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.....

Wellington Training!

There are several ways to do fitness work, I generally choose to do one or two horses at a time, polo players are a little more time efficient, twelve at once!

Wellington, FL is the playground of the rich, famous and elite, horsey and otherwise. To play here you need to be famous to get in, elite to be competitive and rich to afford it! OR you can have a couple of good horses and a couple of good trainers that welcome you in and enthusiastically help horse and rider to become better riders. This week I have taken Mario and Cole, with thanks to their owners, to Wellington to improve our dressage and show jumping. For the show jumping I'm working with grand prix rider (recently turned eventer) Marilyn Little-Meredith, whom I also work with back in MD. With Mario we're working on improving his slight left drift and his rideability between fences. Cole is a different kettle of fish and requires and obviously requires a different ride. He's careful but not to the same point as Mario. Australian dressage rider Nicholas Fyffe is helping me on the flat. I know Nicholas from Australia where he also helped me and he's reminding me of small habits I've allowed to slip since moving to America. For example we've been working on my seat and the effectiveness of aids. He has also been focusing on making a more established half halt and having my horses quicker on my aids. I have one more day here and then I'm really looking forward to getting back to Aiken to focus up on the horses I have left there, particularly Lola, Ti and Charmer, all of who are competing at Sporting Days and Full Gallop. Cole is my only starter this weekend at Pine Top and I look forward to bringing you my results after the training we have been receiving. Mario will next compete at the March Madness in Aiken, SC.

I know it's only a tiny jump but check out his back end!! That's the athleticism that makes me happy to canter into 1.50 metre fences! Students: ignore both my pink jumper and my position, I don't know what I was thinking....

The eventing season is starting to really kick into gear with most of top horses and riders out competing at Pine Top this weekend. Cole was 8th in the intermediate, and I have to say there were three mistakes in the three phases and they were all mine. He tried very had and his dressage is definitely improving. This concluded a very 14 days that included 5 events! Next I'm heading to Florida with Mario and Cole for showjumping and dressage lessons. Then it's back to Pine Top, Sporting Days, Full Gallop, Southern Pines I and II, Atlanta for some SJ, Morven Park, the Fork then home! In between all that my weekly visits back to MD.

As a side note, check page number 40 in http://www.theaikenhorse.com/. Another cover page!

Sporting Days was how eventing should be; rain, mud and good courses! I had two horses entered who both did quite well in the dressage, Ti being the best of the two scoring a 31.8. He finished on that score to come second and start his eventing year off to a solid start. This is a horse that I rate quite highly and am lucky to have the ride to see just where he'll go. He did place in a couple of show jumping classes early in January so it's good to see his dressage showing the type of work I've always known he is capable of. When I say it was wet, I mean the dressage was done by battling thru 30cms of mud! I didn't run Lola cross country as I have a bit of work to do on her jumping and as she's a very nice horse, equally talented as Ti, Mario and Cole, I don't want to hurry her. I already made the mistake of starting her last week when I knew she wasn't ready, so I won't be in a hurry to do that again.
In a side note, I'm not sure what it says about Australians, but of the four competing at the event we pretty well had each class covered as far as prizes go! Not exactly sure how all that galloping around on the rock hard ground of Goondiwindi and Albury helped, but I guess it must have!

The eventing year begins!

Tate Shaw with Mr Mc Cuan's Mario enjoying the sunshine!

What a great start to the year at Pine Top I this weekend! We had great weather (75 and sunshine), great courses and great horses. This weekend was for Mario, Cole and Beth Sohkohl's Charmer. Charmer and Cole did well in the dressage but Mario wasn't on his best form, suddenly finding the dressage ring to be a little lonely and neighing throughout the entire test! The judges comments were along the lines of 'lacking focus' and 'a little unsettled' today! He was still good enough to be in 4th place, but I was disappointed given his work was far better outside the ring. He did redeem himself cross country however by giving me the best ride of the three, which was a surprise to me as Charmer and Cole are typically xc machines. They were both good but I think a little insulted by the small size of the jumps. While neither of them took it seriously at least Charmer was polite and pretended to be interested. Cole was downright rude and explained to me that I was wasting his time. They will be back there in two weeks in the prelim and intermediate so I hope that makes them happier! It defiantly was great to be back out galloping between those red and white flags, I think there shouldn't be any break over the holidays for eventing!

Lola, Ti and Key start they year at Full Gallop this Wednesday.

Whilst living down south for the eventing is great for the training and the horses (it's the best time of the year in that respect), it is a huge strain on the finances and time.. I'm very committed to the students I leave behind in MD and travel back each week to teach them. This is what a typical weekly schedule looks like starting from Thursdays.

Thursday - XC school 4 horses. Ride another 4 at home. 1 or 2 lessons.

Friday - Ride 8 horses and prepare for show.

Saturday - 5am start taking 4 horses to a show. Get home ride 3.

Sunday - 5am start back to show. Get home ride 3. Break every speed limit to get to the airport (located in GA) in time for first of two flights. 11.30pm arrive in MD, go hire car, get to house at 1.30am.

Monday - 7.30am till 9.30pm teach.

Tuesday - 3.45am leave house to return car and catch first of two flights back to GA. 11am back in farm in SC to ride 8 horses.

Wednesday - sleep in till 8 then jump 4 horses and ride 4. Teach a lesson or two.

Even with this hectic schedule I still only just break even and am VERY VERY appreciative of my students and owners continued loyalty, support and commitment to my horses and their own endevours. I feel truly lucky to live the life I do.