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!

Cole and I in full flight.

It was a case of do as I say, not as I do this weekend at Loudoun Horse Trials. Fortunately my students are good listeners and Alex MacLeod went on to win her second Intermediate this year aboard Arrow. She was also second in the Training with her new horse, Jimmy. Kelsey Schmidbeaur had a gratifying weekend on Marrakesh. Kesh has been giving her all sorts of problems from being anything but submissive in the dressage to stop half way around the cross country and refusing to move in any direction except for up. Not only did she get him around but she won the dressage on a score of 27 and clear showjumping and cross country. Titanium went well for me coming 5th finishing on his dressage score. Unfortunately I made a mistake at one combination in the cross country on Cole which cost us 20 penalties. Completely rider error. I chose at that point it was better for his confidence to head home and leave it for another day.

Next we have Seneca followed by the AEC's in Georgia than Plantation CIC.

Our new mirrors!!

Whilst the past two weeks of competitions haven't been memorable (horses just learning their jobs and a couple of minor rider errors) there has certainly been a lot of action! Most excitingly Jerry has made it to California where he'll spend the next three weeks with Dom Schramm being started. He had a long flight and all thanks to IRT for their professionalism and care of the horses. Cole is also finding another gear in his dressage so I'm hopeful that he'll do us proud at Loudoun in a couple of weeks. Other big news is that Mario has shown considerable improvement to his leg and is now in medium work! He's also now allowed to have turnout which makes my life easier, I'm not his only outlet for exercise, which means now hopefully he can leave his airs above the ground for out in the field!

As you know I have two bases, Taylormade Stables and Sunset Hill Farm. Taylormade has the best surface I've seen in any barn in MD or America for that matter! Sunset Hill has great arenas and awesome facilities but we've been working very hard on the footing to make it the best in America. We have pretty well succeeded with the upper ring after much work from the guys. Another improvement to Sunset has been the addition of gigantic mirrors to the indoor arena courtesy of Mr Micheal Matson. This is a great relief for me as I LOVE looking at myself in the mirror! And of course it helps with checking on my horses progress, frame, position etc....

Sadly for me Alex Curtiss is off to the University of Pennsylvania studying to become a vet so I'm looking for a replacement. Please contact me for further information.

Newest Australian member to our team.

Rocco and I on the plane when we arrived 2 years ago (next to him is one of Boyd Martin's horses, they travelled together from Sydney-Melbourne-Aukland-LA-Newark.).

In Australia I have some horses that I have bred using some of the best Australian and European bloodlines. The focus is producing jumping and dressage horses. Jerry (by Regardez Moi out of the 3/4 sister to Centaur) is the first to make the trip to the U S of A! And what a trip it is.

22 hours Brisbane to Melbourne by road.

2 days in sunny Melbourne.

20 hours Melbourne to LA by air.

3 days quarantine.

3 weeks with Dom Schramm being.

44 hours to GA via Texas.

14 hours to MD!

He's currently unbroken and let a very idyllic existence in country Queensland where his friends have been cows and kangaroos! By the time he gets to me he'll have seen 3 countries (Australia, New Zealand and USA), travelled the length of Australia and the width of America! He's flying with IRT (the same company Rocco came with) who are accustomed to transporting million dollar t/b's all over the world and take excellent care of their cargo. Obviously I'm super excited and can't wait, I've already planned the rest of his year. It's sad for my mum who raised him but it's time for him to have a job.

On the competition front we have Waredaca, Loudoun then we head to the American Eventing Championships in Georgia.

The hot humid weather doesn't slow us down but it does mean some early starts. In the best interests of the horses (and people) we've been starting at 5.30 to avoid working the horses in the hottest part of the day. The exceptions are of course competitions. Maryland HT I and II went very well for us with Cowboy, Phoebe, Key, Cole and Kesh all putting in good performances. Cole's dressage is definitely on the improve, posting a 37, he's really trying hard and the work is paying off. Finally! Olney farm held their annual horse trials this past weekend, I had 4 rides, Pheobe (4th), Cowboy, Cindy (3rd) and Key (7th).

The other competition this weekend was the National Young Riders Championships held in Lexington, KY. Alex MacLeod riding Arrow was selected to ride for Area II and and put in a fine performance. She was selected to be the first rider, trail blazer, and report back to aid the rest of the team. Her and Arrow made short work of the cross country, finding it well within their abilities and training. The only thing she had to report back to her team mates was to be aware of the placement of the roping. She unfortunately found herself on the WRONG side at one point and lost some time finding her way back. In the show jumping she showed everyone how it's done by posting one of only two clear rounds in the competition. Well done Alex, we're all proud of you!

Summer riding.

Cole galloping cross country showing his super athleticism.

For me summer is a very busy time with a lot of riding and competing, mostly with young horses starting out. When it's so hot it is difficult for the horses to work effectively so start riding at 5.30 am so they can still have their regular work routines. Then I finish around 1pm and start back at about 5 or 6 teaching. I won't say what I do in the middle part of the day but the words 'tan', 'pool' and 'sleep' all spring to mind! Cole is back in work after Bromont and training VERY hard in the dressage arena. The deal is if he goes on the bit and moves like a warmblood I'll give him an entire bag of carrots! We're still in the negotiating stage at this point, I may have to up it to two bags of carrots.... In all seriousness he is definitely improving with both his submission and paces. He can be so frustrating being that he is so athletic and has such a great temperament, he just mentally needs to figure it out. It's fairly new to him so I believe he'll still work thru it. Jumping wise he's more than ready for the intermediate level, we just need the darn dressage!

Loch Moy I and II are the next couple of weekends with Dressage at Lexington next Friday as well. So we are busy busy.