Last night I learned why the sum is greater than the parts when you buy an already assembled gag bit. Some time ago, at a local tack shop's going out of business sale, I found a $5 beautiful snaffle gag bit in the bargain bit bin. Oh how exciting! Something new to add to my bit box collection!! But, wait, no cheekpieces - not to worry, I'll just pick those up on sale someplace else later. This weekend, I'm taking a few students to Win Green (my FAVORITE!) for some XC schooling. One horse is in need of some bit experimentation, and I think a mild snaffle gag may be just the trick for him. Time to slip those cheekpieces in and give it a try. Easy enough.

Some assembly required, my ass. It was an all out war in my kitchen last night. And I might be losing. I called a truce for Red Cross treatment of the injured when my right pec muscle seized up so bad my arm stopped moving (you might even say my armpit and right boob had a seizure - now that's a first!). I have the cheekpieces pinned down and greased up. They'll sit there and think about what they've done while I'm at work today. The war will begin again at sundown.

This is NOT my gag bit. This is an assembled gag. It's worth the money. Picture source here.

PRELIM SUCCESS!

2011-07-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

WE DID IT! And it was amazing - absolutely amazing! But before I tell yesterday's story, I want to say a bit about how far Katchi has come. Sometimes it's easy to feel like things are moving so slowly, and feel like you're just not getting any better - but looking back over time, you realize how far you've come!

In April 2006, I returned from 6 months in Afghanistan working for the Department of Defense. I finally had enough money in my bank account to make owning a horse possible again after 10 years of riding whatever I could find available. It took me another 6 months to get the guts to start the search. Katchi was the first horse I looked at. Under the name "Sportin' Merle" he had raced 12 times with 2 wins totalling $11,783. His current owner had taken him off the backstretch and spent a couple of months showing him what a ring and jumps looked like. He spent the next year or so in a field, and that's where I found him - a fat and dirty 5 year old!

Katchi - picture taken the first time I saw him!

The day after I signed the papers to purchase my very own pony, I left to spend a month in Asia for work. I spent the entire month trying to come up with a new name for him - Merle had to go! I was in the De-Militarized Zone between North Korea and South Korea, when I saw a military coin that said "Katchi Kapshi" on it. I quickly pulled out my notebook and added it to the list of about 100 other possibilities - later I discovered it's English translation - "We go together". And that was it. Katchi had his new name.

Katchi and I have been together since the fall of 2006 - it's been a roller coaster of a ride for us as we've both had to overcome demons we didn't even know we had! During DC's "Snowmageddon" in 2010, while I was trapped in my house, I put together this video of "bad Katchi clips". When I made the video, I promised myself that I would share it when I had successfully moved Katchi up to Prelim - so here we are... Bad Katchi!

And, on July 17, 2011, my little bad Katchi officially became a Prelim event horse! We started off with a solid dressage test that I thought was a little stiff, but very respectable. It wasn't until the day was over that I learned Katchi's 31.5 led the OP-C division of 18 horses! WOW! High Noon - it was me against the show jumping course. When I walked the course, I almost got down on my knees and kissed the ground! The footing was ENTIRELY different than the week before - it was a bit deep in places, but I could walk on solid ground! And the course had long flowing lines with choices for wider turns if you got into trouble! I thought I might just have a fighting chance. For those who have looked at the scoreboard, you might say I had a rough go of it. 12 jumping faults, 20 time penalties. But OH NO! It was by far the very best show jumping round I've ever had!!!! When I came out of the ring, Kitty from L'Appogee Saddles (who I bought my amazing dressage saddle from) said - "YOU RIDE THAT BEAST!" - and that's just what I did! Oh, how I wish Phillip could have seen it. I rode just how I promised him that I would. Katchi was in a bit of shock at how powerful I was riding him, but he jumped those 3'7" jumps better than any course he's ever done! We pulled one rail at #2 when I got him in a little deep and pulled a second rail at the oxer in the triple - that's okay - triples are a big question for him, but he's just about to figure it all out! We also grabbed a stop at the oxer after the bending line from the liverpool (hence the time penalties too). That's the one part Phillip would have not been pleased with - I jumped too big over the liverpool and couldn't land, turn, and keep going - the oxer was just too big and Katchi admitted he couldn't do it. But, let me tell you, he SOARED over it when we came back around. So, 32 points added to my score - doubled our dressage score - and I must have been the happiest girl at the show!!!

And then it was XC time!! I really can't say much more than brilliant! That damn trakehner was on the course and I was terrified. I rode to it like I don't think I've ever ridden to anything in my life - and it's a damn good thing because Katchi couldn't believe his eyes when I turned him at that THING! He actually jumped okay from the front side, but he went so high up, he didn't cover enough ground on the back side. His back legs landed just on the edge of the ditch. It never ceases to amaze me how horses can take care of themselves, because I'm certain his hind end was headed back into the ditch when he somehow extracted himself. If I was Phillip Dutton, I would have recovered seamlessly and kicked on. But, I had to stop for a moment, and tell Katchi that he was the best horse in the world because he didn't want to do that jump at all - and he did it for me - he went because I asked him to. He got a huge pat, I think I said thank you 10 times, and we were off. I didn't quite get him going again enough before the steps up, so we crawled up those. But, then the course just absolutely fell into place for us. I don't think he took a wrong step the entire rest of the course (I discovered at the end of the course that he'd pulled his hind boots down around his fetlocks at the Trakehner, so he jumped fences 6-19 with galloping boots smushed around his ankles! Guess he's over his hind boot phobia!). Katchi was cautious in the second water - trotted over the water-to-water rolltop (he's only jumped one teeny tiny water-to-water schooling about a year ago!) - but he was never not going. He jumped the huge tables on the back side of the course like they were little cross rails! The 1-stride brush combination was a walk in the park. And he was an absolute cat through the turning ravine rolltop combination. Coming back up the hill to the last fence, I kept saying in my head "Don't fall off Ronnie!" - my mom and I watched Secretariat Saturday night, and that's what the trainer was yelling at Ron Turicott as he was just about to win the Belmont by 31 lengths!!! When I pulled Katchi up at the finish line, he blew his nose twice and shook his head a little. I laughed out loud! I'm sure Katchi was saying "Holy cats mom!! That was AMAZING!"

Evil in Wood.

Second water complex: tiki house, into water, water-to-water rolltop, out water, skinnier tiki house = FUN!

Now it's time to regroup and figure out what's next! Katchi won't compete in August, but I'm thinking big for September and October. When I woke up this morning, my phone was already notifying me of opening dates for Seneca and Loudon in September. Time to sort out the fall schedule for my big Prelim horse! :)

AND - I have to give a huge shout out to Diane and Susan who I coached at Loch Moy on Saturday - they were absolute stars! Diane moved her awesome big boy Lincoln up to Training - and they WON!!! After winning the dressage and adding nothing to their score in SJ or XC, they came home with the blue ribbon! Not too bad for a move-up event! I think Diane was most thrilled that her Percheron-Thoroughbred-Paint cross made XC time - and he pulled up in good form! Hot, but recovered quickly and looked oh so pleased with himself! Susan and her green-bean Eeyore completed their first BN, with just one stop at the water. Eeyore reminds me a lot of Katchi, and I'm so excited to see how he develops. Susan definitely had her hands full out there, but she rode very sensibly and gave Eeyore a great confidence boosting trip. Just what every horse deserves at their first event!

I cannot thank everyone enough for all your support and encouragement the past couple of weeks! Jimmy always says that preparation is your best defense against nerves, but I have to admit, I was pretty sick Sunday morning. I knew we could do this - but the question was would we?! The jump from Training to Prelim is huge - I've done it twice before, but to do it again, 15 years after the last time I ran around a Prelim course, wow - I'm gonna be on the top of the world for a while! Thank you so much to everyone who cheered us on and who was there to give me a hug at the end! To Kerry who woke Katchi up from his traditional nap before jumping and who ran the video camera. And especially a huge thanks to my mom who has always been my #1 fan. She was groom extraordinaire this weekend - and chief treat giver when it was all over! We wouldn't be where we are today without her support. What a lucky girl I am indeed.

My mom working out the knots in Katchi's neck on Saturday morning - while she was working on him, he did his cat stretch, sea horse stretch, and downward dog stretch!!! HE LOVED IT!

Katchi's winning dressage score must have been due to the beautiful button braids I learned to do from Phillip's Emma Ford! He looked smashing!

My very tired PRELIM EVENT HORSE!

3 days to go - Prelim Entry Stands.

2011-07-14T05:44:00.000-07:00

I'm still entered.
Dressage test is memorized
Final jump school is complete.
Jumping tack is clean and trailer is mostly packed.
Ride times are posted.

Maryland Horse Trials II
Cherie Chauvin & Katchi Kapshi: OP-C
Dressage: 9:30
Show Jumping: 12:00
XC: 12:12

Sunday. High Noon. Me and my bat versus 3'7" painted poles.

Had an outstanding lesson with Phillip yesterday. It wasn't perfect and it wasn't easy. It was exactly what we needed. Phillip made his point. Katchi WILL stay in front of my leg at all times. I'll be riding show jumping on Sunday with my reins bridged, ready to activate the bat at a moment's notice. And ready to ride quiet when he's good and steady when he's really there. It will be good - I promised Phillip I'd make it good.

And when it's all over, the champagne is ready too.
See y'all this weekend!

Not all stops are created equal

2011-07-11T07:16:00.000-07:00

A XC stop is a stop is a stop. Not so.

There are cheeky little baby horse stops that earn you 20.

There are stops and punts that earn you 20.

And there are, apparently, stops 4 or 5 strides out that earn your horse a good wack on the ass, a public announcement of your stop (don't you HATE when you're on course and you actually hear the announcer declare your stop to the world, "and unfortunately for Cherie Chauvin and Katchi Kapshi..."), that then don't appear on the scoreboard at all.

That about sums up XC at the Maryland Horse Trial.

Before I go any further - let me make a public service announcement to please fill out your event evaluation forms if you were at Loch Moy this weekend! CLICK HERE! For the good of all of us, be sure to let them know what you thought about the new show jumping ring! Can you guess my opinion??

I was at Loch Moy on Saturday to help Kerry & Atticus and Sunday to run Katchi Training level. Kerry's day started off with 2 fantastic phases - sitting in 4th going into XC. At his last event, Atticus took a bit of an exception to the water jump - which we hoped was a fluke and result of unique circumstance. But, this weekend, with 2 water jumps, Loch Moy proved an issue. I think it's so interesting how sometimes green horses will just sort of do things the first few times, and then as they start thinking about them, they start thinking, "hum, maybe I should think about this a bit!" Atticus has reached that phase. He hasn't quite mastered the "look AND jump" concept at the water - but I predict he'll be there real soon. In the meantime, he picked up a cheeky little stop and a more cheeky little stop (which Kerry very successfully punted him out of, but not before the official stop ruling) - I really don't think that Atticus even knows he stopped, I think he just thinks he was very careful, which isn't all bad.

Loch Moy was to be Katchi's big show jumping debut! I couldn't believe my good fortune when I asked Phillip on Saturday if he was really coming out on Sunday to ride just one horse. I mentioned that I was to ride SJ an hour after his XC, and if he happened to still be around and not doing anything, I sure would be grateful if he could warm me up. I was fully prepared for "oh, sorry, I've gotta get back to the horses at home" - but he said MAYBE!!! I nearly passed out on the spot! As I headed out of dressage on Sunday, I ran into him again and he announced he'd meet me at SJ warm up in a few hours - I nearly screamed with delight! Actually, I think I did scream! Katchi and I had by far the best jumping warm up we've ever had. Phillip really emphasized small turns, keeping the canter in tight turns immediately after the fence, and staying very quiet in my hands and upper body. It was perfect. And then Phillip even came up to watch my round. Can you believe my luck?!!? I felt so good going into that ring, with Phillip giving me final words of advice - we trotted in, and Katchi changed right under me. I haven't felt him go that absent in well over a year. He didn't know where to look; he was totally overwhelmed. And holy cats that footing was deep. When I came out of the ring, I wanted to just cry out - oh that deep footing, oh those tight turns, oh that stupid wall sitting on the edge of the fence, oh oh oh! I half expected Phillip to just drive away - to disavow all affiliation. But, he didn't abandon me. He said, "okay, so... he really doesn't want to touch the fences, but..." Shoot me now, please. I managed to keep all whining inside and listened carefully to every word. The worst thing you can do is have a round like that and just let it happen without doing anything - especially when PDutty is watching you. Phillip said I should have nailed Katchi after the very first jump with the bat right behind my leg. But, but, but, I wanted to scream out! Doesn't matter. Get the job done. I've never ridden a horse that can feel so forward yet be so far behind my leg - I'm only just starting to realize the full meaning of that. We have a lesson scheduled with Phillip on Wednesday. I'll be wearing my safety vest.

XC - Katchi was pretty awesome! Oh, yea, but wait, what about that stop that wasn't a stop??? Those Trakehners suck. The path to the Trakehner was a challenge, coming down a very steep mountain out of the woods, and then turning while galloping back up another mountain meeting the Trakehner just at the top. I gave Katchi a wack at the bottom of the mountain to be sure he was fully in go mode - he said, "woo hoo! Gallop up the hill. Check!" Half way up the hill, when I put my eyes on the Trakehner and tried to tell Katchi to turn, he was not in turn mode - he was in gallop straight up the hill mode. He sort of started turning, but was was still looking off straight up the hill and back to the start box. I think we lost impulsion, and I was still fighting for the turn, I smacked him real hard to get his attention forward, when he suddenly saw BIG EVIL NASTY TRAKEHNER - and that was it - he shot off to the right, back where he wanted to go all along. I had to sit him down and spin him around to the left - big ol' wack on the ass, a circle around, and we slithered over the trakehner on the second approach. Leaving the scene of the crime, I heard the announcer declare our misfortune. Lovely. But, Katchi was really stellar the entire rest of the course! And it was so fun that in several places around the course, I heard folks yell out my name and whoop and holler! Love you guys!!! :)

Katchi jumping the terrible trakehner way back in 2009.

Well, it is what it is, and a stop it is. Or so I thought. I had the great fortune of being parked right next to an old pal, Erin, from Phillip's 2009 camp. I was a bit slow getting packed up as we were chatting and laughing and talking about fall events and... so, by the time I got down to the scoreboard, scores were final, ribbons were out - but wait, there's a 0 next to Katchi's name under XC jump faults?!?! How can that be??? I know in my heart, he stopped. But, maybe just maybe, the judge gave me the benefit of the doubt that he stopped because he wouldn't turn - which isn't untrue. I am so grateful that 4.4 time penalties (I didn't look at my watch at all after our "stop") dropped me to 10th place, because I would feel SO guilty if they had finished me in the ribbons. What a crazy weekend of wacky stops and not-stops!!

COOLEST TRICK OF A PRO LEARNED AT LOCH MOY: While I was [harassing] talking to Phillip on Saturday about helping me on Sunday, he was trying to get suited up for XC. He asked me to put his pinny string through the loop. What loop? Where? I was looking on his air vest. He showed me the loop, and I went nuts - that's the coolest thing ever! When Phillip Dutton puts on his pinny, he uses a trick he learned from snow skiers. The strings on the back side of the pinny are tied into loops, so the strings from the front are laced through the loops, and drawn back to the front, so you make one tie right at your belly button. You'll never have to struggle to find your pinny ties on your sides again (while pony club children attack you to reclaim your pinny at the finish line)! Lesson #835 from Phillip Dutton.

