Lois Lane Photo by Pixel Perfect Photography



MacKenzie and Inky

I have been a little slow on my posts recently due to a Laptop malfunction. The malfunction was caused by one of two things, either it was my downloading of songs with viruses (but I really really NEEDED the new Lady Gaga song NOW!), or my ADD and complete lack of patience (leading to too many windows open too often) confusing my poor computer leading ultimately to a mental breakdown (by both myself and the computer). I'm very good at riding, teaching and planning programs for people and horses, not so good with technological stuff so this took a little while to resolve. In the meantime we've continued to be very busy with myself and my students having varying degrees of success. Lois is now training level which she stepped up to nicely at MCTA, but she needs a lot of work to consolidate how she feels about it. Abby Gibbon did a great job by winning the Training at MCTA. Cowboy (Amy Taggart) won a 6th place at Plantation, Alex MacLeod rode a lovely double clear on West Side Story. I had a successful ride on Jane Gilbert's mare, Queen of Pheba. This was my first competition on Phoebe and she also stepped up a level. She was super in the dressage, great cross country. Unfortunately we had a little issue in the show jumping that is now resolved. This weekend I'm very excited to have Collection Pass (Rege Dvorsky and Jeanne Leonne) back in action at Fair Hill. I also have Cowboy and Phoebe going.

As I mentioned in my last update I'm very focused on my students at the moment and am very excited particularly with the progress of Amy Gaynor's horse Cindy. Amy has worked very hard with her competing her at local show's to help the horse get used to competing in a low pressure environment. Now we're getting closer and closer to her first actual event which is looking super exciting! The other thing that's been very exciting is the selection of MacKenzie Taylor on the World Games squad for mounted games!!! Mack is not one of my students, she is the daughter who of Robert and Kathy who own (one of) my fantastic base Taylormade. Mack has been so focused and practiced extremely hard in order to make the squad (it's for under 17's and she's 14) so it's pleasing and inspirational to see how it's paid off. The other cool thing about this is that her pony, Inky, is a rescue and had been left basically to fend for herself and couple of years ago as a horse no one wanted. Now she's on the American games squad to compete at the World Games! Doesn't get much better than that!