A Perpetual Trophy & A Pirate Ship

A Perpetual Trophy

Perpetual trophies are an interesting thing. You see them on display in award cabinets and at big headquarters - the names and years etched on them are testament to the history of sport and passion. But, I have to admit, I didn't appreciate how special it would feel to be entrusted with one for a year, to place my name next to 30 years of special names, and now to return it so it may be shared with yet another rider. I also didn't appreciate the logistical nightmare of keeping track of perpetual trophies until I read the recent article in the Chronicle of the Horse (which I can't find the link to because I seem to never be able to find articles online that I read in print!) - awarding, tracking, retrieving, polishing, awarding again... every year. It's no small order! So, this weekend, I will return the MCTA perpetual trophy that displayed proudly in my house for the past year - for Katchi's 27.3 dressage score last May. Returning the trophy comes with a twinge of defeat as I have no hope of winning it again in 2012. While Katchi is coming back into full work, he won't be ready to compete in time for this year's MCTA horse trials, one of my favorites! So, I'll just have to say good luck to everyone, and I hope the winner this year enjoys the history of this award as much as I have.

MCTA Perpetual Trophy for Dressage Proficiency
In Memory of John Thomas Barthel (Donor and Sculptress F. Leigh Aldrick, her daughter)
1982 - Peter Green
1983 - Peter Green
1984 - Holly Mitten
1985 - Barbara Foose
1986 - Holly Mitten
1987 - Chris Wadman
1988 - Chris Wadman
1989 - Linda Dean
1990 - Lisa Evans
1991 - Debbie Bearsch
1991 - Jean Prescott
1992 - Tiffany Hill
1993 - Gayle Molander
1994 - Patricia Smith
1995 - Gayle Molander
1996 - Phillip Dutton
1997 - Jessica Heard & Steuart Pittman
1998 - Barbara Foose
1999 - Sherlock Gillet
2000 - Lisa Reid
2001 - Michael Hillman
2002 - Alison Haase
2003 -Elizabeth Ricklefs
2004 - Catherine Frederick
2005 - Jamie Striley
2006 - Jamie Striley
2007 - Jamie Furtado
2008 - Elizabeth Green
2010 - Lauren Drenning
2011 - Cherie Chauvin

To everyone who was with me when I picked up this award, who might have feared that I went ahead with the plan to place a large stall plate with my name across the entire blank area of the award - I behaved and opted for the traditional matching name plate. But if I ever win this thing again...!

A Pirate Ship

I've often had the conversation with friends and students... how can it be that we walk our horses' fields regularly checking for trash, broken boards, sharp edges; we time their gallops perfectly and moderate their speed exactly; we practically house them in padded cells; if we could bubble wrap them, we would. Yet they still find something (never discovered) to cut their frog in half, all the way to the bone. They come in from the field 3 legged lame after taunting their friends all afternoon (their friends are fine, by the way). They go into the padded stall healthy and come out with a knot on their face which requires $1,000 of head x-rays to determine they have not actually cracked their skull in half. And yet, you have the horse down the road that lives with a pirate ship (and various other brightly painted playground treasures) that is probably the soundest, most uninjured, sanest horse in the world. How? Can I have one of those please (the sound sane horse, not the pirate ship).

I have several lessons I teach which take me past this horse regularly. And I always look at him in wonder. Why do I have a horse that needs a padded cell? Seeing this horse today was especially traumatizing, so I stopped to take a few pictures. For today was the day I TRIED to let Katchi quietly back into his big SAFE field, all booted up, all drugged up - exhausted from JUMPING (yeah! Katchi's second day back to jumping!)... but, apparently I under-did the Ace significantly. CAN YOU IMAGINE IF I RELEASED HIM WITH A PIRATE SHIP? He'd be in the pirate ship. Tap dancing on the deck. Until he fell through. And wouldn't that be fun. Next time I try to put Katchi in the field, I think I'll Ace myself too.

XC, Dressage, and XC in Dressage!

Spring is here (but where is the rain???) and it has been a busy week with lots to report - but I'll save the best news for last, so keep on reading...

Last Tuesday, I headed out to Morven Park with a whole gang of riders to knock off some winter dust - the horses definitely reminded us how important it is to take a spin around XC before hitting the first shows of the season - amazing how everything looks a little bigger and scarier after 5 months of riding in the ring!