My faithful groom, mom, in her hat that all the horses wanted to eat!

Golightly Goings On

2011-07-07T07:57:00.000-07:00

June (and now July!) has been so busy with so many things to write about that I've missed some things, so this is a catch-up post to update on the Golightly Gang! We've got back to back weekends at Loch Moy starting in 2 days, so I better get ahead of the game quick!

In mid-June, we said 'happy trails' to Adrianne & Tori who relocated to beautiful Colorado!! Adrianne and her husband have been itching to try out life without DC traffic and the pieces finally fell into place for their escape - it was absolutely painful to get an update from her that she's riding her bike from her new home to Tori's new barn, in less time than it would take her to battle DC traffic driving her car from Virginia to Baywood to ride. Adrianne says they're going to try the Colorado life out for a year and then decide whether they'll come back - based on the beautiful pictures I've seen so far, I think Tori has a new permanent life as a Colorado mountain horse! Adrianne is at a primarily dressage barn now, and said the eventing scene is pretty few-and-far-between. She's even invited me to come out to give her a jumping lesson sometime - tempting!! It was such a pleasure to help Adrianne get through her first adventures in eventing, culminating in winning the Novice division at Full Moon Farm last fall. Sad to see her go, but wishing Adrianne and Tori all the best in Colorado- and hoping we might see them back here again some day!

Erik, Vader, Adrianne & Tori at their last cross-country drive stop - Kansas.

Right after I came back from my week at Phillip Dutton's, I headed out to Seneca Valley Pony Club's Horse Trial with two students - Diane & Kerry. My new student Diane, and her super cool BIG pony "Mr. President" aka Lincoln, ate up the Novice cross country course, finishing 2nd in their division! This was the first time I'd seen Diane & Lincoln in action at a competition, and I think it's really so helpful to see how horses and riders perform at home versus a competition. Rarely are we the same rider sitting on the same horse! Kerry & Atticus were also out at Seneca, making their second Novice appearance - Kerry had a bit rougher day with a stop on XC, but she came home having learned some valuable lessons about her partnership with Atticus that I expect will really help her at her next outing.

Me, Lincoln & Diane

And I'd also like to introduce Karrie, another new student who I hope we'll see out and about at some starter stuff this fall. Karrie and her super fabulous Baggio comes to us from the hunter world, and she's conquering all kinds of demons out in fields - grass, hills, trees - oh my! But look at that smile on her face in the picture below - this girl is lovin' it! And I think if horses could smile, Baggio'd have a big old grin on his face too!

Karrie & Baggio (photo by Samantha Daley)

Looking forward to seeing everyone at Loch Moy this weekend and next weekend! My mom flies back in tonight to groom for me at both Loch Moys - she loves Loch Moy (but not quite as much as she loves going to Phillip Dutton's!). I'm pretty lucky to have a mom who will travel all the way from California just to be my groom - she definitely deserves some kind of a prize for that!

Pony Ride Birthday Party

2011-07-02T16:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my birthday - I turned 34. And like any horse crazy little girl, I wanted to have a birthday party with pony rides - so that's just what I did!

Today, 10 horses plus 1/2 a horse (more on that later!) joined Katchi and me at Rosaryville Park for a pony ride birthday party! Oh, their humans came along too - 15 fabulous friends came along, with loads of food and drink in tow too! What more could any girl ask for to celebrate her birthday?!

To start off the festivities, we headed out for a ride around the park - a little gallop in the open fields (and my lovely new student Karrie successfully didn't die while cantering around the field!), nearly got run over by some speeding bikes which helpfully screamed "BIKE!" as our horses spun and tried to climb trees, trotted the only XC jump we could find not chained off (a 12" log that Katchi was mildly terrified of), checked out the "haunted" Mt. Airy mansion and abandoned green house, weaved through overgrown paths, and safely returned back to the trailers - for food, sangria (Debi's world famous talent at work!), and birthday cake (with candles and a, well pretty sad singing of "happy birthday" - but the thought was there!).

Checking out the Mt. Airy Mansion

In the thick of the woods.

And then it was time to Eat!

Katchi was the life of the party...

Until he passed out! Lightweight.

And then there was Ladybug - the 1/2 a horse!

Ladybug lives with my former student, Anna, and her fantastic parents - Steve and Bridget. Ladybug came along, riding in the front seat of the 2 1/2 horse trailer, to scare all the other horses! Diane's giant Lincoln had the worst of it - he thought that Ladybug was just no good!

And check out this birthday gift from Shane - SHE MADE IT! It's the most beautiful necklace with a tag with Katchi's name cut into it! WOW! She should seriously sell these things - they're beautiful!! And a very special thank you to Kerry who gave me a beautiful collage of photos from our trip to WEG - what great memories! It will make me smile every time I walk past it hanging on the wall at the top of my stairs.

There are days in your life when you just have to sit back and think how wonderful it is to have such amazing people in your life (and horses too!) - today was one of those days! THANK YOU so much to everyone who came out to play at my pony ride birthday party!!!

Dancing Horse Challenge - Videos!

2011-06-28T16:24:00.000-07:00

I've attended the PVDA Ride for Life Dancing Horse Challenge the past 5 years, and it has gotten better and better each year! This year, I really missed last year's horse that kicked the beach ball across the arena (I squealed like a little kid when I saw that trick!), but even without the trick horse, the show was spectacular!

It was also SO exciting to watch my own trainer, Silva Martin, riding her OTTB Sea Lord in the show - he looked stellar in his racing gear and the crowd loved him! Silva has posted pictures and video on her blog, but I thought I'd go ahead and post my video too as it's from a little different angle and catches her exit from the arena (full of smiles, waving, and big pats for Sea Lord)!

But, Bent Jensen as Lady Gaga stole the show. There are no words. Watch the video! Yes, those are high-heeled go-go boots. He couldn't put them into stirrups, so the entire thing was done without stirrups - next time Ryan Wood tells me to drop my stirrups, I'm going to insist on putting on my white go-go boots!

Here are a few other clips from the show - take special note of the first rider, Shannon Dueck - she is a breast cancer survivor! GO GIRL!

I heard that 6,000 people attended the Dancing Horse Challenge this year - I hope to see you there next year too!

PVDA Ride for Life - Dressage at its finest!!

2011-06-27T10:42:00.001-07:00

First and foremost - THANK YOU to everyone who supported the 2011 PVDA Ride for Life. I set my pledge goal this year at $1,000 and thanks to your generosity, I met and exceeded that goal! $1,870 was donated in my name to the Johns Hopkins Avon Breast Cancer Center. WOW! That was the 11th highest amount raised and 3rd in the "open" division. And I was also so excited to have so many friends turn up to watch Katchi and I perform and to attend the Dancing Horse Challenge on Saturday night. Things like this are so much more fun with friends!!

As you can see from the picture below, Katchi and I had a very successful weekend! Katchi earned a ribbon in all 4 of his classes which was the icing on the cake to the really exciting part of the weekend - Katchi performed his first two Second Level dressage tests and we didn't embarrass ourselves!! My two primary goals were 1) not to finish the test and have the judge ask me why I entered this poor horse in Second Level, and 2) to score a minimum of 50 (or mid-50's to be optimistic!). Not only did we meet these goals, Katchi scored a 59.143 the first day and a 60.286 the second day! I could not have been more thrilled! And I had so much fun riding that 2nd level test - it was hard, I was trying for my life not to bounce out of the saddle during the sitting medium trot, and I was about ready to pass out by the end - but it was FUN! There was so much to do, it was like my own mini-Grand Prix! I looked through the show schedule this morning to see if I can get to another dressage show this fall, but I'm not sure I can make it work with my horse trial schedule. Too bad, because I am on a dressage high!

Don't you just love my new gray Charles Owen helmet?!?!

Leading up to R4L, Katchi and I didn't have the greatest week. After Phillip's Camp, he took a couple days off and worked lightly Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, we went to Waredaca's evening jumper show. So many people turned up that they were running quite late. And then all of a sudden there were only 4 of us for the 3'3 class so it was my turn before I knew it. But, Katchi was not warming up well at all. I couldn't recreate that canter we had at Phillip's - I was more than frustrated, as you can imagine. His jumping was okay - based on the standards of performance from 2 weeks ago. But our standards are higher now, and we weren't cutting it. I opted not to jump the courses, and I went home with my head hung low and totally beating myself up. When we got back to the barn and were hosing Katchi off, I got the sense his back was bothering him. So I checked him out closer and discovered his entire back was in spasms. I'm certain that didn't happen because of our less than stellar warm-up - it must have been the cause. And didn't I feel like a jerk for getting after Katchi for not coming together properly when he must have been screaming in pain! Katchi's favorite person in the whole world, Courtney of Hands on Horses came out for a visit the next day - she confirmed his back was in spasms from withers to tail. Ouch! She worked her magic, and I followed-up with my kindergarten-massage work on Friday morning and evening and every chance I could get on Saturday and Sunday. He hung in there for me this weekend and his back is definitely better, but I'm going to have to be very careful with it leading up to Loch Moy.

Katchi's ribbon quarter mark

Also a huge congratulations to several of my students - Kerry and Atticus have confirmed themselves as solid Training Level competitors, finishing in the ribbons both days in Training Level Tests 2 & 3 in very large classes! Each time Kerry heads into the competition ring, she's a notch better than last time - just the way it's supposed to be! Kerry was so funny warming up for her final test - she finally got to ride over in the "big boy" area and happened to be warming up with about 5 Grand Prix horses. When I arrived to help her, I asked how Atticus was doing and she said, "He's great, but I so do not belong in here!" - I told her to watch out for those canter pirouettes because they'll throw off the 'pass left-to-left' rule every time! I don't think she thought I was very funny!

Ribbons, Ribbons, Ribbons!

I also had great fun helping a friend from the hunter world who wanted to take a voyage into dressage land - on her 21 year old thoroughbred! "The Full Monty" was a total gentleman in his Intro tests B and C - earning a 2nd place in each. Rumor has it that he got a doughnut for his efforts too!

It was also excellent to see two of my jumping students, Debi and Ilkim, out perfecting their dressage work. And I ran into other eventing friends everywhere I turned - with lots of ribbons in hand! Those DQs must have thought EN had invaded from all fronts!

Two very tired event horses at the end of two days of dressage.

Check back tomorrow as I should have videos posted from the weekend - including some highlights of the amazing Dancing Horse Challenge!!

PS. Dover's pink horse pictured at the top of this post made it's way to PG Equestrian
Center in my friend Beth's horse trailer! I think she got some pretty funny looks!

PD Academy Camp - Going for Gold!

2011-06-18T07:53:00.000-07:00

It's actually really hard to write this final post about yesterday's last day at camp - sitting at home, on my couch, enjoying coffee with my happy cat helping me type. Camp week is so hard to say goodbye to - as we were packing up yesterday, Alyssa described it as 3 months worth of training packed into 5 days. For anyone who wants "this" as bad as I do (whatever your "this" is), it's hard to let that kind of intense progress go. But, we were all exhausted and our horses especially are ready for a day off! HOWEVER - Mr. Katchi, when released into his field last night (despite walking him all the way out to his friends and distracting him with treats) proceeded to run around like an Arabian with his tail up over his back - showing off his extended trot and passage - with a few gallops and Quarter Horse sliding stops thrown in too! I should have brought the video camera out. That'll teach me to feel sorry for him - he got over tired and scratched up real fast.

Day 5 was "test" day. A dressage test and a short SJ round (5 fences) followed by a short spin around the XC course (9 fences or so). At the end, I said to Phillip... "Okay, million dollar question: Katchi is entered in Prelim at the second Loch Moy - does he stay entered?" And Phillip's answer? You'll have to read to the end to find out!

Each of us performed a dressage test of choice for Ryan Wood - the first time he talked us through some corrections, and then we rode it again, making those corrections. Katchi and I rode the Prelim A test, and it went really well - much better than when we tried it at Loch Moy's combined test earlier this year. Ryan gave me a couple of precision pointers about reaching the peak of the counter canter earlier and getting back to the rail earlier - he also said I may need to lean my upper body slightly forward during the ridiculous "give the reins forward" movement in order to get Katchi to show enough of a difference in his profile for the judge to credit him with stretching forward to follow the bit. Excellent pointers that should grab us a couple extra points which are so important!

I was really pleased with the look of Katchi's scratches when I got to the barn Friday morning - there was minimal swelling and he didn't seem too stiff. When I got up to ride, he was definitely a bit uncomfortable, but he seemed to be working out of it, so we carried on and kept listening to anything he had to say.

Just before lunch, we all met Phillip in the jumping ring for a course walk. We all had the same SJ course, but the heights/widths would be "personalized." In the morning, the guys had been out moving around the portable XC jumps so we had some new questions to tackle on the XC course - we all had approximately the same path, but at the end of the walk, Phillip discussed with each one of us which options we would take and whether we would skip certain questions. Katchi was assigned all the biggest fences and toughest questions - which included an angled rolltop 5 strides to a corner, followed by a narrow and larger rolltop, 90 degree turn to another corner and straight up the mound!

After lunch, we all congregated at the jumping ring to watch and cheer each other on - we were all laughing at the horses' reactions when we came in to tack them up again - it went something along the lines of "Noooooooo! Please, no riding again today!!!"

Katchi and I were the last to go. I started my warm-up with the 6 strides galloping, 6 strides collecting, 6 strides galloping, 6 strides collecting - with a few 10 meter circles thrown in there. When Phillip started us jumping, we started cantering a very small oxer that he slowly moved up and out as we cantered back and forth changing direction. He really emphasized making Katchi gallop on, then putting him together - light in front and active dancing hind legs - all the way to the jump, but not past his distance. Then Phillip had us finish on a quite tall vertical - the same kind of fence as our fence #1 on the course, but larger. Then we were off on our course. The first thing that really struck me in watching this video was that Katchi almost doesn't look like Katchi - his canter is entirely different! wow!

Katchi was doing so well, but I was afraid of pushing him too far, not sure how much his scratches were bothering him. I talked to Phillip about whether I should run him around the XC jumps - but clearly, Phillip wasn't going to make the decision for me! After a bit of debate and cheers from the camper audience - Phillip declared that we just had a few fences left to win our Gold medal (HA HA HA!) - and with that we left the "start box" and had an easy-as-could-be spin around the XC course, with just one tough moment at the rolltop-turn-corner (it all worked out just fine, but jumping big jumps and turning quickly after remains on the list of areas for improvement!).

So, after my round, Phillip called me over for a talk. He was clearly pretty thrilled with our SJ round (as was I!), and his only comment about our XC round was that I gave him a bit of a "scare" whether I would make the turn back to the second corner (I totally agreed as well!). So, then I asked that million dollar question: To Prelim or Not To Prelim? Before I got the question fully out of my mouth, Phillip interrupted me and said "He's Ready!" - So, just to be sure I didn't misunderstand, I asked "And am I ready?" - Phillip said, "You're Ready!". So the Loch Moy II entries stand! I asked Phillip about coming up for some extra lessons, and he suggested coming up the week before the Loch Moy event (to re-fix whatever I mess up in the next couple of weeks!). I'm probably making this up, but Phillip actually seemed kind of excited about getting me moved up a level - which sure made me excited too!

