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Congrats to Brooke Lundberg

November 14, 2008 on 11:38 am | In Uncategorized | No Comments

Brooke and Sierra’s Sexy Model (Cici) won 2008 Grand Champion for Low Hunters in the Dayton Local Show Circuit! Since this pair started their partnership together just this spring, they have taken the area by storm in both hunters and eventing. They are also ranked #7 for Area VIII’s Beginner Novice young riders!

Meet the new guy!

November 11, 2008 on 10:46 am | In Uncategorized | 1 Comment

This is Beep. He’s an unraced 6-year-old Thoroughbred gelding that is proving to be a fun project. I’ll be spending the winter getting him ready to event in the spring and I would be surprised if he’s not a strong competitor. Great conformation, super temperament, and a good mover to boot! Now we just need to come up with a good name.:) Any suggestions? Whatever it is, it can’t start with the letter “P” since it’s getting confusing enough already with Podge, Piccolo, and Panache!

Octoberfest

October 27, 2008 on 10:59 am | In Uncategorized | No Comments

I love autumn at the Kentucky Horse Park. It’s a beautiful place to visit and compete any time of the year but when the leaves are changing and the cooler air sets in, it’s just that much more magical. This weekend was no exception as I competed Piccolo and Panache at the Octoberfest Horse Trial, combined test, and dressage show. Piccolo did the Novice and Training level combined tests. I had a few goals for her this weekend that we were able to work on without the pressure of a full-blown event. Cross country has always come easy to her but her tension and sensitivity show up most in the other two phases. We started with our novice level dressage test where she was pretty relaxed. She’s made huge improvements in her self-carriage in the last few months at home but I’ve been letting her go in a little longer frame in competition to help with relaxation. This time I asked her to show off what she’s been doing at home and we were rewarded with a score in the upper 20s! I was really thrilled with her when we left the ring and I asked her to stand quietly by the warmup while I memorized my second test. A few months ago, I couldn’t get her to stand still for more than 2 minutes! We went back to the ring for our first Training Level test together and she performed really well and earned a score of 30.5. On Sunday, we did our show jumping phases. While our novice round was clean, I wasn’t thrilled with the way she fought me and jumped flat. She ended up in 2nd for the novice division but I knew I wanted a little more discipline from her for our Training round. She went into the ring the second time with a much more relaxed attitude and jumped much better over the higher height to gain us another clean round and another 2nd place (out of a large division of 15!) Thrilled to finish the year on a high note with her and knowing there are plenty of improvements to be made over the winter but confident that she’ll be ready for Training in the spring.
Panache also stepped up to the plate this weekend as he competed in his first horse trial. He is a very fancy horse that received tons of compliments and was a pleasure to ride! He settled in quickly to the experience of a first competition and had a nice, relaxed dressage test to score a 33.5. On Sunday, we started off with stadium jumping where we had a wiggly, but clear round. He really wasn’t phased by any of the jumps but there sure was a lot for a young horse to look at! He took many of the jumps right in stride (perhaps not understanding why the starter-sized not even 2′ jumps were so much smaller than he’d been schooling!) and listened really well. I knew cross country would be easy if he continued to listen as well as he did in dressage and stadium and we really had fun cantering around the in-field at the Park. He had one brief moment where he was distracted by a jump judge right before a turn to a jump but otherwise acted like a complete pro out there! We even opted to go through the water. He finished in 3rd place, on his dressage score, for his first event. I’m disappointed that the eventing season is over for this area as I really had fun with him and feel like he could easily go out novice for his next outing. I knew the ability was there and now I know the mind is ready too!
Jayne Whitton also had a great weekend with her mare, Grace’s Star, to finish on their dressage score in 2nd place in the Beginner Novice division.

Website

October 19, 2008 on 1:28 pm | In Uncategorized | No Comments

So by now you’ve probably noticed that I’ve changed the website a bit. Yes, I’ve considered a side career in web design as it’s becoming a slight addiction to play with it. I know there are still a few glitches to work out but there are also a lot of new pages to check out with information that you couldn’t find before - horses in training (past and present), past competition horses, etc. I’d like to encourage anyone that has had a horse in training here, a horse they bought from me, etc to send me some updated information and I’d love to add it! Also, I think I’ve finally figured out why no one could leave any comments on the blog and fixed it so…..blog away! I look forward to reading your comments!
As the season starts to wrap up, I want to say thank you to all my regular students and clients. I really enjoy what I do for a living and part of the reason is because I get to work with such a great group of people (and horses too, of course!)
A few of us are headed down to the Kentucky Horse Park for Octoberfest this weekend for the final event of the year. Panache and Zooby will be making their eventing debuts and I hope to have lots of new pictures and news to report on the next blog!