Friday was my big debut as a "course designer" ... sort of! Over the winter, I joined the board of the Marlborough Horse Trials (I may or may not have been conned into this over a free beer after a long day or riding and teaching!) and as such, I somehow ended up the "responsible party" for the April 7 Jumper Derby course. It actually was a lot of fun, but more work than I expected! Thankfully Diane, and several others from the Board and MHT volunteers, were on hand to help with all the details - I couldn't have done it without them and the TRACTOR! Key lesson learned - moving cross country jumps definitely requires a tractor! So, 5 hours later, Diane and I declared the course ready (see picture above)... and I raced back to the barn to polish up Katchi into a dressage horse.

Saturday morning, Kerry and I were off to play dressage queens at the VADA/NoVA dressage show at Morven Park. Now, recall that Katchi hasn't been properly turned out since January. I haven't had a dressage lesson since early December. And since January, Katchi and I have been walking and walking and walking - with only about 10-15 minutes of trot and canter each day. And there I was, warming up for Second Level Test 1 ... walking and walking and walking. And wouldn't you know it, Katchi pulled off a 60.571 on Saturday!!!! I couldn't have been more thrilled with him! We made a big mistake in the first counter canter, and 3 smaller mistakes - yet still just squeaked into the 60's. Not too shabby for an OTTB. Makes me very excited for what we will do later in the year when we actually have the right preparation!

Unfortunately, late Saturday afternoon, walking Katchi around to eat grass, we ventured a bit too close to the cross country field. And that was it. He saw those jumps. And apparently he hadn't forgotten about them on Sunday morning. When I didn't take Katchi to those jumps, he decided to bring XC to the dressage show. So, there we were, all fancy and polished, standing at the top of the hill overlooking 5 dressage rings, with Katchi threatening to do his best impression of the Lone Ranger's Silver - just what you want to see in the distance of a dressage show - a horse standing on his back legs pawing the air! Luckily, I kept his enthusiasm just in check and we made it down the hill without becoming a full spectacle. He settled down a bit after walking in the warm-up ring for an hour!!!!! And then it was into the ring... with turbo power enthusiasm. Katchi earned a 6 on his first Medium Trot (uuummm, wow! I don't think he's ever gotten above a 5 on a trot lengthening... he was covering some serious ground!). Unfortunatley, his enthusiasm got the best of him in the canter-walk-canter transitions when Katchi channelled his inner Easter Bunny and started bunny hopping across the ring. Fun. And the judge said 3. And the test said coefficient of 2. Ugh. Score sucked. Totally embarrassing. But, really, all things considered, it could have been a whole lot worse! And he pulled out quite a few 6's and even a 7 mixed in with those 3's, so it wasn't all bad!

Meanwhile, Kerry and Atticus had quite a fabulous weekend finishing out their last Training Level tests and endeavoring to take on First Level - coming home with 3 ribbons and some great scores! It was a great set-up for their Training level eventing debut at Fair Hill in just one week!

And now for the best news of the week... Katchi returned to Dr. Allen's on Wednesday for a re-check and Dr. Allen told Katchi to update his facebook status to "sound"!!!! We got permission to progress to more work, including jumping and increasing fitness work. Yeah! It's still a long road until we hit our first horse trial for 2012, but this was a huge step in the right direction! Fingers crossed that he takes well to increased work... we go back in 30 days for another re-check and hopefully approval to RUN KATCHI RUN!

Cavalor Champagne & Chocolates in California!

Sometimes "real" work gets in the way of horses. Other times, the unexpected happens and they blend wonderfully! Last week, bitter and disgruntled, I boarded a plane to California for a 4-day business trip. When I left my job with the Department of Defense (with lots of travel to some great places!), I just wanted to stay home. I miss the cat. I miss the horse. I miss training, practicing, and teaching. I miss home. This being only my second business trip in almost 4 years, I guess I really can't complain, but ugh, I didn't want to go.

And so when I finished up with work mid-afternoon on Friday, I collected my mom from the hotel (she'd come up from San Diego to enjoy a free resort hotel stay!) - did we head to the beach? to the mall? out on a boat to see dolphins? NOPE! We hit the nearest horse show we could find!! Unfortunately, Galway Downs CIC was just a bit too far away, so we settled on a dressage show. Which turned out to be quite a dressage show... and hunter show... and jumper show... and SHOPPING!

We arrived just a few minutes late to catch the Dressage Olympic Trials, but we got to see the awards ceremony - Steffen Peters, Jan Ebling, and Guenter Siedel - and lets just say those horses were acting more like crazy event horses than dressage horses, so that was fun to watch!