Phillip sporting his new hat from my friend Kim Clark of Thoroughbred Placement and Rescue. If you haven't checked out her work in placing OTTBs - you should!

So there you have it - the last of my 2011 Phillip Dutton Eventing Academy Camp reports! I know there are about 1,000 things I forgot to say - it was a crazy week of learning, laughter, and holy cats improvement! I cannot thank everyone at TPF enough for welcoming us into their family for a week - I think I speak for every camper when I say it was life changing!

PD Academy Camp - Goodie Bags!

2011-06-18T06:43:00.000-07:00

Good Morning from home. Camp is over, and we made it home safely last night. I'll post my final day's blog shortly, but first, I wanted to tell everyone about all the awesome goodies provided to the campers (and a few to grooms too!).

Academy Award nominees receive 6-figure goodie bags - Phillip Dutton Eventing Academy Cadets didn't quite get 6-figure bags, but we got a ton of awesome stuff!!! THANK YOU to everyone at True Prospect for organizing the goodies, and THANK YOU to all the sponsors for all our way cool horsey loot!

Wise Equestrian (hats & Wiseguy's children's coloring book - and congrats to Alyssa who fell in love with the new WisAir saddle during camp and bought it!!!)

Flair (nasal strips and cleaning cloth - and thanks to Emma for showing us how to put them on!)

Equifit (hats, horse ear plugs, silver wound cleaner and ointment - already put to good use on Katchi's chevron scrapes - plus 20% of all camper orders were donated to the TPF Fire Fund!)

EZall Green (during Emma's grooming tips presentation, she gave us 2 of her favorite products from EZall Green: Show-n-go detangler and antiallergen shampoo).

Nutramax Labs Cosequin (buckets of stuff!!! Hoof supplments, probiotics, Cosequin qith ASU, pens, hats, cooler lunch bag, fish oil.... wow!)

Bit of Britain (in addition to the 20% off coupon we each received when we arrived, Bit of Britain also sponsored the farewell dinner - giving each rider and grooms the new event pinny holders - and stuffing the pinata with goodies like bellboot key chains! And it was great to have John, his wife and daughter, at the dinner as well!).

We also received a hit-air air vest demonstration - and massages!

Not quite a 6-figure goodie bag, but everyone left with a full trailer of super cool goodies - as if our tremendous riding accomplishments didn't already have us feeling like champions, coming home with all this loot definitely made us feel like winners of our own personal Rolex!!

PD Academy Camp - "Gotcha" Day!

2011-06-16T18:56:00.000-07:00

Mexican Fiesta P Dutty!

I'm not quite sure where to start in writing today's camp report. I've probably already forgotten half of what I've learned from Phillip. He knows that much. But, let me tell you one lesson I'll never forget - lesson #647 of this week: always come ready for XC when you have a "show jumping" lesson scheduled with Phillip Dutton, especially on Day 4 of camp - all rules are off, and you have surrendered all control to P Dutty!

Day 4 of camp is pretty special. Phillip opened tonight's farewell dinner by saying - "In order to improve, sometimes you have to push yourself to the next level, and I really hope everyone understands that from today." I stopped counting after the third rider came back to the barn, announcing they had fallen off today! But, it was all in the best possible way, and as Phillip said, it is a fact of our sport. Trust me, the falls weren't about being overfaced - they were about developing the determination to do the things you're fully capable of doing! Secretly, I think no-one wanted Jodi to walk away with all the glory for being the "hardest" camper for falling off twice! Anyhow, today's riding was about taking us all to the next level, and it was amazing!

Day 4 is also pretty special, because it's the day we all start to realize the bond we've developed over 4 days of being P Dutty Cadets together. I guess it's like being on one of those Outward Bound trips. Together, we've survived the PD rope ladder across the ravine; we've bungee jumped off a PD cliff; and we've swung across the PD river on a rope swing. At tonight's sort-of assessment ceremony, there were more than a couple teary eyes. Phillip again commented on how inspiring it is to him to see us all come to him, to try so hard, and to want to improve - no-one comes to this week of training who doesn't desperately want to improve and he loves seeing that. He promised that they would keep offering camp week, no matter how many people sign up! We all cheered very loudly to that announcement!

So, my XC school yesterday went quite well, and at the end, Phillip asked what we wanted to do today. I asked if there was any way I could have another show jumping lesson instead of schooling XC a second day. Alyssa (fellow camper from 2009) also wanted another go at show jumping. So, at 11:30, Alyssa and I met Phillip in the jumping ring - no studs, no vests, no XC boots. Phillip started us off straight away at the canter - 6 strides lengthening, 6 strides collecting, 6 strides lengthening, 6 strides collecting. Repeated until we really got our horses cantering in front of our legs - light in front, and powerful behind. And then Phillip took the gloves off and started drilling us over fences. I got a good talking to about the importance of not riding Katchi past his distance. Phillip said that if I've got the canter right, and I come around the turn, looking at the fence, and see nothing... make Katchi's hind legs jump under me until I see the distance. He said that for me to move to the upper levels, it's no longer going to work to just come around and hope it all works out. The key is in the canter. For those who know Katchi and my infamous show jumping rounds, I think this video of today's ride says it all...

We'd been working for almost 45 minutes, and as I pulled up from the corner to angled vertical line in the last clip of the above film - I saw Phillip walking away. My first though was, jeeze, I thought that was okay! Was it that bad??? And then I thought, well, I guess we're finished here. And then I noticed Alyssa following him - and I said, "what's up?" - and she said, "um, well, I guess we're doing XC now". No one really understands that I am actually a really big wus and a seriously low-risk person in this high-risk sport! HELLO?!?! I have no studs or a jumping vest on! WHAT ARE WE DOING?!?! But, by then, Phillip had already sent Alyssa off jumping, so what was I going to do? Let me just say that we jumped some crazy ass XC shit today. (At the end, Alyssa and I had a great hack around the track screaming and laughing about how we each kept waiting for the other one to tell Phillip this was insanity, but neither one of us had the guts to do it, so we suckered each other into his cunning little plan!) Phillip did for me today just what no-one has been able to do for me since I was about 15. He made me throw caution to the wind and jump the damn jumps. I needed it more than he can even imagine - and I know he knows that. He pushed me to the next level. Unfortunately, I made one big mistake today, and Katchi suffered (he'll be fine, but he's a bit scratched up and I'm hoping he's not too puffed up from it tomorrow) - I let a stupid little argument draw out way too long, and poor Katchi never even saw the chevron I slammed him into. I give my students the exact same lecture I got today - rip his teeth out for 1 second and then get back to work. Letting a half-assed argument go on for stride-after stride-after stride, right into the base of the jump is nothing short of dangerous. Stupid, I know. Luckily, I learned my lesson and we finished up really well. Check out the video clip below. Phillip said it was "brilliant" - and later tonight, he said it was the best he's seen me ride. Wow.

Tonight was the Mexican Fiesta Farewell Dinner - totally heartbreaking to say goodbye! Phillip opened the night by reading us a list of the book titles he came up for each of us, if we were writing a book! Here are a few samples...

"How To Fall Off In Pennsylvania"

"How To Keep My Horse's Head Down"

"How To Fall Off on My Back"

"Now I Can Jump Ditches"

"How to Fall Off"

And mine?? "Have Mom, Will Travel!"

Phillip took a few minutes to speak about each individual camper - the rider they arrived as, their progress over the week, the things to address in the future, and his assessment of their future. Bits were funny, bits were encouraging - but above all, his assessments were honest and helpful. Two years ago, Phillip's comments to me were mostly about areas for improvement. This year, they were mostly about - get 'er done! He said things are really coming together for Katchi and me and that great things will happen this next year. It's an amazing feeling to have that kind of input and encouragement from someone whose opinion you respect so much. And, as Phillip said to me tonight, "I wouldn't say it, if I didn't believe it."

At the end of the dinner, the kids went after the pinata with a crop. A 4 year old broke the crop while beating the pinata. John Nunn from Bit of Britain (who sponsored the dinner) declared that the crop was NOT purchased at Bit of Britain. A broom replaced the crop, and then things started getting a little crazy!

Tomorrow is combined test day. Katchi and I will be doing Prelim Test A, but we'll have to wait to receive Phillip's verdict tomorrow about what jumps we'll be doing. Which pretty much will also determine whether Loch Moy II is on or a scratch! Judgement Day.

P.S. Alex, stay Gorgeous - at least until you're legal! :)

PD Academy Camp - "Kick Him" XC!

2011-06-15T18:51:00.000-07:00

Day 3 at the Phillip Dutton Eventing Academy Camp - which I am calling "KICK HIM" XC as that was pretty much what we heard Phillip yelling all day! Thanks again to Lee Lee for taking so many great pictures - be sure to check out the PD Eventing Academy Facebook page for loads of pictures of all the groups out schooling XC today!

As for me, I am exhausted and in serious pain! Katchi had straw imprints all over his side and neck this morning - he must have slept flat out last night. I imagine he's even more exhausted tonight! All the campers were walking a bit slower today - big smiles, on slow legs! And then, after XC all morning, the evil physical trainer made us do squats and the plank and all kinds of other evil things. I almost fell over when my leg gave out trying to do a one-legged squat. My mom took a nap (in front of us!) while the riders suffered this main - it was cruel.

So, let me just do a quick XC update, so I can get to bed! Bottom line - I LOVE MY HORSE! He really was great today, and I had such a wonderful ride! Phillip had me try him in a new bit - we replaced the happy mouth with a big fat loose ring single jointed snaffle. Phillip liked it; but I've got to get used to it (Katchi too!). Pretty early in our session, I had a little "discussion" with Phillip about whether the bit was working - I said that I felt like Katchi was tucking under to evade it. And Phillip said, "when he does that - where's the problem - in your hands or your legs?" - yea, I get it, he's behind my leg, not the time to take back and then complain the horse hates the bit. So, I was then made to gallop around to the corner and KICK HIM - on a loose rein. He sure jumped better! Funny that!

My one big ick today was over a HUGE table that we'd already jumped several times - then I started jumping it like crap, so I got called in to talk (felt a bit like being sent to the Principal's office!). Phillip said that Katchi is more careful than most horses, and because he's so careful, I have to ride stronger than other riders. I have to ride him stronger so when he's careful and goes up - we still jump across the fence. And sure enough, I came around much stronger, and just sailed over the table!

We had one really interesting situation in my group today with a greener horse who was really facing some big questions he'd never seen before. We were jumping a quite large narrow rolltop, 2 strides, to the ditch. The horse had cantered in and stopped twice. Phillip then told his rider to trot the rolltop. Considering it was at least Training, if not Prelim, height - I know the rider was thinking - really, that's trottable?! Horse came around in trot and hopped right over it and the ditch - like it was the most natural thing in the world to do. Phillip called us all in to have a quick talk about the importance of slowing things down sometimes to let the horses understand the question. He said that the answer is not always in getting more aggressive and faster - sometimes the most simple fix is just buying the horse a little extra time... trotting!

Here are a couple video clips of Katchi from today...

POOL PARTY!

Phillip and Evie welcomed us to their home tonight for a pool party - with EXCELLENT food compliments of Evie's culinary talents! We also got to ask questions about anything - fitness, flies, falling off, and even how Phillip and Evie met!

Phillip said that it's really inspiring to see all the campers who are willing to take a week off work and other responsibilities to come spend their time here, trying to improve. He said that it's very important for our sport that we all try to be as good as we can be at the level we're riding - we owe it to ourselves, our horses, and our sport.

My personal favorite question of the night came compliments of a request from the Chronicle of the Horse Forum - Does Phillip like being called "P Dutty"? And his response????

Phillip: "It's fine" (said with a very sly grin!)

Evie: "I think it's great!" (said with a huge grin!)

If I got this right, I believe Phillip said that Holly Hudspeth started calling him that first - or maybe she was the first to say it to his face! :)

And here we have Connaught - "Simon" - enjoying retirement in Phillip's backyard! He's hanging out with Lee Lee's Model Cadet (resting from Bromont) and an OTTB give away that is Evie's horse!

PD Academy Camp - "Okay, so..." Show Jumping!

2011-06-14T17:25:00.000-07:00

Check out Katchi flying over the triple bar!!! (Thanks for the photos Lee Lee!)

Today, we left dressage behind and the horses were so happy - until we came to tack them up the second time! They all took good naps this afternoon!

Over the painted poles today, Phillip had two catch phrases...

"Okay, so, we'll do that again. But this time we'll..."
"Come Again."

And, my personal favorite...
Jodi: "Phillip, I'm really scared."
Phillip: "Yes, I know."
And then she jumped the line perfectly, and we all cheered!! :)
Jodi was our first fall of camp - and it wasn't even jump related! She jumped her two fences just wonderfully, and then was so excited she forgot where she was going, so her horse pitched left, then right - and Jodi went left! When she yelled out "what happened?!" - Lee Lee ran over with her iphone to show her the video! Instant replay!!

Katchi actually gave me a good attempt at being the first camper to fall - when the arena sprinklers came on without warning, catching us meandering around the ring on a long rein, waiting for our 8am lesson to start. As I was trying to stop Katchi from bolting and pull myself back up from reclining on thin air... I thought, "I so do not want to fall off before my lesson even starts!" - I'm pretty sure I've pulled the few leg muscles left that Ryan didn't damage with the no-stirrup game yesterday. My whole body hurts. And then we jumped and galloped today. I gimped myself into the hotel tonight. I can't wait until the massage lady shows up tomorrow afternoon - oh, wait, crap. I think she comes right after the physical trainer comes to get us fit. This really is a bit like signing up for the fat farm.

Today's show jumping lesson was very much about making the horses rideable, all the way from the start of your warm-up. Phillip emphasized that you have to get through these rideabililty issues in the warm-up, because you have to have them sorted out before you start on course. It was true about all of us to varying degrees - from the puddle jumpers to the 2 of us in my group (1 just moved up to Prelim, and me - the Prelim wannabe). Phillip was adamant that the horses should jump and immediately be responsive to your aids - to turn, speed up, slow down, stop, whatever - it's just a part of the job.

Here are a couple of clips of Katchi towards the end of our lesson. In the first part of the video, Phillip talked me through several circles to get just the right canter before we headed to the one-stride. Too bad I can't take Phillip with me into the show jumping ring!! One thing Phillip had me do a bit differently was to look at the jump MUCH earlier than I normally do - and I look at the jump VERY early normally! He had me looking so early that I could hardly turn my head that far - and then he wanted me to absolutely keep fixed on it - and then he noticed that I switch my vision about a second late on the related distances. BINGO! He's absolutely right, and it's taking a way a second or two of my reaction time which makes a big difference when you're only talking about a matter of seconds to make corrections. Okay, the video now...

And, if you ever thought that you're just not advanced enough to ride in Phillip's camp - check out the puddle jumper group! And, honestly, I think these 2 are having the most fun of everyone! I'm so thrilled they're here, because you just can't help but have fun around them!