Jumpstart Horse Trials

October 5, 2008 on 6:22 pm | In Uncategorized | No Comments

This is always a great event and Fairwind Stables was well-represented at the Horse Park this weekend. Podge and I have been working very hard on the dressage the past few weeks to get ready for our move-up to Preliminary. My goal going into the competition was not to make a complete fool of ourselves, mostly in the dressage ring, and to complete the event. Not only did we achieve that, he gave me a better ride in dressage than our training at home (how often can one say that!?) and we went into XC tied for 4th place in a very big division of 25! I knew, after walking the “move-up” type XC course, that if he was half as rideable as he was at Flying Cross, he’d meet the challenge. It had some good questions but I felt our lead-up competitions couldn’t have gone better. Once again, he stepped up to my expectations and exceeded them not only being the first clear round on a course that was eating up more experienced pairs left and right but being just 3 seconds inside the time in spite of my lack of ability to press the right button on my watch out of the start box! It wasn’t a foot perfect round but he got himself out of some sticky situations that I don’t think many more experienced horses would have done and it was a real eye-opener as to how generous a horse he really is. He went into stadium a little tired and tapped several rails which was very unusual for him. With just two down in a division where there were rails falling all over the place, he finished his first prelim event in 3rd place! He now gets to enjoy some well-deserved rest - I’ve promised him no dressage for atleast a week!
Piccolo was, as usual, not about to be outdone by her more experienced barnmate. Since I was so busy celebrating Podge’s clean XC ride, I had the unfortunate task of trying to get us ready to go do a dressage test in a hurry (not so fun after the adrenaline rush of XC!) I didn’t leave as much time as I would have liked and she was a little fresh in her warm-up but managed to perform better as she entered the dressage ring. She had a very nice, steady test suprisingly enough which put us into 8th place going into XC. She set out on course with the attitude (and speed) of a Training horse but finally settled into a slower pace about halfway around. I’ve learned not to fight with her as my biggest goal is to keep her happy and relaxed this year. She was very brave around the course and, although we finished well within the time, we moved up to 6th. She was really terrific in stadium and was, by far, listening to me better than ever. She’s a tricky horse because she has oodles of ability and wants to please so much, sometimes to a fault, but she also has the redheaded mare temperament so she takes a tactful ride most days. I’ve been thrilled with how much she’s improved all year and when I made the mistake of cutting my line from fence 2 to 3, she did exactly as I asked and took down the rail. That was my big duh moment of the weekend as she rarely touches a rail and had little chance to get over the fence cleanly. Nevertheless, she finished in 5th place in another large division!
Susie Gertz and Practical Magic have been cleaning up at Novice all year and made the move-up to Training this weekend. They started off with a really beautiful dressage test, followed by a cross country round that left them with just a few time penalties, and finished with a clean stadium round. They finished their first Training Level event in 4th place! Way to go!
Jayne Whitton and Grace’s Star have made incredible progress all year at the Beginner Novice level. “Sadie” is your typical greenie that needs a positive and focused ride and Jayne has done tremendously well to achieve this. Unfortunately, I only got to watch their stadium round but I hear the other phases were great improvements and the pair finished in 3rd place!
Brooke Lundberg and Sierra’s Sexy Model also competed at BN to a 10th place finish. I thought their dressage, a phase that Brooke and Cici have been working hard on, was far better than the low 40s score they were awarded. We’ve all had those tests at one point or another and those are the times we need to remember that it our own personal goals that are the big picture. Brooke went on to only add one rail to their score - they will be, as they’ve already proven, a very competitive pair in the future.
Marsha Roush and The Piano Man entered the novice division but, unfortunately, scratched after her dressage test. It was probably the best dressage test that I’ve seen this pair do over the years that I’ve been coaching them and Marsha, who was under the weather, was kind enough to hang out with us the rest of the weekend to cheer the rest of the team on!
That was the last major event of the year for most of us. We’ll be heading to Octoberfest in a few weeks with some of the greenies. I hope to get out to some dressage and jumper shows over the winter just to keep the horses going until the season starts up again here in the midwest!