Steffen & Legolas accept the award for winning the first day of the Olympic Trials class.

And then we stumbled upon even more fun - Cavalor Champagne and Chocolates - and a free sample feed bag for Katchi. It just so happened to be his 11th birthday on Friday, so I enjoyed a glass of champagne in his honor! My mom enjoyed the chocolates - imported from Belgium. And I snagged a mini-bag of grain for the birthday boy! Thank you Cavalor - we love you!!!

There must have been at least 7 show rings and shopping that almost rivaled Rolex - what a perfect warm-up for the end of April!! Although the weather was less than California lovely, the grass was green and the mountains beautiful - and the horses stunning! Not a bad business trip after all!

We enjoyed our quick trip to the show on Friday afternoon so much that I made my poor mother get up at the crack of dawn so that we could go back for a few more hours Saturday morning before I had to catch my flight back to the East Coast. If for no other reason, it was worth it to meet this little pink snorting creature in sparkles who belonged to one of the vendors! And, oh by the way, that pink sweater... it has a skull embroidered on the back. Wow.

As a side note, on Saturday morning - March 31 - one day before the new USEF helmet rule went into place on April 1 for all hunter/jumper shows... I was pretty stunned to see so many folks schooling horses without helmets on. Long blond pony tails flapping in the wind above immaculately groomed horses in the schooling rings - it just looked weird. I do wonder how it all went down on April 1. Was there a fuss? Did everyone know about the new rule? Was Saturday a final hurrah to no helmets?!

Anyhow, I'm back home now and the horses are in full swing this week! Tomorrow, I've got 7 riders schooling XC at Morven Park. Friday, I was "voluntold" to design and set the course for the Marlborough Horse Trials 2nd and final Jumper Derby for 2012 on Saturday April 7 - are you going??? And on Saturday and Sunday - Katchi and I are headed to Morven Park for the VADA/NOVA dressage show. I entered with Dr. Allen's blessing, so long as Katchi keeps looking good - and by the way he was bucking and bolting on the lunge today, I'd say he's doing good. Unfortunately, we're still limited to about 15 minutes of trot/canter, and a dressage test is about 5 minutes. So, that leaves 8 minutes for warm-up, 2 minutes outside the ring, and 5 minutes in the test. And I haven't had a lesson since December. Oh yea, and I couldn't bring myself to enter a lower level, so Katchi is making his second attempt at Second Level (after a very successful debut last June!). Perhaps I didn't fully think through this plan when I sent in the entries! If you're in the neighborhood, here are out ride times (Katchi and I will be the ones WALKING AND WALKING AND WALKING in the warm-up ring with all those dressage horses cantering circles around us!):

Saturday 11:37 (Indoor ring) - Second Level 1

Sunday 10:06 (Davis ring) - Second Level 2

Kerry will also be making her First Level debut with Atticus - so wish us both luck this weekend!

Jumpin' Irish Style - Marlborough Jumper Derby!

A full house and lots of sun at the Marlborough Jumper Derby!

Yeah! It's spring and event season is gearing up! With the first big day of the season successfully under our belts, I am reminded of three eternal truths of competing horses:
1) double your time estimate for anything that involves a horse. If it should reasonably take 2 hours to pack the trailer, clean tack, bathe the horse... it will be 4 hours. Or more.
2) There is never free time at a show. Ever. Seriously, why do I pack 2 COTHs, the USEA Magazine, and a book for every show - every time, I convince myself that this time it's going to be an easy day with lots of time to relax and get caught up on my reading. No.
3) So much for that picnic. All your packed food will always be just beyond your reach. All. Day. Long.

That being said, the first event of the season is always so much fun! Packed with old friends and new horses, and talks of goals and plans to put all that winter hard work to the test! All the wonder and promise of the coming year - packed into one fun filled day to kick it all off!

And as LUCK would have it, yesterday's first big event day for the Golightly gang also happened to fall on St. Patrick's day! And so we went jumping Irish style at the Marlborough Jumper Derby at Rosaryville Park, Upper Marlboro.

I think, at last count, I ended up coaching 7 students yesterday (although it's entirely possible I lost count!) - they kept me busy, but I was absolutely thrilled to see everyone out and about, enjoying the sun, and having very good days with their ponies!