In the afternoon, all 13 campers signed up for pace work with Ryan. What fun!! Everyone just loved having a spin around the track, but it was so hard to follow the instructions - 400 mpm for 2 minutes (without a watch on the first go, and with a watch on the second go) - I was so close to just saying "oops! I must have misjudged!" and really let Katchi open up. But, I behaved... and came in the closest to time for my group. Just 5 seconds under without my watch, and spot-on with my watch.

Tonight we learned about the Equifit product line, and received a very cool goody bag! And they offerred 20% of any sales tonight to the TPF fire fund. I ordered some of their silver antibacterial/fungal/etc stuff and the "shoulders back!" brace. Yea, I know, the whole concept of the sort of weird looking non-bra is just weird, but I tried the thing on, and it felt really good for my posture! I'm thinking of wearing it at the office (UNDER MY CLOTHES, of course!) just as much as in the saddle. Maybe I won't look like such a turtle sitting at my computer! Even a few of Phillip and Boyd's MALE riders tried it on and I think they may have ordered one too!!! :)

That's everything I can think of to report today - and it is definitely bed time! Tomorrow is our first XC day - and THE POOL PARTY!

And don't forget to "like" the Phillip Dutton Eventing Academy Camp on facebook and check out all the photos and videos that Lee Lee took today!

TPF Photos!

2011-06-14T13:16:00.000-07:00

Had 2 great rides today, but I'll update on that later! For now, I've got pictures!! I walked around True Prospect for a little while today and took some snapshots of stuff - I took about 50 pictures, so let me see if I can narrow down the selection a bit...

Camper Alyssa, trying out a WinAir saddle in this morning's jumping lesson.

Campers waiting for their lesson time.

Emma with one of the Dutton twins' ponies - Emma said the toughest thing about him is getting him past a bucket of grain!

Outdoor wash stall and drying rack - lots of Ecogold!

The drying rack even includes a wire bottom so brushes won't fall through!

Horses in waiting.

Looking at Phillip's office and the viewing area to the indoor arena.

Looking out of the viewing area into the indoor.

Ryan (on horseback) and Caitlin (in the TPF-Boyd Farm Shuttle)

The camp cheering section.

Even little ponies had lessons at TPF today!

Lots of horses were out walking and trotting on the beautiful track in the beautiful weather!

Boyd's ponies turned out in full fly armor!

AND.... for those who didn't see it in the 2009 blog... here is the famous wall of fame/shame!

Off to wine and cheese party...

PD Academy Camp - "Come On" Dressage!

2011-06-13T12:12:00.000-07:00

I love camp! I love camp! I love camp! I don't want to ever go home!

In case you can't tell, day 1 was pretty fabulous. But, before I get to all today's news... when you're done reading my blog, be sure to check out the PD Eventing Academy on Facebook - Lee Lee Jones has posted some video there from today, and she said she'll be out taking pictures tomorrow. Thanks Lee Lee! :)

Phillip arrived back from Bromont at 4:30am this morning. He met me in the indoor ring at 8:00 am sharp. He was alive, awake, and fabulous. As if he didn't already have it, he's officially earned superhero status in my book! From 8:00am-3:30 pm, Phillip rode each and every camper's horse. He worked 13 individual miracles, and still showed up on time for dinner!

Today's catch phrase was "come on!" - we all heard it. Some more than others. Phillip explained that the horses must be committed to their work... it's not good enough to just plod along sort of going through the motions. You must inspire the horse to commit himself to forward power. Katchi got inspired real quick. In fact, all the horses got inspired. When I got back on Katchi, I couldn't stop giggling for almost 2 trot circles - he felt GREAT! One camper's horse (who came to reform camp for always being behind her leg) - he's been renamed "VROOM!" I was able to watch almost all the sessions with Phillip, and at the end of every one - the rider was smiling from ear to ear, and the horse looked like he needed a cigarette!

What kind of idiot posts a video of Phillip Dutton riding their horse, immediately followed by video of them riding that same horse moments later? I'm taking the plunge... enjoy...

The other half of dressage day was spent with Ryan Wood - who now has 13 not-so-secret lady admirers! Back at the stables, everyone was a flutter about how lovely Ryan is! Evie joked tonight that they set us up with the "good cop, bad cop" routine, and we fell for it! But, I'm not sure if Ryan was really the good cop - it took all my will power tonight to sit down and start this blog instead of crawling down to the hotel hot tub! When Ryan said to me, "okay, cross over your stirrups" - I almost replied, "Ryan, I'm an adult, and you can't make me do that!" - but instead I said "ah, shit." and mumbled something about not being in pony club any more! But, it's was good for me - and I survived, and hopefully when the pain and exhaustion wears off, some new muscle strength might show up in its place. After the no stirrup game, Ryan really helped me a ton with Katchi's counter canter work (i.e., my positioning and balance). Bring on that Second level test!!

Kim Clark and Willie, aka "will-he or won't-he" with Ryan.

Before dinner tonight, we got to check out the new WisAir saddles - very cool! I know I can't do justice to all the cool details Phillip and Ronald have put into this saddle, so I'll just tell you to check them out! They're beautiful and pretty special - and great to sit in too! Ronald said he has demo saddles if anyone wants to try one, and then he offered up some demo horses... Woodburn was the first on the list, to which I promptly threw my hand up to go on the list! Ronald said 8:00 tomorrow morning. Katchi, I love you dearly, but YOU CAN BE REPLACED! :) Speaking of loving a horse dearly - wow, Ronald is a man who loves his horse! After the demo, he took me out to the barn to meet Wise Guy - I tell Katchi he's a "ham and a half" with all his faces and begging and general shenanigans for attention. Katchi has nothing on Wise Guy. He's "2 hams and a half!" He actually smiles whenever he sees Ronald (pulls up his lip and shows his teeth) - and Ronald just eats it up. Treats, treats, and more treats! Watching Ronald and Wise Guy, I sort of felt like a deprive Katchi a little! HA HA HA!

And finally, today ended with the welcome dinner - and we all officially met! What a great group of cadets - and all with such interesting stories! We have 2 fox hunters, a hunter jumper (who has never done this eventing thing, but thought it would be fun), my friend Kim Clark (with 25 or so years experience galloping race horses, and just 3 years jumping poles and logs), a mother-daughter team who were 1/2 campers in 2009 (Alyssa, the daughter had so much fun in 2009 - with her mom as groom, that they're back this year with mom riding too!!), and even one camper with a modest goal of jumping a log before Friday! We each have our own unique reasons for being here - and we'll all hit different milestones by Friday - but no matter where we come from or where we go to this week, it's bound to be one hell of a ride!

8:00 am tomorrow morning, if Woodburn fails to arrive as promised, I guess it'll be me and Katchi facing those painted poles together, with the mean little Australian miracle worker on our tail.

PD Eventing Academy 2011 - Cadet Arrival

2011-06-12T15:09:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the Phillip Dutton Eventing Academy! All cadets (and their ponies) have arrived - boots are polished, tails are show sheened, and tack is clean! I think I heard that Phillip is driving back from Bromont tonight - maybe I should bring him a cup of coffee to our 8am dressage lesson tomorrow morning! wow.

It never ceases to amaze me how much crap one horse requires to "survive" for 5 1/2 days. I felt a bit like the Beverly Hillbillies packing up for camp - someone suggested that I put my mom in a rocking chair on the top of the truck! :)

We arrived a little later than I had hoped, but safe and sound - and were immediately met by a welcome crew of happy faces - with water, snacks, the camp agenda, AND a 20% coupon to Bit of Britain!! Love it!

The view down the hill to TPF from Academy HQ - you can see Phillip's jumping ring in the distance.

And just to the left of the jumping ring is the cross country field! Notice the galloping track that runs just outside the fence line.

Camper stabling - we may have over run the place a bit.

CAMP SCHEDULE

(with my ride times in parens)

Monday:

One-on-one dressage lesson with Phillip (8:00 am)

One-on-one "rider position and exercises to achieve dressage goals" with Ryan Wood (1:00 pm)

5:00 WisAir saddle demonstration (this is the new saddle Phillip designed with Ronald Zabala - have you seen it?? Way cool!)

6:00 Welcome dinner

Tuesday:

Show jumping with Phillip (8:00 am - 2 riders in each group)

2:00 - Riders choice! Either XC pace and position with Ryan, or dressage with Kate Brown (I'm going for the XC pace - mostly because I'm dying to have another spin around Phillip's track)

5:00 Wine and cheese - and trunk show with Equifit

Wednesday & Thursday are XC schooling days - groups and times to be assigned on Tuesday night. Other activities are...

Wednesday:

12:00 lunchtime Flair nasal strip demonstration/discussion

2:00 Grooming tips with Emma Ford

3:00 Exercise class for riders (too bad Jennie Brannigan is off in Germany - I would have liked to have seen her repeat her 7 minute plank that she did during a USET training session earlier this year!!!)

6:00 POOL PARTY!!!

Thursday:

1:00 lunchtime Hit Air demonstration

3:00 massages! (for the riders, not the horses!)

6:00 Mexican Fiesta farewell party (OH NO, is it already time to say goodbye?!)

Friday:

"Showtime!"

Dressage tests in the morning, 12:00 walk jumping course with Phillip, and jumping tests start at noon.

Katchi has already conned my mom into much grass - and I think everyone at camp has already given him a treat! Total beggar!

I always find it difficult to write this blog when it includes news or stories or words of other people - I always hope it will be perceived right and that I won't cross any lines of "privacy" in this world of blogs, tweets, and facebook where there just is no privacy! I'm sure everyone reading this wants to know how TPF is doing after the fire... I'm not going to say much as I just don't think it's my place. But, looking around, you can't ignore that things have changed. For one... Boyd has got the spooky abandoned vet clinic stabling looking NICE! The place looks fantastic - so spic and span that I'm sure even Silva must be impressed by it! But, every so often you catch a whif of smoke from something recovered from the old barn. And then you notice something out of place for a normal barn - a table of flowers with cards and pictures of horses. A single large rosette hanging in the grooming area. Its long ribbon says - 2011 Rolex, 9th place... it's discolored and covered in ash. It broke my heart. Driving past the top entrance to TPF tonight, I caught a glimpse of the barn. I cannot put into words the magnitude of its presence. I lost my breathe for a moment.

So, that's today's news. Boot camp starts at 8:00 sharp tomorrow - so long as Phillip gets a BIG cup of coffee after his long drive!

Checking the P box

2011-06-07T15:27:00.000-07:00

I checked the P box.
It's the one just to the right of the T box.
It's also to the left of to I box.

Do you know the box?

Just above the box, in blue ink, I have written "The Maryland Horse Trials at Loch Moy Farm II"

Next week, Katchi and I will be Phillip Dutton Campers. The following Wednesday, we'll do a show jumping test run at the Wednesday evening Waredaca show series. Then Second Level dressage at Ride for Life. And the "ready to move up" Training course at Loch Moy I. All year, there won't be a more sensible time to check the P box.

I thought I should make the announcement here to warn everyone before you see it on the entry list! You might not want to talk to me about it too much - I might either barf on your shoes or lie. I checked my last P box in 1994. That's like a lifetime ago.

Actually, I feel pretty good about it. And I have complete faith in the magic that Phillip and Boyd will be charged to perform on us in the next month! I do believe in magic!

And get ready folks - the big Phillip Dutton Eventing Academy blog week starts in just a few days! My mom flies in on Thursday, and we head to Pennsylvania on Sunday. All campers received confirmation that despite last week's tragedy, camp is on! But, we'll be sharing stabling with Boyd Martin, which may be a whole other adventure! Hopefully we won't be in his way too much, and we might even entertain him a little!

If you don't know - this blog was born after I had so much fun with a one-week blogging adventure in 2009 when I wrote the "Cherie and Katchi get Duttonized" blog! Check it out here.

A Victory... in last place!

2011-06-04T17:18:00.000-07:00

Last month, I wrote about my frustration over my day at MCTA - dressage score in the 20s, 1 rail in show jumping, double clear XC, and a 4th place finish. Despite the scoreboard, I knew it was a horrid day. Everyone thought I was crazy. Well, guess what folks, I get even crazier! Today, Katchi and I were at Waredaca - where we finished fair and square in last place (of those who finished!), and I couldn't be happier! Someone commit me.

So, here's the story...

Katchi warmed up nicely for dressage, and I'm beginning to think the evil-Katchi this spring must be the "spring grass demon." Cuz happy Katchi is back. But, as luck would have it - we pulled an unfortunate ring draw - ring 4. Right next to the dog kennels and the edge of the new arena, complete with hoses, a black drain pipe, plywood, and the arena "wall" just barely a horse's width from the white dressage ring fence. Just as Katchi slammed on the brakes to panic at the assortment of fun, I hear a bell. Holy shit! What a nasty judge to ring the bell, right when my horse is clearly having a meltdown and we've only been over here for 3 seconds. So, we try to traverse down the super scary path - trotting, stopping, trotting, stopping. I finally make it to the judge, say a few words to identify myself and try to act thrilled that my horse is panicking. She looks distracted, so I say "was that my bell?" - and she says - "yes, I have a bell" - and she rings it. JJJEEEEZZZUUUSSS. Two bells. And now I surely don't have enough time to go back down the primrose path to hell to let Katchi take a real look at the construction zone, so, off we go into the ring. Luckily, the first part of our test was on the opposite side of the ring, but as soon as we turned back to the construction zone - it was panic time. Honestly though, I couldn't have been more proud of Katchi - he came right back to me after each panic, and he tried so hard. It's just so unfortunate that I didn't get a chance to let him take a look at all that stuff - I know Katchi, and I'm certain he would have been just fine if he'd only had a chance to look. Well, despite the drama, Katchi still managed to pull off a 35.0, putting him in 6th out of 19.

But it was in our jumping that we triumphed today! Katchi is still shuffling around in the combinations, but today's round was a huge step forward in our partnership! We had some very good "normal" jumps, and I kept my head in the game. I have serious hope and inspiration from this round! No jumping faults, 8 time penalties - works for me! And, oh by the way - there was a green rolltop into the second combination and despite his doubts, the fluffy pony jumped it! I do love my boy.

Katchi was, once again, a dream on XC. He is the most wonderful horse to gallop - he loves his job and it's infectious! And then there was "my trakahner." Here's what you never do coming up to a trakahner... have a conversation with yourself and say clever things like "oh, isn't this a lovely round, isn't Katchi just the best - see these trakahners aren't so bad, he'll jump this easy"... and then look down into the ditch. Horse stops. No shit. Enough said.

For my fellow-Training level riders who wonder how everyone else survived jump #4 (the skinny, too vertical, mid-cliff jump) - it clearly wasn't a pretty picture! I saw it at the end of the day, and it took a serious beating. Looked a bit like a pinata just before the candy bursts out. The take-off was super torn up right at the base, so at least the horses had the sense to get nice and close to check things out on the other side - and then slither over it. Katchi decided to trot it, by the way - but he didn't touch it - another victory!

So, there you have it - the most wonderful day, ending on a score of 95.0 - fair and square in last place! And I must give a huge thank you to Shane, who I met because of this blog - Shane was groom-extraordinaire today, and she even said (after we saw my last place finish!) that she was proud to be part of our team! Ah, shucks!