Stone Gate Farm Horse Trials

September 22, 2008 on 9:24 am | In Uncategorized | No Comments

Congratulations to Brooke Lundberg and Sierra’s Sexy Model for WINNING the BN division at Stone Gate this past weekend. This is the second win in a row for Brooke and “Cici”. Way to go!

Flying Cross Farm Horse Trials

September 22, 2008 on 9:22 am | In Uncategorized | No Comments

Flying Cross Farm HT is truly one of the most enjoyable events in the area and especially so when the horses go well! The crew at Flying Cross really goes above and beyond to make everyone feel welcome and the cross country course always looks like our own mini Rolex. And the weather was great too which always makes eventing more fun (especially since there was so much clean-up to do after the previous weekend’s winds).
I was still uncertain Friday morning if Podge was going to get to compete as he’d turned up foot sore early in the week. So, by Friday morning, with some extra help from the vet and farrier, we set out for Louisville with feet packed full of Magic Cushion. By Saturday morning, it had been nearly a week without work but Podge went out and warmed up great. We trotted down the centerline, beautiful and straight, and tracked left…..whoops! Training Test B tracks right. So, error in course out of the way, we continued through our test to score a 41 (w/ the 2 point error). Off to stadium we went where he jumped great over the challenging course. We pulled one rail at the last fence due to rider error but, again, I was overjoyed with him for going out there with little preparation and doing so well. On Sunday, we had a fantastic ride around the challenging XC course. There were several new questions for him but he didn’t bat an eye at anything. We finished easily within the time, with a horse that felt like he could have turned around and run it again, and finished in 6th place of the Training Horse division.
Piccolo impresses me a little more every time she events and this weekend was no exception. She had a really beautiful dressage test. She wanted to look around at the scenery a little but the farm is so beautiful, who wouldn’t? She jumped clean in stadium around the spooky course (who put all those scary wavy plants out there?!) Sunday’s XC ride was one of the most enjoyable times I’ve ever had on cross country. She ate the course up like a pro. Like Podge’s Training course, the novice course had many, many questions for a green horse but she answered them all and easily galloped between fences like we were out for a trail ride. She finished in 5th in her Novice Horse division.
Next up is Jumpstart HT in 2 weeks.

American Eventing Championships

September 14, 2008 on 1:34 pm | In Uncategorized | No Comments

Congratulations to Susie Gertz and Practical Magic who finished on their dressage score in 15th place of the Novice Amateur division at the AECs this past week! Susie is currently ranked 2nd on the Master Amateur Novice Area VIII leaderboard and 8th overall of the area’s novice riders!
Congratulations also to Taylor Reynolds and Paloma Bella on their 8th place finish at AECs in the Beginner Novice Rider Junior division! Paloma was sold by Fairwind Stables and is full sister to my current mount, Piccolo. Way to go Taylor!

Stillwater Pony Club hunter show

September 14, 2008 on 9:18 am | In Uncategorized | No Comments

Even with the threat of a rainy day, the turnout at Twin Towers was terrific. I took Debon over for Brooke Lundberg to ride in a few classes. Our resident wonder pony did terrific at his first show and Brooke did a great job on a horse she’d only ridden a couple of times. He took home a First Place in the flat class in large group of 13-14 riders. In the first class over fences, they produced a lovely round to grab a 6th place ribbon and then took home a 4th place ribbon for the second o/f class. The classes were full of much more experienced horses and riders so I’m thrilled that he did so well for being so green. He’s going to make a really terrific hunter and needs a home! Thank you very much to Brooke for doing such a great job! Be sure to check out the new pictures and video on the sales page.

Tribute to a friend

September 8, 2008 on 8:11 am | In Uncategorized | No Comments

During the night of September 6th, my dear old friend of nearly 18 years, Flint, passed away in his pasture at 29 years old. My parents bought Flint for me for my 13th birthday and he quickly became part of the family. I competed him in some local hunter shows and then got into eventing with him. Flint was a great character - always the first to remind you it was dinner time and make sure you knew that he was really in charge (even if he let you pretend occassionally that you were). In the past couple of weeks, I would let him stroll around in the yard to pick at grass and eventually he’d come back into the barn to see what was going on. He had to let everyone know that HE got to be out when the rest of them were locked in their stalls so he’d walk down the aisle, stall by stall, and pick the halter off and drop it on the floor. This is how I will remember my friend as, even as his health was fading, he was still the stinker that we all knew and loved.
Thanks to Becca, Chelsea, Ryan, and my Dad who came and made sure my friend was properly put to rest while I was at the event.