The day started with the 12"-18" class with 3 from the Golightly gang making their Jumper Derby debuts - Sky, Jessica & Erica. Sky bravely piloted Judge (who is a TB retired police horse!) as the lead horse on course - without the benefit of seeing how things worked for others, 12 year-old Sky was the day's trailblazer and showed us all that it could be done!
And now for an update on a cunning plan... remember the "hunter rider" that I mentioned who did quite a feat of acrobatics during the Jim Wofford clinic? Well, my cunning plan to convert her to eventing may be taking hold! I convinced her to go on a little foray into cross country schooling land last weekend, and she had so much fun - I next dangled a carrot of an idea that she might want to check out the jumper derby too. So Jessica, along with her sister Erica, and their two OTTBs took the Derby by storm and brought all their St. Patty's day luck! When they called me to ask if it was okay if their horses wore their St. Patty's day hats - I said YES! This ain't no hunter show!! And, oh, check out those hats - which both horses wore around the ENTIRE jumper derby course too!!! Honestly, I really think those horses love those hats!



And that big hat really brought Percy some good luck - in his debut as an "eventer" - he won the class!!! Not only did Jessica have a big smile (after she started breathing again!) over her success in dominating hills and logs - she came home with a blue ribbon too. And what hunter rider doesn't love prizes?! Yep, that girl is coming to the dark side (she says with a glimmer in her eye!).



Debi, Jenna, and Fran also had great days - with Fran successfully subduing the monster pony and bravely jumping all those horse eating jumps; Jenna had another great day on her brand new horse; and Debi turning in a stellar performance, catching the judge's eye to earn a 2nd place ribbon in the huge class of 2'-2'3" jumpers (no joke, there must have been well over 30 entries - I know because the ring was never empty and it took over 2 hours to get through all the rides). And did I mention how my food was just out of reach all day long? All day long.

Patrick (it was HIS day!), Debi & Roxanne, me and Kerry

Kerry also made the Golightly team proud, taking home a yellow ribbon in the 3' class. But, I protested her entry and refused to coach her. I tried to tell her the jumps would be too easy and she'd wait for hours for her division to start. Yet, she had to be stubborn and entered anyhow. So, her round was my favorite of the day. I sat back, enjoyed a beer - ATE MY FOOD - and had a good laugh as she asked again and again, "how much longer until the 3' division will start?" And I couldn't have been more proud of her for jumping that round and winning that ribbon - all on her own. Cheers, Kerry!

And what St. Patrick's day post would be complete without a picture of my cat in a holiday hat?! THANK YOU SO MUCH to Erica & Monty for kindly donating Monty's little leprechaun hat to my cause. The cat loves it almost as much as I do! But not as much as Monty did!

Video Break: Jim Wofford!

Thanks again to everyone who came out on Tuesday to ride, watch, and be jump crew for Jim Wofford. Several of you have asked what Katchi was up to during the clinic - Katchi did his walking before the clinic started, and he got to say hi to everyone as the first group was piling in. He really enjoyed all the activity and extra treats, but I didn't let him see the gymnastics set-up. I knew he'd cry.

I was running around too much during the first group to get any video clips, but I was able to get quite a lot of the second group - which we called Preliminary, but included a hodge podge of super talented horses and riders from Training to Advanced. Jimmy really brought his A game with this group - and the horses ate it up!

I managed a few video clips of the final group too - Novice/Training - clips are of Jenna (on a horse she has on trial, which from the looks of it, is going to be her horse very soon!) and the final clip shows Kathy (on Tippy who came out of a kill pen several years ago.

Also, a comment on my last post requested a description of the "ol' whip under the chin routine" - basically, if a rider is jumping 4'6" or 2'6" (folding their upper body over way too much and throwing themselves at the jump), Jim will often have the rider put both reins in one hand. They will hold their bat in the other hand, about in the middle of the bat. And place the handle of the bat just under their chin. And then jump the jumps! It makes quite a remarkable and immediate change in the amount the rider moves their upper body - they stay much taller and still. It's sort of hard to throw your upper body onto your horse's neck when you have a bat stuck to your chin. Make sense?

We Love Jimmy!

Yay for Jimmy! We love Jimmy! We want more!

Thank you so much to Jim Wofford and to everyone who came out to play today - what a fantastic time we had!!! Jim is always so wonderful, but today especially, he did not disappoint. He had the whole arena laughing over and over again - and oh did he have the horses on their toes! Starting with just a pole on the ground, Jim would say to rider after rider "oh, stick around"... and sure enough, the transformation in the horses was fantastic.