And I must mention one other triumph - Katchi wore hind boots!!!! The last month, we've been in boot acceptance training, and my little monster did as told today - he wore the boots AND jumped the jumps!

I spoke to Boyd Martin several times today - Jennie Brannigan too. I won't speculate on how they're doing and feeling, but I will say that Boyd seemed SO tremendously grateful for every kind word and gesture. And, in a strange kind of way, it was good for my own heart to see them out doing what they love.

NEWS: One other bit of Golightly news... check out page 59 of the USEA Evening magazine (just arrived today) - you'll see a picture of my student, Kerry, with Atticus, at the Lucinda Green clinic in April. They're the ones jumping the point. Go Kerry!!!

Heart Breaking for True Prospect

2011-06-01T15:29:00.000-07:00

I don't know how to describe the sick feeling in my heart right now. Katchi got smothered by me tonight - with hugs, kisses, carrots, oranges, and peppermints. He didn't understand. But I told him I just needed to be near him today, and he obliged - it was too hot to protest anyhow.

Katchi and I were to ride with Boyd Martin at 8:00 this morning, for oxer boot camp. We also had a 2:30 ride scheduled with Silva Martin to polish off our Second Level dressage moves. But, the eventing world stopped yesterday morning, and all plans, hopes, and dreams were derailed by the tragedy of the present. Least of all were mine. Katchi's boot camp is delayed, but it will be there another day. But for the 6 ponies lost in the barn fire at Boyd Martin's barn at True Prospect Farm early Tuesday morning, there is no today or tomorrow.

I cannot begin to put into words the sorrow I have felt since reading the tragic news on Eventing Nation early yesterday morning. I've burst into tears more times than I can count. It's hard to explain why the eventing community shares such a collective pain in this situation, but I think it's because, we put every bit of our soul into the trust and bond we develop with our horses - the horses that learn from us, and teach us, and protect us, and give their hearts to us. The thought of those same special horses coming to such a tragic end - it's devastating. Somehow, when one of us loses one of our special partners, we all lose a little piece of our heart.

Two things have hit me hardest about this tragedy - the first was when I read yesterday that firefighters physically restrained Lillian, Caitlin, and Ryan from re-entering the barn to try to save the rest of the horses. The second was in Boyd's post today - learning that Neville got out because Boyd and Phillip went back into the burning barn and drug him out, against the orders of the firefighters. I burst into tears again. I think it's because everyone of us knows that we wouldn't even think twice about doing the exact same thing - but the thought of being in that position is terrifying.

So, on the off chance that 1 or 2 people read this blog who did not know about this tragedy and who did not know about the donation options - let me spread the word! There are several funds that have been set up, and Eventing Nation lists them all here. I made my donation to the True Prospect Relief Fund because it will be shared be the entire True Prospect family. I think it's really important to realize that more than a barn was lost - horses belonging to 6 different families were lost, hope was lost, dreams were lost, tack was lost, and those living in the apartment above the barn lost all their personal possessions. Some things can be replaced; other things can never be replaced. But, as Boyd said today, "life must go on." So above all, please find a way to show everyone who is suffering that we are a community that believes in each other, in our horses, and in recovering from adversity.

Popping Champagne at Fair Hill!

2011-05-30T05:57:00.000-07:00

I'll get straight to the big news - woo hoo!!! to my fabulous student Kerry York and her super brave horse, Atticus, who finished their first Novice event - on their dressage score!! The first time around at a new level is usually "the toughest thing you (and your horse) have ever done" - and wow, to move up a level and finish cleanly on your dressage score - well, that's sort of like a dream come true! And Kerry and Atticus looked like old Novice pros making Fair Hill look like walk in the park! Kerry made a green mistake at the up-steps (yep! 2 steps up with one-stride between at Novice!!), Atticus still wants to walk into the water, and Kerry has earned a lesson on proper use of the bat (poor Atticus almost shot past a skinny when she tapped him on the shoulder and scared the crap out of him!) - but I officially declare them successful Novice eventers! And so, we popped open the champagne to celebrate (and indulged ourselves with mango too!).

When Kerry and I got the course maps, I couldn't believe it when I saw a 6:25 optimum time for Novice! But, it sure didn't take very long for us to walk the course, and I commented to Kerry that maybe they were a bit generous in wheeling the distance. As it was her first event at this level, we agreed that she should ride the speed that felt right and not worry about the time - but we reviewed the rules for minimum time, willful delay, etc. etc. Turned out, it's a good thing we did that little rule review! As I was getting Kerry ready for show jumping, Jennie Brannigan was introducing her very cute and beefy horse to everyone as, pretty much, the slowest horse ever, who never wants to go above Novice cuz moving quick is just too much work! And then as we headed over to XC, I noticed Jennie (on that very same turtle of a horse), trotting and circling on the last loop of the course. Uh oh! If the turtle was in danger of time faults - Kerry better watch out! And sure enough, Kerry cruised around the course (looking a perfect speed), and she also had to trot the entire last loop of the course to come in at 5:35 I watched quite a few of the Novice rides, and everyone looked to have a lovely Novice pace - I didn't see a single scary fast Novice ride (like at so many of the starter events!), but when I looked at the posted times, it seemed like almost everyone came in between 5:00-5:45. Interesting.

The Golightly Get-up

Meanwhile, back at the ranch - what's up with Katchi? He's getting on a program. Since our MCTA, clean but totally icky jumping - I've been reassessing lots of things. Starting with me. Katchi and I need a new program that works for us - for the things I can do well and can't do well - and same for Katchi. So, Part I is a new stack of books: Riding with Your Right Brain (THANK YOU so much to my blog follower who suggest this book to me - it's awesome!); Mind Gym: An Athlete's Guide to Inner Excellence; and Denny's new book, How Good Riders Get Good. Katchi doesn't make things easy, but he doesn't make them impossible. I can fix this show jumping thing. So, Part II begins on Wednesday. I love riding in jumping clinics, because I think it's so valuable to have lots of different kinds of questions thrown at you from lots of different instructor styles - and that's generally served us well, but it's not good enough any more. Katchi and I need a program - we need an individual program to consistently and systematically address our (my!) weaknesses. So, on Wednesday morning, we'll be starting "oxer" training with Boyd. I've got a Katchi helicopter photo saved in my phone, ready to show Boyd - I plan to say something along the lines of "dropping rails is not the problem."

Disappointingly, today was another potential Prelim move up day that we've missed. But, I have to admit that when I saw the show jumping course, I was actually quite happy to not be competing (that DAMN green rolltop was f*%$ing fence #1 again - if you recall, in August, that green rolltop earned Katchi 2 refusals and 51 time penalties in show jumping!!!). But, show jumping concerns aside, I walked the Prelim XC course and asked myself, at every jump, as honestly as possible, "am I ready for this one today?" And I've decided the USEA needs to introduce a new move-up division. Forget the N/T and T/P mixed-levels. I would like Prelim-1. In this division, each rider will be allowed to select 1 fence on either show jumping or XC for which they are given a "buy." You must choose your fence before you start on course (you cannot get a stop and then declare the fence a "buy"). In Prelim-1 at Fair Hill today, I will happily jump all XC fences and take my -1 at #5. The Tra-F*$%ing-kahner. Kerry said someone could live under there. I think an entire family could live in that ditch. shit.

Everything else looked quite do-able - the water had an almost 180 degree turn between the A and B elements, which I really would have enjoyed being able to watch ride. I wonder if anyone chose to avoid the water after A, coming around on dry land and coming into the water straight at the B and C?? A little longer and awkward from the first, but turning on dry land sure is easier than turning in water - and with that Intermediate fence in the way, it seemed awful like a blind turn. Wouldn't I laugh to see everyone navigate it just fine without the horses even blinking an eye - horses are so clever!

And - oh look - this one's familiar! I got a good look at it's dirt when I let Katchi stumble up the bank in April. Same combination as the April Training course - but with a small log placed on the step - despite the ridiculousness of our jumping effort in April, I still feel that I can check Prelim #13 A&B off as sorted (pretty muchly anyhow).

To end this Memorial Day weekend post, I'd like to thank Eventing Nation for their public service announcement reminding all riders to warn people before exposing their pasty white legs! However, I have to announce that I have taken the severity of rider tan line faux pas to a whole new level. California beach babe tan arms - check. Lovely porcelain white hands (compulsive glove wearer!) - check. And, my legs - well, can you say Oreo? Big mistake to spend your first summer day exposing those pasty white rider legs - while wearing shorts and Dubarry boots. I've never looked more ridiculous. No photos attached.

The Ribbon Fairy Came Again

2011-05-24T17:06:00.000-07:00

There is something especially nice when the Ribbon Fairy chooses just any old Monday to pay a visit! The USDF Ribbon Fairy delivered my First Level Performance Award and patch yesterday, and I have to admit, it's market value may be about $1.34 - but it's priceless to me! And just as I'm making plans to let Katchi give Second Level a whirl, it's quite a sense of accomplishment to have checked the box of repeatable success at First Level! And considering that Katchi only does 1 or 2 dressage shows a year, we've got a pretty respectable batting average!

But here's my question - what do I do with the patch? Does the USDF have letterman jackets (can you imagine a bunch of DQs in letterman jackets with Training, First, and Second Level patches - oh and what about the Gold, Silver and Bronze medals?!) - Okay, no letterman jackets - so what do you think their intention is that we do with these patches? Maybe put them on my dressage coat bag? On Katchi's cooler? On a saddle pad??

2011 Ride for Life - Please support this great event!

2011-05-09T17:14:00.001-07:00

*** Donate Online to Ride for Life ***

On June 25-26, Katchi and I will be at PVDA's Ride for Life (R4L) for the 5th consecutive year. Ride for Life - what's that?? It's a dressage show! But not just any dressage show! It's a silent auction, gala dinner, and dancing horse challenge - and it's one of the 2 most special days of the year for me. R4L is a benefit for the Johns Hopkins Breast Cancer Center, and each year I collect donations and ride in memory of Joy Court - my first dressage instructor who lost her battle against breast cancer in 1997. I am certain that my love for dressage - the harmony, unity, and perfection - is all because of Joy. She taught me to try-try-and try again. And she taught me to get off, walk to the end of the field and back, and then try again - I guess they call that patience?! Or persistent humility. Anyhow, she taught me to love the sport and love my horse. Her horses gave her hope through years of chemotherapy, recurring cancer, and a bone marrow transplant - her tremendous strength and optimism inspire me still today. And it's such a wonderful feeling, over 10 years since Joy's passing, to still be up on a horse, thinking about all the things I learned from her!

Joy with Monty & Allie

So, in Joy's honor, I ask you to support this year's Ride for Life! Come to the show - not just to see me and Katchi - come experience the event! See the smiles of survivors and current victims as they compete with the horses that give them motivation! Watch all the "scrappy" eventers go elegant and kick some DQ tail! Donate something or (even more fun!) buy something at the silent auction! Submit a tribute for the show program ($25 minimum donation). Eat and drink at the Gala dinner (limited tickets, $100 each). Watch the Dancing Horse Challenge ($20 general admission) - cheer on my instructor, Silva Martin and her Grand Prix OTTB! Welcome Ann Romney, Debbie McDonald, and Courtney King-Dye as the event's special guests! Donate online - Cash/check donations are welcome too (please be sure to write "Cherie Chauvin" as the rider you are donating for). Email me at cheriechauvin@hotmail.com if you have any questions or want to get involved!

Last year, I won a high pledge award, and this year I'm hoping to make donations in my name (and in Joy's memory) even more bountiful! This year, I'm trying to branch out my donation efforts to include some of my favorite horse products in the silent auction and rider raffle - and I've already had some success! I'd like to thank The Sport House for donating a bunch of WEG DVDs (Dressage highlights and day tapes) and The National Academies for donating a copy of the 6th edition beautiful hard copy book - Nutrient Requirements of Horses.

Katchi & me at the 2010 Ride for Life

However you can - please support this wonderful event!

Event Details:

PVDA Ride for Life
June 25-26, 2011
Prince George's Equestrian Center
Upper Marlboro, MD

** Donate Online Here **

R4L Links:
My R4L page on my website
Official R4L website
Silent Auction donations
Show Program Tribute Form (due by June 1)
Cash/Check Donation Form

Show, Show, and Show!

2011-05-09T09:23:00.001-07:00

If you thought Mother's Day weekend is meant for rest - it is not. At least not if you're a horse mom. As the two ladies parked next to me at Shawan Downs on Sunday got into their truck to leave (the rider had fallen off one horse and I don't think the second horse was fabulous) - the woman getting into the passenger side said, "That's it, next year, for Mother's Day, it's breakfast in bed!" Yea, right! They'll be back next year - no doubt! Eventing is an addiction, and you know it!

So, this Mother's Day weekend, I made it to 3 different shows in 3 days! Friday was the SMHA hunter show where I met 2 students to school the jumps before the weekend show. It cracks me up that in hunter land, everyone must school the fences the day before (really folks, did you not notice it's like the same freaking pattern and same freaking flowers, wall, and pole at every single show?!?!). But, anyhow, I've got one student's horse who is terrified of flowers and walls and one that's still learning about related distances, so we thought it would be a great opportunity. And it would have been, had the EMTs shown up and had we been allowed to ride. Instead, the 3 of us got to bond with the 2 horses for 1.5 hours, sitting in the ring, all tacked up - until we finally got word that there really was no expectation when the EMT would show up. So, I was done with show number one - not a good day. I was off to Phase I of show #3 - Shawan Downs - where I literally ran around the XC course, fighting the meter wheel in the mowed grass, and willing the massive lightening not to strike me dead. By the grace of mother nature, I managed to get all my minute markers noted on the map and have enough general sense of the course to not miss a jump - all before the heavens opened up. A small vitory in life.

Show number two was HUGE success. Saturday was Kerry's first recognized USEA event - Difficult Run Pony Club's Horse Trial. Basically, she nailed it! Best dressage test she's had - and not only did she add no points to her score in either jumping phase, she looked good doing it AND she stuffed her crazy horse right past the purple cow print rolltop that cost her two refusals earlier this year! Atticus still hates the cow rolltop, but that's okay - he can hate it all he wants, so long as his cow-hating butt jumps it! And for Kerry's valiant effort, she was well rewarded with a beautiful red second place ribbon! I started working with Kerry just over a year ago, and it is absolutely amazing how far she and her horse have come! It's almost superhuman the progress they've made! I couldn't have been more proud and excited for her!

Sunday was Phase II of Show 3 - Katchi's day at the MCTA Horse Trials at Shawan Downs. Katchi remains a puzzle I have yet to solve. I got on an hour before dressage, ready for the monster to erupt - but it never did. I actually had to try to fire him up a bit! I finally got the dressage test I've been looking for, and Katchi was well rewarded with his first score in the 20's- a 27.3!!!! I was tickled silly by his score and absolutely thrilled to be sitting in 3rd in a class of 25. I think I also have to thank Kerry for contributing to that score as she spent quite a bit of time working on the knots in Katchi's poll while I was getting tacked up - she had the magic touch!

