Finishing the year as we started, in the winners circle!

Myself, Alex and Lisa in front of the novice 'brush of death', where despite her misgivings, Lisa survived. The boots are part of the team uniform.....

Rubicon Farm Horse Trials in VA was the venue for our last event of year and it was a great way to finish the year. My only ride, Queen of Pheoba, scored a winning 24 in the dressage finishing on that. She's a super mare and I hope that next year brings more success and ribbons for her. Alex MacLeod walked away win another win on the Ryan Wood trained, Railroad Man Jim. Actually walked away is an understatement, she ran away with the blue by 9.5 points. After posting a convincing lead after the dressage, 23, she added only xc time faults to her final score.

Lisa Kurr and Amy Gaynor also had successful starts with Lisa finishing a very close third on Cannyonleigh Sirecho and Amy coming from behind to finish 6th on her own Cindy Lou Who. Lisa did a fantastic job with Rocco, piloting him around for two double clears. Amy and Cindy looked like cross country pro's and are well and truly ready for the next level.

So that's eventing finished for the year and I'm already missing it!

All I have left is dressage with Mario and Cole then I'm heading to Raleigh, NC, for some showjumping in what will hopefully be warmer weather!

Halloween Weekend

Halloween is a great time to dress up and be creative, which is what some of the more ambitious competitors at Loch Moy did. For Amanda Cross the fear they generated had more to do with Atlantis' perception of the Bumble Bee eating the grey horse it was sitting on than theoretical Zombies knocking on the door at midnight! That hurdle passed tho, she competed with great style (including the unscheduled gymnastics to begin the showjumping) finishing second. This event did include a first for me, I'd never heard a starter start a horse with 'Hi Ho Silver and AWAY'! I think this should be the norm... Gibby Booth entered the dressage with a great looking Laney completing the trot work in great fashion and even a seamless transition to canter. Unfortunately the transitions were too early and the penalties cost her dearly. Her cross country was great considering it's their first competition in a while. Kirsten Chicca and Cadet did very well winning after the dressage and show jumping, unfortunately Cadet stopped at one fence cross country, so she has something to work on there.

Beth Sokohl headed to the prestigious Area II championships this weekend on Bucky. After a sizzling cross country round and in a tough division they finished 7th overall. A great job and a good indication they may move up soon.

Next weekend is our last event of the year at Rubicon then it's dressage and show jumping for the rest of the year.

Alex and Jimmie win Waredaca!

After retiring Arrow Alex MacLeod has kept up her incredibly successful with a win on her new horse Railroad Man Jim. As she has been doing all year she beat the professionals in an open division with a clear sj and a couple of time faults xc. Darcy Swain has also kept up her winning form taking home a blue ribbon at the BLM dressage championships.

While these guys were competing I had the pleasure of taking the weekend off to attend the wedding of my good friend, and fellow rider, Dom Schramm. His new wife, Jimmie Holotik, is also a rider and their wedding made a fair dent on the entries at Waredaca Horse Trials with Boyd Martin, Ryan Wood, Jennie Brannigan and myself prefering the wedding festivities to cantering around a field in Laytonsville! Also attending was Nicholas Fyffe who is currently living in Germany. Boyd, Nick, Ryan, Dom and myself spent years competing and training together in Australia and it's been a while since we've all been in the same place at the same time so we took the opportunity to have some down time and a couple of quiet beers.

Next up is for my horses is Rubicon although I do have some students going to VA HT next week.

Another winning weekend!

This weekends winner was Darcy Swain with her wonderful coloured WB, Mozely. Finishing on her dressage score of 26 she convincingly won her class. The only person who could get close to her was Amy Gaynor and Cindy Lou Who with a 30 in the dressage. Clear xc and looking very careful show jumping, a minor pilot error (bypassing fence number 6) kept her out of the placings. However it's great to see Amys hard work paying off with Cindy, she's certainly been patient waiting for her success.

No competitions for me last weekend, I spent the time teaching and planning our winter move. Please express your interest to compete and train in Aiken, SC to Amy by email, amygaynor1@comcast.net.

WEGs and Loch Moy.

World Equestrian Games! The biggest sporting event in the USA in 2010. And what an event it was! I only made it out for cross country day on the Saturday, driving overnight Friday to get there. Well worth the event to watch Boyd, Jock and Paul go around. I honestly think the Boyd and Jock rode the best rounds of the entire day, but I may be biased...... They other round I loved was Peter Atkins riding for Australia. What a great story, called up at the last minute to represent his country when Jester fell sick on the flight from Australia. Obviously the dressage is a work in progress but his cross country was inspirational to say the least!

This weekend I had Loch Moy Horse Trials in MD with Cole in the Intermediate, Ti and Phoebe in the training. All were great in the cross country but need work in the dressage. And with only one event left, dressage is what we'll be practising for the rest of the year. We are also going to be doing a fair amount of show jumping, competing in some of the shows in NC. This is exciting as it means Mario is back jumping and almost ready to start show jumping.

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!

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!