New Horse - Press Release.

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

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

Ti jumping his way into the ribbons again.

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

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

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

www.equiery.com/sporting/eventing/

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

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

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