By the scoreboard, we had a great day. Katchi added just 4 points to his score with one rail in show jumping, ending on a 31.3 - earning a 4th placed ribbon, his first USEA gold medal qualifying score, a second XC round with NO time penalties (WOO HOO!), AND - I got a call later last night saying he'd won an MCTA perpetual trophy - The Joan Barthel Memorial Trophy - presented to the MCTA member who achieves the best dressage score in the entire competition. Wow, pretty cool! Of course, I also have to be responsible for not breaking this trophy which apparently has "more sentimental value than beauty" and I have to figure out how to get (and pay for!) my name to be engraved on it. Then I have to return it next year so it can be given to the next winner. Hum, that's an interesting award. But, at least it's not drugs - you all know my angst over the amount of free drugs Katchi won last year that I can't even use on him!

But, for all that good - Katchi had to beg for his ride home at the end of the day. I won't go into the details, because, frankly, I don't understand. So many things have gotten so much better, but Katchi's jumping was horrendous yesterday. He was stuck to the ground at the base of the fences like never before. On XC too. I have to thank Shane, who said to me at the end of the day - "you always tell me that things feel more frustrating as you get better, because you hold yourself accountable to higher expectations - just think how many things have improved." She was right. I watched our show jumping video from MCTA one year ago - many things are much better - in fact, tremendously better! But, I'm far from satisfied - I was so so angry at Katchi yesterday exactly because I have higher expectations of him now and I should have higher expectations! I just wanted to shake some sense into him (not effective, I realize)! He didn't help me out one single bit. I think if Jimmy had seen the round he would have hung a "for sale" sign on his tail (or maybe "free to any home, please, really, please"). I need a plan - I need an effective plan and a possible plan. I'm working on it. Still. One small shred of optimism is looking forward to our week with Phillip Dutton that's only 1 month away. Maybe Katchi will earn himself a ticket to stay there an extra week all by his little lonesome with the mean little Australian man.

So, today, I'm trying to focus on the things that were wonderful - and developing a definitive plan - specific, regimented, focused, precise, understandable, effective, possible. Katchi has no idea what he signed himself up for after yesterday's performance. He crossed the line. I guess it's like your child coming home with a report card full of all A's and an F in Home Economics - really, seriously?

What a lucky photo shot - a fleeting moment as one new event horse and one old event horse told each other about their fabulous days! With prizes attached!

Congrats to all the Golightly Gang for awesome show results this weekend!

2nd Place - Kerry & Atticus @ Difficult Run Pony Club Horse Trial (Beginner Novice)
4th Place - Cherie & Katchi @ MCTA Shawan Downs Horse Trial (Training)
1st Place - Ilkim & Luna @ SHMA Hunter Show
1st & 2nd Place - Debi & Roxanne @ schooling Dressage Show (First Level)

Also congrats to 2 new students who were at Fair Hill's Starter Horse Trials - Diane & Lincoln (1st place - Novice) and Susan & Eeyore ( A work in progress! - Beginner Novice).

I hope you all gave yourself a big toast last night for a wonderful weekend and for being fabulous horse moms - I know I did! Oh that Heineken tasted so good!

The Energizer Katchi Easter Bunny

2011-04-25T06:26:00.000-07:00

It's SO good to have my first horse trial of 2011 successfully completed! After almost 6 months since our last horse trial, it's good to have a good solid run under our belt! The first event brings with it so many questions - are we fit enough? did we forget how to gallop after all those days riding in the indoor? will the jumps look bigger than 6 months ago? will they ride easier? will we start the season with success or mistakes? No matter what the answers are, it's especially good to have them answered!

When they rearranged the Training division into a 2-day trial, I was left on Friday with a day off work and stabling and hotel paid for - but nothing to do! Luckily, Silva came to my rescue and offered to squeeze in a mini-dressage lesson between the riders she was helping to warm-up for the Advanced and 2-star divisions. It was interesting trying to have a dressage lesson in the middle of the tiny warm-up area, while not being "that girl" who ran into Kim Severson or Boyd Martin and knocked them off their horse! Despite the chaos, Katchi was very good and Silva really helped me figure out some new ways to put him together in the show environment, so I was dead excited to give it a go on my own on Saturday.

Overall, Katchi and I had a great (wet and cold - then hot!) weekend at Fair Hill. But anyone who reads this blog or knows me will certainly know that I was far from satisfied sitting in 4th place after dressage. It's not so much the placing, it's that my fit little event horse was quite a monster yet still managed to score a 33.6 - I'm always searching for a better ride than the last one, and this wasn't the one - and we had all the potential! After my test, I took Katchi back to the warm-up area to ride more - took another 20 minutes before he started breathing! You know that feeling - sitting on a horse and you know they're getting oxygen somehow because they haven't passed out, but all you feel under you is a big puffed up evil blowfish waiting to explode! The good news is it's given me a lot of new information on how to warm-up the horse I've got now. That's the thing about training horses - what worked last year (or last week!), may not be what works today. That's the trouble with improving!

Katchi was back to his normal rational self for show jumping, and I am loving our new big boy spurs! I had the good fortune of warming up at the same time as several professional riders who had ground helpers to adjust the warm-up jumps up and down, in and out - Katchi and I took full opportunity of the various jump shapes and had the most effective warm-up we've had with complete focus on not sticking to the ground and jumping across the oxers! Our show jumping round was good with only one 1/2 stride take off, one HUGE jump (but not a helicopter - we landed going!), one rail, and a few arguments between fences on account of some resentment over the new spurs - but oh too bad my little Katchi!

When I arrived at the barn on Sunday morning, each of the horses had Easter eggs in front of their stalls - Katchi had 3 eggs filled with chocolate for me! I can only imagine the trauma he endured over night watching the Fair Hill folks place eggs for all 500 horses or so, without giving him a single treat!

I have only one word to describe cross country - brilliant!! I love when announcers at the big events say that a horse "looks full of running!" - that was my Katchi! He had to have been the happiest horse at Fair Hill on Sunday when he saw that start box and realized he was back in action! Katchi was absolutely foot perfect around the entire course until I thought, "wow - wasn't that a great round!" with 2 jumps left! I should know better! I was so far up on the clock that I let off a little and we promptly tripped up a bank that couldn't have been more than 2' tall! Katchi took good care of himself, but I looked a bit of a fool laying on his neck! I looked down and saw the next jump (just one stride after the bank, up a hill), dug my spurs in, and thought - he's damn well jumping this jump and I better be out of his way when he does! And he did and I was! And just for all those fans of Katchi's "Good Boy"s from last fall's helmet cam - if you turn up the volume on the video, you might just hear me singing "Good Boy Katchi" all the way to the finish!

Despite the long 3 days, cost of stabling, and hotel, I really enjoyed the chance to hang out and get to know some new eventing friends! Oddly, one of my favorite parts of the event was making that long trek down the rocky path to cross country and back. What fun to have all the nerves and anticipation of starting cross country going in one direction while all the joys and exhilaration of a great run coming back the other way! I passed Jan Bynny on my way out as she was finishing on one horse. I passed her again on my way back home - she was headed out on a different horse. She smiled and wished me a good ride on the first pass and asked me how it went on the second pass. I have to say, knowing the trauma she's been through the last year but not knowing her at all as a person, I was absolutely inspired by her smile and passing words! Funny how something so little can warm your heart so much!

Catching Up - Silva, Oxers, Stitches & The Blue Batman

2011-04-15T07:27:00.001-07:00

This post is all about catching up - Today I was finally able to catch up with Silva Martin again! My last dressage lesson was January 2, just before she headed south for the winter. It was so wonderful to be back riding with her and especially good to learn that I haven't messed myself up too much, left unsupervised this winter! In fact, Silva thought Katchi was better and stronger than ever and we really got to play today! The clip below shows Katchi nailing a canter-walk transition, and I threw a little party! It was good fun!! Thanks so much to Susan for being chief videographer today!

Other things to catch up on - Oxers. I have a question to answer from eventer79's comment on the "Jimmy, do I have all my teeth" post. I'm not sure I can put into words how to jump "across" an oxer, and even Jimmy said it probably implies more than reality, so I think I'll call it a mental state more than anything. I don't get those horrible straight-up in the air oxer jumps on cross country - yes, we are going more forward, but I think it's also about having the sense that you're going someplace. After a big wide galloping fence, I've got a field to gallop across. My job doesn't end at the base of the fence, because I have someplace to go. In show jumping, I seem to get stuck at the base of the fence, trying so hard to get there just right - that I don't ride over and past it. I just ride to it. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I also talked to Lucinda about the issue briefly this week. She asked if I am getting SJ time penalties - I said, yep. And she said, "I think you're trying too hard." Yep. She said that a horse that has those issues in SJ but not in XC has to be ridden, for now, in the SJ as if we're out on the XC course. Yes, make the turns. Yes, keep the balance as best as I can. But get in there and GO! As our training and skill improves, I will be able to collect more and still keep that power, but for now, I've got to set my biggest priority as keeping the engine running - up to the fence, at the fence, and over the fence! But, not to forget Jimmy's gospel of rhythm - the GO does not mean increasing at the fence. It still means regularity and rhythm (counting, 1...2...3...4...5...) - with an increased pace and lighter contact - just like I do on XC. Sounds so easy. If only.

I also have to announce that last Monday night (in the Holiday Inn Express bathroom!) was either a low low point in my life or one of my biggest accomplishments (I'm not sure which!) - I successfully removed the 3 stitches from my own face. This was definitely one of those "don't try this at home" moments. The ER folks told me the stitches must come out on Monday or I would end up with Frankenstein lines on my eye - and I tried to explain how I was going to be out in the middle of no place on Monday with my horse (yes, Ms. Nurse, I'll be with the horse that just busted up my face) - so they gave me a take-home suture removal kit. No worries, they said. HA HA HA! I assumed in that little kit there would be Ikea-like directions... big pictures, lots of arrows pointing to this and that, step 1, 2, 3... Nope. Kit included scissors, tweezers, gauze pad, and alcohol swab. Some assembly required. No instructions included. And as the stitches were on my eye, it's not like I had watched them put them in, so I really had no concept of what had been done or how to get them out. As I was going for my eye with the tweezers in one hand and the scissors in the other, poor Kerry just about lost it! But, thankfully she has more than a little of her own experience with stitches and she became my own personal instruction sheet - actually, she was like my own little talking Garmin of stitch removal as I spouted out about 100 times "I CANNOT *&?!$ BELIEVE THEY GAVE ME *&%!# SCISSORS WITHOUT ANY %*!#$ INSTRUCTIONS!" It was not pretty, but the stitches are out and my eye looks almost normal. Please oh please let me never ever have to go through that again!

And the final missing item from this week's posts is showing off Atticus - The Blue Batman (that's his new Warmblood Racehorse name) - wearing his matching blue ribbon from his first recognized dressage show at Morven Park last week! Kerry put on a lot of dressage miles last weekend and was forced to deal with all kinds of craziness - but when things came together in their second test on Saturday, The Blue Batman rocked and won a well deserved blue ribbon to match his costume!

Lucinda Green Clinic - Day Two

2011-04-13T17:02:00.000-07:00

CROSS COUNTRY DAY!

Day Two of Lucinda's clinic put us to the test on the cross country course (in the rain)! I realized after my Day One post that I counted wrong - this was my 5th clinic with Lucinda, so I pretty much know what to expect and what we'll get in trouble for and why! But there's always something new to learn from her and always some new way to "think you had it" but find out that you didn't, compliments of a run out or stop - hopefully without falling off! Lucinda says no matter what, don't fall off and never think you had it - feel it and know it!

Lucinda was full of fantastic quotable quotes all day long - I know I won't get them all written into this post, so if anyone reads this who was there - add your favorites to the comments!! Above all, her very best quote of the day came during my group - the last of the day - she definitely saved the best for last! Her victim was Byron, who selected as his jump line of choice: over a log/bank into water, out up a bank, 2 strides to a chevron. Oops! Missed the chevron! And Lucinda says, "Byron, why did you just sit there and pray?! God doesn't help riders who pray - God only helps riders who ride!! START RIDING!" It took him a few more tries, but we all cheered when he navigated his stunning white steed right over that chevron! Prayers not needed!

My other favorite quote of the day was more of a descriptive visual/feeling. Lucinda compared riding green horses XC to riding in a car with square wheels. They bump, hop, pause, go, bump again. You have to expect it and allow it - that's how they earn round, smooth, lightening fast race car wheels one day. My report on Katchi's day is that he doesn't have square wheels any more!!! He's not a race car yet, but I'm riding something more like octagon wheels - little bumps here and there, but they're tiny and gone quick! Katchi was awesome (no more sleepy Katchi, and he was allowed to downgrade his spurs to about 1/2 as big as the first day!) - and the biggest victory is that he didn't throw a single tantrum all day - not a single rear, spin, or stomp. It was wonderful!! He was pretty tough galloping as he was so amazingly happy to be out on a XC course again (doing his infamous tuck and roll gallop which sent me scrambling to get his nose out of his chest more than a few times in front of fences), but there wasn't a single jump that fazed him for a second. He looked, computed, and went - never with a doubt. And, as Lucinda described him - very sensibly. He's careful and cautious - and now he's brave too! It was very very cool. I almost want to call him a cross country machine (when his rider does her job!).

But the real stars of the day had to be Kerry and Atticus. It's hard to put into words how much they both changed in 2 days. It was amazing! They jumped jumps (successfully!) that I don't think Kerry ever thought she'd do in a lifetime of trying. If you watch the video of Atticus on Day 2 in the post below - check out Kerry's huge smile at the end. I think that sums up their clinic experience! It was nothing short of life changing - Eventers for life now, I think!

A HUGE thank you to Lucinda for giving us all such a wonderful 2 days - and an equally huge thank you to Margaret for organizing everything - and of course to Win Green for hosting us!!! Also a special thank you to Karson Morton whose mom drove about 4 hours roundtrip to deliver and collect her from the clinic so that Karson could groom and audit for Kerry and me - we had the very best help at the clinic and were so thankful!! It's a little depressing to know it's all over - but exciting to already start dreaming of April 2012 when we'll get to do it all over again - only better!

Lucinda Green Clinic Videos

2011-04-13T12:59:00.000-07:00

Trying to get caught up on everything after 5 days of playing horses - with 3 of those days spent with essentially no cell phone or email accesss!! I've got a lot to catch up on! So, videos now - words later.

DAY ONE VIDEOS

THE TARP

WALK JUMPING

GOOD BOY KATCHI - With his big boy spurs!

GOOD BOY ATTICUS

DAY TWO VIDEOS - GOOD PONIES ALL DAY LONG!!

KATCHI

ATTICUS

Sleepy Katchi Gets Big Boy Spurs

2011-04-11T17:38:00.000-07:00

Lucinda Green Clinic at Win Green (Rhoadesville, VA) - Day 1

I guess this is Katchi and my 4th clinic with Lucinda Green, and she is just as fantastic as the first time! If you've never had a chance to ride with her or audit - DO IT! It's hard to describe just how amazingly effective she is - she's enthusiastic, encouraging, and demanding. She's insightful and always looking for something new to learn. Lucinda described for us today her objective of teaching "the 3 F's" - Focus, Footwork, and Fun. By the looks of the horses and riders at the end of each group, she accomplished all 3. One analogy I really liked was to approach teaching horses as if you're teaching a child to read - keep the letters big and the words small. Focus the horse on every letter of every line. If you do that properly, one day they'll be come speed readers which is absolutely critical for advanced level eventing when they must read, sort out, and answer questions within seconds (or less!).