The first group - gymnastics beginners - gave Jim a full range of horses to mold into perfection. The crazy one. The lazy one. The 'I so scared' one. And the two - who said, bring it on, Mr. Wofford. Jim explained that from America to New Zealand and back to Ireland - 9 feet is 2 steps. Not one step. Not four steps. 2 steps. And achieving a proper two steps is critical to set you up for success through everything else.






Jim claimed to be channelling Linda Zang when he started the exercises with one goal: forward. He'd compress them later, but first the horses must learn to be in front of the leg.

Quite a few folks were subjected to Jim's tricks of the trade - the ol' bicycle grip and the bat under the chin. Those of us who have, ourselves, been subjected to these had a good chuckle at the looks of horror as they exclaimed in disbelief, "you want me to jump like this?!" - and we loved when the horses miraculously changed for the better - we knew it would happen, but that didn't make it any less miraculous!





I especially enjoyed listening to Jim speak about some differences between teaching eventers versus hunters, which I haven't heard him explain before. For one, Jim said an eventer can never be punished for punching forward and leaving long at a fence. Eventers must learn that no matter how they get to a fence, they must jump. Their life may depend on it some day. Whereas hunters must be told, oh no, no, you do not punch out in that last step because everything for them is about not ever disturbing that perfect approach.

If you want to know what a "low-wide oxer" is to Jim Wofford - this is it. The Prelim group got up to 4'6" wide, and maybe 10" high. The Novice/Training group got up to about 3'6" wide. One of my favorite moments in the clinic was when there was a little mis-communication with the jump crew and they began to set the "low-wide oxer" at 3'6" high. It was about 3' wide at the time, and just 18' (one stride) from a small bounce. As the jump crew was working behind Jim to set the oxer to 3'6" high, Jim was having a talk with the riders (who were watching the oxer go up to what seemed an incredible height so close to the tiny bounce). When Jim turned around and saw the mistake, he realized while all 6 riders had turned white as ghosts while he was talking! Oh the relief when he said, "no no - 10" high, 3'6" wide!" I thought a couple riders might just pass out right there, overcome by relief!

"Low-Wide"

While every rider was a super star today, I have to say that I was extra proud of my students who rode today - Kerry, Debi, Holly, and Jenna. As an instructor, it's fantastic to see these guys work hard, improve, and get to have FUN in clinics like this. It's also a tremendous learning opportunity for me to get feedback from a keen eye like Jimmy - are we on track? are we working on the right things? have we assessed the horse/rider right? where do we go from here? I read something a while ago by, I think, Courtney King-Dye, who said Lendon Gray didn't have her teach the younger more inexperienced riders. Nope! She had to teach the riders who were older and better and more experienced! JEEZE - what a concept! Learn to teach by teaching someone who actually knows if you're right or wrong! For me, watching my students ride with a master like Jimmy is a little bit of that kind of teaching practice.

But the hero of the day goes to my Baywood friend and hunter rider, Jessica. I wouldn't want to embarrass her by telling the whole sequence of events, but lets just say that it ended with THE Jim Wofford exclaiming that she could give many of his event riders a real lesson in stickability! No matter what Jessica ever does or doesn't do for the rest of her life, the girl has got some serious street cred with me for surviving over not one, not two, but three oxers while things were going horribly wrong! Now... to begin making my plots to convert her to eventing!!

I took quite a bit of video, but it's going to take me a couple of days to get everything edited and posted - check back soon!

Thank you so much to Sharon Boyle who took almost all the awesome photos in this post! Check out more of them at the Baywood Facebook page!

March 6 Jim Wofford Clinic Ride Times

It's finally time for Jimmy! On Tuesday, March 6, I'm again hosting Jim Wofford for a gymnastics clinic at Baywood Farms in Harwood, MD. All riding spots are filled (and have been for months!), but auditors are welcome ($20 fee). We will be riding in the indoor arena, and plenty of coffee and bagels will be available to keep everyone warm on (hopefully!) our last chilly winter morning! Start times may be adjusted slightly as horses tire early or need more work - but things should pretty much run like this:

8:00 Beginners

9:30 Preliminary

11:00 Novice/Training

Directions to Baywood are available on their website.

Unfortunately, Katchi hasn't received the "all clear" from Dr. Allen to start jumping again yet - it will likely be another month of flat work. So, I've sadly given up my riding spot and will be chief of jump crew this year - I hope we have plenty of auditors to help me with this job!

Check back here for videos after the clinic! See y'all on Tuesday!