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Sunday, September 26, 2010

Horses, horsepower and more horses!


Rege Dvorsky, Car and Steve Park, NASCAR driver.

Steve Park and I.

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






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






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

Wednesday, September 15, 2010


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


Brisbane to Melbourne via road - 22 hours

Melbourne to LA via air - 15 hours

LA to Georgia via road - 42 hours

Georgia to Pennsylvania via road - 14 hours

Pennsylvania to Maryland via road - 2 hours


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