Lucinda's exercises of plastic tarps, skinnies, arrowheads, barrels, and oxers... all set at horrendously wrong distances are amazing at allowing horses and riders to develop just the right balance between communication and "fifth leg." The horses must listen and react to the rider's instructions about pace and line, while at the same time learning how to get themselves out of trouble and do some seriously fancy footwork. Pretty cool!

Kerry and Atticus rode in the second group of the day - I think Kerry expected the clinic would be great - she totally underestimated it! Atticus started off his ride with a bit of a crisis over the black tarp. He was the second of 4 chestnuts at the clinic - and the second of 4 chestnuts to absolutely freak out over the black tarp! Now isn't that interesting?! To their credit - Atticus was not the worst of the chestnuts and Kerry didn't fall off!! So, it could have been worse, although I'm sure Kerry was pretty darn sick of that stupid tarp after she had to walk (well, leap) over it for the 150th time!!

Kerry really rose to the occasion today and came leaps and bounds forward with her cross country riding ability. It will be so fun to see what Lucinda does for them tomorrow when we actually get to jump cross country fences!

As for Mr. Katchi - sleepy was the word of the day. Actually, he wasn't sleepy - he was too chill about it all. He was the same horse I have at Jimmy's gymnastics clinics now. No matter what the line is - he's sorted out the game and he can't be bothered to get excited about any of it. Well, Lucinda fixed that! About 2 years ago, I finally got up the nerve to start riding Katchi with these fat little round rolly spurs (AFTER Phillip Dutton tried Katchi out in them first!). Well, today, Katchi got his first pair of BIG BOY spurs! Holy cats you should have seen these things! Just plain blunt spurs, but apparently they are right at the maximum length of 3.5 inches. Lucinda said she buys them in Hong Kong as you can't find spurs over 3 inches in America or England! Wow did I love the horse I had with those big boy spurs! When I closed my heel at the base of the jump - Katchi pinged just perfectly! NO STICKING TO THE GROUND! It was really fantastic to get that feel from Katchi - he jumped across those oxers like you wouldn't believe! Way cool!

Tomorrow is XC jumping day. Katchi hasn't been on a XC course since last November at the Area II training championships, so we definitely will have some rust to polish off. Really looking forward to getting back in the groove and hitting those big boy jumps with our big boy spurs!

Will have to post videos later in the week...

Doin' Dressage

2011-04-10T19:57:00.000-07:00

Hello from Orange, VA. I would like to commend the local Mexican food establishment for having some of the friendliest staff and best margaritas (for $4.50 each!) I've experienced in a long time. So, I'll be writing tonight for as long as it takes me to finish the very large bottle of Deer Park water sitting next to me, on my Holiday Inn Express nightstand. My excuse? I don't have to ride until 4:00 tomorrow, and I did a heck of a lot of dressage this weekend!!

Also a quick report on my eye - looking awesome! Aside from my very stylish apparent choice of yellow and purple eyeshadow on one eye, it's looking almost okay! Kerry and I will be playing operating room in the Holiday Inn Express tomorrow night to remove the stitches. But everyone's an expert in a Holiday Inn Express, right?! I'm really thrilled with how quickly it's healing, and I definitely don't feel too damaged any more.

But - back to that dressage thing! Spent the weekend at Morven Park at the VADA/NoVa Dressage show. Katchi made a clean sweep of yellow ribbons, and I was thrilled! He scored higher in each test we rode, ending with his final test earning a 67 something!!! WOW - that's like almost a 70!!! Best of all, he finished off the last score he needed to earn our USDF Performance Award at First Level - considering we only do 1-2 dressage shows a year, every test counts!

Katchi was a bit of a jerk today (hollering for his friend and threatening to have a tantrum, but I was especially pleased with my ability to stay cool and ride through it - to good scores! It's a great feeling!

Perhaps the most stressful part of my day was reading a second level test for my old friend, Dee! It's such a strange thing, this test reading! Not allowed in eventing, but everyone's "doing it" it dressage! I have to admit I found it kind of annoying in rings next to each other when someone is screaming out to do a "change of lead" or "travers right" when I'm just trying to remember whether to turn left or right at C! Anyhow, I'm quite proud of myself for keeping Dee on track and giving her the correct commands at the correct time! It was perhaps my biggest accomplishment of the day!

And a huge thank you to Kerry's mom who bought me the cd of photos from the weekend! Unfortunately, Kerry left her photo cd in the trailer tonight, so you're stuck with photos of just me and Katchi for now! Kerry put a lot of dressage mileage under her this weekend - and came away with several pretty ribbons including a well deserved first place!!! Not too bad for her first recognized dressage show ever!

Day 1 of the Lucinda Green clinic is tomorrow - stay tuned (hopefully!) for videos tomorrow!

"Jimmy, are you sure I've got all my teeth?!"

2011-04-06T13:59:00.000-07:00

Me: "Jimmy, are you sure I've got all my teeth?!" As I open my mouth real wide to show off all my teeth.

Jimmy: "Yea, you've got all your teeth... and a black eye, and some blood coming down your face."

Me: "Shit, seriously? But, you're sure I've got all my teeth?" Showing off all my teeth again right up in Jimmy's face. Jeeezzus, I'm so cool.

Well, as you can imagine, that was not the conversation I was hoping for with Jim Wofford in the middle of yesterday's jumping lesson. Today I'm sporting 3 stitches and a big fat black eye and a new concept and determination about Katchi and those "damn oxers" as I might have called them about 10 times yesterday to Jimmy.

After our Prelim show jumping debut at Loch Moy, I sent Jimmy the video and he had some really helpful comments. So, I was really looking forward to working with him yesterday to polish things off over the larger fences. Tornado warnings yesterday morning delayed our departure a bit (I'm crazy about Jimmy but not so crazy that I'd actually drive Katchi through a tornado to get there!). Luckily they moved East and we headed to West Virginia. The lesson started out great (outside - in the rain!!), and we were focusing on developing a strategy for warming Katchi up at shows. We know his weaknesses, so his warm-up needs to remind him how we need him to jump - specifically for courses, I need to remind him to jump and land taking a 12' canter stride after the fence - this is critical for related distances, obviously. We were working through all this and making good progress with some new concepts that really worked for me mentally. We had a bit of a hard time when we moved onto oxers, and Jimmy and I had a good conversation about making Katchi jump across oxers instead of up. I've been so focused on getting him to the fence but I don't do enough to ride him across the fence. We were really making progress, jumping lots of single fences - verticals, oxers, skinnies, liverpool, walls...

More rain and some ice pellets. But we're tough. The lesson carried on.

Jimmy put the fences up higher and we started working on related distance lines. We had a few icky fences trying to get started again, but then we were rolling. A few verticals, liverpool to vertical - check, check, check. Jimmy says to come around to the one-stride oxer combination - jump across it, one stride, and across again. Easy, right? Nope. We helicoptered the first, one stride (I hear Jimmy say "keep going!"), and harrier planed the second, dropping straight down and landing in a thud - I was still snugly in the saddle, but slammed my face into Katchi's neck and hence the dialogue above began. As I picked myself up off Katchi's neck, I swear I saw something white hit the ground and I was positive I'd lost a tooth. I have such a thing about teeth - I brush mine constantly and have nightmares about losing them! So, I was pretty much totally freaked out over possibly losing a tooth! I can't believe I showed Jimmy my teeth so many times - oh what he must have been thinking!

Everyone at Sharon's was so wonderful to take care of Katchi, protect my saddle from the rain, clean my face, and give me LOTS and LOTS of kind words and heartfelt encouragement. There couldn't have been a better group to split my face open with! After I got cleaned up a bit, Jimmy and I conferred and we decided to ask one of Sharon's riders, Tim, to hop on Katchi. He jumped all the big fences and all the lines - including that damn one-stride oxer combination - beautifully. It was so good to be able to watch that and talk it over with Jimmy. And then as Jimmy said, "lets put his jockey back up." Still bleeding a bit, but now super angry and fiercely determined, we put the fences down to a whopping 2'6" or so and Jimmy said "sick-em." That was about all I could handle at the moment, but wow, Katchi jumped great. We are making progress, and we made even more progress yesterday - with a big oops in the middle. The lesson ended with Jimmy saying something along the lines of, "okay, good work - now you're off to the ER." Again, not the end to the lesson of my dreams.

Undeterred by stitches and a fat eye, Katchi had a date with some small oxers today. Small but wide. Forward canter. Off the ground. Ride across. It was good. I feel okay. I know what I have to do and I know it can be done. I saw Katchi do it with Tim riding yesterday. As Jimmy said, Katchi doesn't make it easy - but, I'll add that he doesn't make it impossible either. So somehow I have to make it possible with me on top.

I'll be sporting my fat eye this weekend at the VADA/NOVA dressage show at Morven Park. If you're in the neighborhood come by and check it out (my eye or the show, whichever!)! Kerry and I are taking the horses on a 5 day adventure starting with the dressage show and then heading straight out to Win Green for Lucinda Green's clinic on Monday and Tuesday. Kerry rides 10AM-12PM both days, and Katchi and I ride at 3PM-5PM. Hope to see you out there!

Happy Birthday Katchi!!

2011-03-30T16:54:00.000-07:00

Katchi turned 10 years old today!!! So, I baked him a horse cake! I've never thought of actually baking for my horse, but when I saw Abby's amazing baked Christmas treats for her pony, well, I felt like a terrible mom! I'd never baked for Katchi! So, his birthday seemed like a good excuse to try something out - a cored apple, stuffed with bananas and maple & brown sugar oatmeal - a little water and into the oven! About 30 minutes later, it looked pretty awesome! Unfortunately, by the time Katchi got it this afternoon, it had spent the night in the fridge and the day in a tupperware in my office. When I plopped it out into his dish, the guys at the barn had a good laugh - they said, "uuummm, yummy!" If they didn't think I was weird before, today I definitely became "that weird girl who bakes for her horse." Katchi had to devour his beloved rice bran first, but he eventually made his way to his special treat - and complained that I should have peeled off the apple skin! Apparently baked apple with skin is not worthy of his high class refined tastes!

But, he suffered through and licked his bowl clean!

So today was Katchi's special day - I've had him since he was 5 1/2 - I can hardly believe he's 10! It's like he's supposed to be a grown up now or something! We'll see about that! Happy Birthday Katchi!

2/3 of a Frozen Prelim Pony

2011-03-27T05:29:00.000-07:00

3/26/2011: Katchi becomes 2/3 of a Prelim pony in 30 degree temperatures! Seriously, what happened to spring? As I type this, I see a dusting of snow on the holly bush outside my window. So wrong. Arriving at Loch Moy at 7:30 yesterday morning for Katchi's first Prelim combined test - it was FREEZING! The arenas were frozen, and the Loch Moy folks were trying to churn them up like construction workers tear up pavement. Trying to walk SJ, I was stumbling all over frozen chunks of arena footing - I guess the good thing is that I was so focused on the footing and whether I should be doing this at all, that I hardly even took a moment to worry about the Prelim sized jumps!!

Into dressage warm-up - Katchi's feet clicking on the ground like he was walking on cement. Despite the unsettling noise, it was a bit like a running track - very firm, but oddly squishy - so I thought I would just let Katchi tell me what his legs thought of it. One sore step, and I knew I would be outta there. But, he didn't put a foot wrong. I'm sure Katchi felt my misgivings about whether I was doing right by him - he was really tense and spooky in the arena. But, in watching the video - well, it wasn't half bad (putting him in 2nd out of 6)! That's super exciting, because I thought we totally lacked the power, relaxation, and through-ness we've been working so hard to solidify - but, I've learned something I was starting to suspect. With Silva Martin in Aiken all winter, I haven't had eyes on the ground on our dressage work since January 2 - but I've recently been thinking that Katchi might finally be lengthening his stride and that I've been rushing him a bit, looking for a quicker tempo that used to be necessary to get him moving his hocks. Now I have video confirmation! He actually looks like one horse - hind legs connected to the front legs - despite his mile long back!! HOW EXCITING!! And I felt like he only gave me half of what he's capable of! In two weeks, we go to the CDCTA dressage show at Morven Park - watch out you big fancy Warmbloods - my little OTTB has got his hocks swingin' and he's looking pretty fancy himself!!

When I hopped off Katchi after dressage, I found new footing - soft melted footing! Well, shit, guess there's no footing excuses... suck it up Cherie, go jump the Prelim jumps! With only a few minutes for a quick tack change for show jumping - there was no time to get nervous. It was also really lucky that I was surrounded in the parking lot by great eventing friends who keep me humble and make me laugh. As I headed out to SJ warm up, Samantha Allan said - "Remember, you just have to commit! Good or bad, commit!" That word came in handy at Fence #4, the enormous swedish oxer...

Katchi warmed up beautifully - and thanks to Kerry who set down the vertical for us so we didn't have to go from trotting the X to cantering a 3'7" vertical! That aint' me and Katchi's idea of a warm-up! And off we went to the ring... and we survived! 3 rails down (actually 4 if you count both poles of the swedish oxer, plus a standard - but who's counting?!). But what I'm most thrilled with is our ability to recover. I did not lose my focus once - whatever went wrong, I fixed the issue before the next fence so things did not keep deteriorating. Katchi kept a malleable and active canter, and I didn't let him sprawl at the base of a fence once (Jimmy would be so proud!). Yesterday was a huge step in Katchi's training - I did feel a little bad for him as he jumped the first two fences so beautifully (verticals, probably just slightly higher than Training height), and then came off a rollback turn to a Prelim oxer (I think he was coming around the corner singing in his head, "I'm so cute, look at me, cute cute cute - OH SHIT!" as he saw the width of the oxer and came down on the back rail with his hind legs) then he got *&!@! slapped by both rails of the enormous swedish oxer 4 strides later. But what I'm most proud of is what happened next - we got it back together and jumped into the 1 stride, vertical to oxer, perfectly - unfortunately poor Katchi saw that oxer coming out of the 1 stride - and after his last two oxer experiences - he took off like a helicopter (photo below - I lost the neck strap and clearly was not an example of hunter equitation!) - but wouldn't you know it, we landed, I sat up, and said "get with me on this Katchi!" and 4 strides later we had a beautiful jump over another vertical. It wasn't perfect, Jimmy would not be satisfied - but we had the most wonderful conversation and it WORKED!! That gives me great hope that we can and will work through all this, and hopefully my little helicopter will drop it down 3 feet, so we can just jump "normally" and oh, won't that be lovely?!

My helicopter.

So, that's it - Katchi made it through 2/3 of the way to being a Prelim event horse! He had big eyes and a HUGE heart - his eyes will get smaller over time, so long as I do my job and keep his huge heart right where it is! Don't I just love that crazy helicopter horse of mine?!?! And, I learned two wonderful things myself yesterday: 1) It wasn't as hard as I thought it might be - in fact, it wasn't even as hard as some of our Training level courses have been. Katchi is listening and I'm staying with him mentally and physically - it's a wonderful thing. 2) It felt absolutely wonderful to be back jumping big fences! The last time I competed at this height was doing my CCN* in 1994 - shit, that's 15 years ago - can I really be that old?!?! It's been a huge goal of mine to get back to that level - the road has been long, with a ton of freakin' potholes, but we're very nearly there and I'm loving it!! And I think Katchi is too!

Atticus licking "snow condition pretreatment" road salt from my trailer - yummy!

Katchi & Atticus enjoying the cross country course grass while waiting for scores and ribbons.

Golightly Goes Jumping

2011-03-20T05:45:00.000-07:00

Dare I say it - spring is here! And what a perfect weekend to go jumping!

I spent all day Saturday at the Marlborough Jumper Derby - and even got a little sunburn on my left cheek! I'm loving that sunburn - but, I know, I know, it's so bad - don't worry, I've pulled my sunscreen out from the back of the closet. Time to get back into the daily sunscreen routine! Isn't it a wonderful thing?!

I had several students riding in the Jumper Derby yesterday - one in each of the 4 groups, which made for a very long day, but also gave me a great excuse to hang out and chat with many friends that I haven't seen since the fall season ended. And it's always a great learning experience to watch so many different horse and rider combinations - many at their first outing - to see how things work and don't work! And there was the return of the devil pony! For those who were reading this blog last fall, you might remember the devil pony at Full Moon Farm's starter horse trials. Okay, it wasn't actually the same little pony that showed up at Marlborough yesterday, but maybe it was his brother or cousin who took over the reign of terror! I was just getting my first student settled in the warm up when the devil pony was let loose - apparently, literally, his child just sort of let him go. And the terror began - back and forth that little pony ran as fast as his 4 little legs could carry him - through the warm up area, back through the crowd - 4 times he raced back and forth leaving a trail of fire behind him! Finally, 3 of us pinned him in the warm up area and Beth Wheeler collected the reins and freed them from his legs - when she returned him to the said small child she so kindly said "now, don't let your pony go again, okay?" - I probably would have sat down and laughed if there weren't so many bolting and spinning horses, riders jumping off in all directions, and general mayhem to keep clear of! Despite growing up watching our miniature horses terrorize everything from police horses to the Budweiser Clydesdales - it still never ceases to amaze me how much "real horses" freak out over tiny terrors!!

But back to the Golightly Gang - what a great day! I was working with a very diversified set of goals for the day - one was there to survive her first outing of this kind ever (and she did so with great success and valuable lessons learned); one was there to beat the demons of 2 years ago when she fell off twice at that horrid fake ditch that apparently has "HORSE EATER" written all over it (and she did - even finishing 4th in the equitation judging of probably 30 or more riders!); and one to raise the bar 5 inches to complete the Novice division (and she did - with just one rail down!). All goals accomplished! If you're local and haven't been to this event before - mark your 2012 calendar now! It is a wonderful day and everyone is so encouraging - and there was even quite a crowd that provided big cheers when horses finally decided to go down the bank or over the mini-tires!

While Katchi sat out the Jumper Derby this year, he had his own big jumping day with Sharon White today at Allan Sport Horses. Katchi really rose to the challenges Sharon set today, and I was really pleased with our ability to work through some issues and make Katchi jump better and better. He only "barfed" once - which definitely gave the spectators their money's worth (free to audit, by the way!). We came around to a vertical, one stride, oxer, 2 long strides, oxer - and barfed all over it - the lesson learned was that Sharon thought Katchi was listening to me so intently through the corner that he didn't even see the jump until we got there. It still amazes me how we can barf all over a triple and leave every pole in the cup - one thing I can never fault Katchi for - no matter what he does, he always takes care of me. Thankfully, Katchi and I both had our eyes on the jump the second time around, and had a great jump through - adding a triple to our show jumping courses for Prelim will be a big test for us!

I often wonder (and worry!) about what I should and shouldn't share about other people on my blog - but this one is just too good not to share, and Sam Allan already suggested she should feature it on her website (I totally think she should!), so... the quote of the month is... I LOVE THAT STICK IN YOUR PANTS! Sharon made a spot-on assessment that one of the horses in our lesson was rushing away from the fences because her rider was making too much of a move over the top of the fence. So, Sharon said - put your whip in your pants and lets see if that will fix you. After much debate over the proper whip to stick down her pants, the very brave Jennifer Clover, started the course with a bat stuck down the front of her pants with the whip end ready to bat her in the nose for bending over too much. AND IT WAS AMAZING - her horse looked almost like a hunter going around the course - maybe we should all ride with a stick in our pants! :)

Katchi's first 2011 horse trial entry went in the mail this week. WOO HOO! Our first event will be Fair Hill April 22-24. I thought it would be really fun to start off the season with one phase a day and lots of time to watch the CIC horses compete - nothing like a little inspiration to start off the season. Hopefully if I watch enough 3* horses before my Training level cross country, I'll be fully inspired for NO TIME PENALTIES!!

Windy Wofford Wednesday

2011-03-09T15:45:00.000-08:00

In January, we had White Winter Wofford Wednesday - today we had Windy Wofford Wednesday! Jimmy returned to Baywood Farms today for our second gymnastics clinic, with a bit of course work. As we prepare for the show season, Jimmy craft-fully combined gymnastics exercises with cantering single fences and lines, always looking to train the horses for better balance and quick responses. Jimmy definitely had his work cut out for him as he polished off our winter rust!

Jimmy demonstrating for "the professor" - Percy spent his 21st pony birthday in his first Jimmy clinic!

I always tell people that every time I ride with Jimmy, he never ceases to teach me something amazing! Today, he once again, saw something that astounded me (HOW DOES HE SEE THESE THINGS!). He noticed that I was looking at my fences, but I was tending to look down the right side of Katchi's neck to the fence, rather than straight through his ears. Jim said that could effect my distance judgment. Wow. Okay, so I've recently noticed an occasional tendency to jump just slightly left of center of my fences - I wonder if that's why (I mean, that, combined with my weak left leg and general crookedness toe to head!). Something new to contemplate!

Overall, I was really pleased with our work today. Katchi was a bit riled up on his home turf in the wind, watching his pasture buddies frolic without him. But, as Jim said - oh too bad! While we had our share of icky fences and Katchi got told he was a "so wrong" a few times - Jim was definitely looking for disciplined accuracy today (I won't say perfection - if there's one thing I've learned from Jim it's not to think I'll be perfect!) and I appreciated the chance to show that we could meet his demands!

Katchi & me getting an earful of Wofford Wisdom

So, here are a few clips of Katchi's very good moments.

(Thanks to Shane & Laura for their photgraphy and videography skills!)

And for one final note and image, THANK YOU so much to Sharon, Sarah Bratton's mom - who gave me the coolest thank you gift. I thought she had given me a beautiful butterfly in a jar, and I was trying to figure what I was supposed to do with this poor trapped creature - when she showed me it's a delicate faux butterfly attached to a tiny wire with a battery that makes it flutter around. I was stunned! It is SO real looking! And the cat - oh the cat - he has a new play toy! Thank You Sharon!!

Rehearsing for Badminton 2030

2011-03-07T16:29:00.000-08:00

Every time I have to compete in the rain, I try to imagine myself, drenched, in top hat and tails with the Badminton House in the distance. Every year, someone gets drenched in pouring rain during Badminton dressage. So I figure every show where I get wet is one more opportunity to practice in case I ever find myself wet at Badminton! I think I've had enough rehearsals now that I might even be ahead of the 2030 timeline - I might be ready for Badminton rain by 2028!!

William Fox-Pitt and Sea Cookie - getting drenched in dressage warm-up - Badminton 2010 (photo from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/)

I had another chance to rehearse for Badminton yesterday.

I am sticking to the plan I made last year after a rough start to the horse trial season - only dressage shows, combined tests, and cross country schooling until our annual Lucinda Green boot camp mid-April. So, Katchi and I (along with students Kerry & Atticus) headed off to the River Bend Pony Club Combined Test at Frying Pan Park yesterday - as a side note I think Katchi has something about giving me a little humility check before this show each year. Last year, he gave me a black eye (and I'm pretty convinced he fractured my cheek bone) the day before the show - and went on to win his division. This year, two days before, he just about dumped me on account of a very frightening bird 40 feet away - I somehow managed to get myself back into the saddle but not without taking all my PT progress and throwing it straight out the window. Ass.

But Katchi remains undefeated at RBPC combined test, bringing home the blue ribbon again this year! I couldn't have been more proud of my boy! He closed his eyes and charged through the rain straight to a 21.8 dressage score - WOW WOW! He got a 9 for both his center lines! I'm pretty sure I've never ever gotten a 9 on anything before! Okay, I get it, schooling combined test - scores generous. But this judge was not afraid to score in the high 50's either, so it wasn't like everyone was getting low 20's! At the end of my test, she even got out of the "judge's car" to stand in the rain and tell me how lovely it was! That's just gotta put a smile on your face!

But, we weren't there for dresssage. We were there for show jumping. Despite the rain, emerging lakes in the warm-up, very small warm-up area with too many horses (and seriously, coaches, can you teach your kids to learn how to judge where horses are going in the warm-up and where they should go to get out of other's way when they're just walking or STANDING!) - anyhow, warm-up was quick and incomplete. So, I decided to look at our round as just part of a jumping lesson - you've gotta jump an oxer and canter a related distance line at some point in your lesson - just so happened mine were on a judged course.

So, see for yourself - are we getting better?! Here's a clip from the middle of the course (we spent a lot of time going around the ring for the first and last jumps, so I cut those out).

I'm pretty sure the rail he knocked hadn't been dropped after prelim - it looked huge! But, that's okay, it was sort of an unlucky rub anyhow. And my boy jumped great! Still lots to keep working on, but no one laughed at the end of this round! :)

As the rain got heavier and heavier, it was time for Kerry & Atticus to make their rehearsal for Badminton 2040 (Kerry is new to eventing, so I've got a few more years of rehearsal on her!). It's funny how as we get better, we get more frustrated. While I was there for SJ, Kerry was there for Dressage (or so we thought!). Kerry had an enormously improved dressage test from her last go in November - but now that she's actually able to survive in the ring, she doesn't want to just survive - she wants to execute with perfection! It's a wonderful thing! And with a score in the low 30's, she's definitely on the right track!

Now completely drenched, Kerry was off to show jumping - her easy phase. Which went fabulously, until the purple cow print roll top (second to last fence!). Atticus said, "oh hell no!" and then he said it again "you didn't hear me the first time, crazy lady!" But one good smack from her bat (probably his first ever!) and Atticus got over his fear of purple cows. It was a disappointing result on the scoreboard, but that's why we take baby horses to these things - it's all about mileage and at the end of the day, Atticus learned a good lesson and Kerry too. And she still came home with a 2nd place ribbon for dressage and 3rd for the combined test - it definitely could have been worse!!

It's gymnastics with Jimmy at Baywood Farms on Wednesday - so watch for videos from that later this week! If you're planning to audit - we're starting at 8AM. Hope to see you there!

Big Girl Dreams

2011-02-26T17:07:00.000-08:00

It's interesting how dreams change. Some dreams become long term goals, and then short term goals, and reality, and the present, and past. Others you grow out of - and sometimes that's okay! Katchi's glad I gave up the astronaut dream. But still other dreams get pushed to the side by the immediacy of life - of traffic, school, a job, a mortgage - how easily we lose sight of our dreams!

A couple of weeks ago, while I was teaching lessons at Equidistance - my good friend Laura made a surprise appearance to audit and deliver my Christmas gift! The gift was a book - a big fat coffee table book of dreams come true - in horse barns and farms! I cannot begin to describe in words the beauty of these farms - they are nothing less than stunning! The horses must look out in awe and wonder at their good fortune!

Stables: Beautiful Paddocks, Horse Barns, and Tack Rooms
Kathryn Masson (author) & Paul Rocheleau (Photographer)

I have a file that I throw clippings of ideas for barn design or set-up into - I love discovering new clever ideas to make the horses happier or the stable chores easier - or the barn more beautiful! And someday, I dream of pulling out that file of clippings and making them into a reality. And now, thanks to Laura, I have a big book that I'm tabbing full of post-it notes so that one day it may be my bible as I put the finishing touches on my very own dream farm! I may not have $20 million to spend on it, but I have dreams and you've gotta start someplace!

At the bottom of the gift card, Laura wrote "Believe in your Dreams." Simple advice, yet one too many of us forget too often. Thank you for reminding me, Laura!

Golightly Into Spring

2011-02-24T17:02:00.000-08:00

I don't love February. The weather sucks, the eventing world has gone south, frostbite schooling shows, shoveling snow may get you fit but it hurts – and Katchi isn't the best gift giver on Valentine’s Day – basically, February kinda sucks.

But not this February!

This year it’s been so warm I’ve managed quite a few of my early morning rides outside, on soft ground, watching the sunrise cast a golden glow over the arena and Katchi. It’s been absolutely breathtaking. And I’ve snuck in a couple of show jumping lessons – with Jim Wofford and Sharon White. What luck!

Katchi even found some spring grass this February!

But the main reason I love February 2011 is the Golightly gang! Last Sunday, I had a small gathering of students and friends over for a “40 days until spring” party. And what fun we had! While the wine, cupcakes and cake were definitely a highlight of the evening – the videos were priceless! I spend a lot of time videoing my students, but we rarely have the chance to sit down together and critique the good, the bad, and the ugly of their rides. So, everyone brought a short video from this past year for us to watch and learn from – the game quickly took on a theme – the not so fabulous to much more fabulous! We watched falls and refusals and unintended ziggity-zaggety approaches to jumps – we cringed and laughed at ourselves! And for redemption – each not so fabulous video was followed by a much more fabulous video! It was absolutely fantastic to see how much improvement had happened in such a short amount of time! Most of us don't spend our weekend evenings watching old horrible videos of ourselves - we like to watch the good ones! So, it's easy to overlook just how far we've come. I think our little cinema premier was a huge confidence boost to everyone and a tremendous energizer to get back out there and keep working – because things really are going in the right direction!

It was also so helpful to talk through the videos with everyone – to see when they made good rider decisions, even with me stuck on the sidelines not able to tell them what to do! To see when they forgot my instructions and what happened as a result. And to learn some new things too - using Katchi’s helmet cam from last fall – I showed everyone how to place your horse on a line so that you can avoid the mucky ground that the 100 horses before you tore into a 2 foot wide mud path right at the middle of the 12 foot face of the jump. It’s like riders are stuck on a conveyor belt in a trance… MUST GO EXACTLY WHERE THE ENTIRE HERD OF RUNNING SHEEP BEFORE ME WENT… Why not steer 2 feet over and give your horse solid ground and good footing to take off from so he doesn’t have to work so hard, get sucked in the mud, and risk a shoe or injury – there is no rule in eventing that you have to jump the 12 foot wide face of a galloping fence right at the 6 foot midpoint mark – but there is a rule (at least I have a rule!) that you owe it to your horse to make things as easy as possible for him and keep him safe. Find the good ground!

I had hoped to spend some of the evening also talking about spring goals and plans, but blame it on the aforementioned wine, cupcakes, and cake (and all the other good eats!), we got sucked into the riot of the videos and never got to goals! But I think the night must have inspired everyone else as much as it did me, based on the flurry of emails I’ve gotten since then asking me about spring goals and plans.

So keep any eye on the calendar on my website to see where the Golightly gang will be next - SPRING IS COMING!