Wednesday, July 03, 2013

For the love of the horse!

I saw someone post that they were going to start building an ark... I think it's a good idea! We have had thunderstorms and rain daily since I can remember and the future forecast seems to be more of the same.  Doesn't matter as we have horses to feed, turnout, ride and prep for their competitions. The show must go on!

Principia Stables (Kirkwood, PA) has handled all of this rain with total class.  We have the indoor for the flash flood times and when it's safe outside our grass jump field and outdoor sand arena have been rideable nearly every day.  This is impressive as there's been so much rain I've seen pictures of peoples indoors flooded.. yikes.  Every day I wake up and feel so lucky to run a business out of this facility and am so lucky that The Hulmes saw the great eventing future in the farm when they purchased it.  We are constantly adding more amenities to make it an even better training site.  Bit of Britain has lent us some of their past AEC's jumps and quite a few lovely cross country portables.  Dr. Berkowitz just recently added a fantastic liver-pool to the course and thanks to Steve Parisan and my husband, Bryce, more and more show jumps appear all the time.

We are looking to add to our happy group of horses - we currently have a few stalls open and I'd like to share this farm with other eventing, hunting and dressage enthusiasts.

Wonder why some stalls are open?!!?  Tis the season for horse sales!  Alpine has recently found herself her very own person and will be living at the plush Radnor facility. Susie Beale has a knack for putting together a solid team between horse and rider and Im so excited to watch this new pair develop throughout the years.  HUGE thanks to Susie Bardel for breeding the lovely mare and caring enough to  get her started with Roddy Strang and then allowing her to get her early eventing education with me.  It's people like her that do things for the love of the horse, it's that attitude that keeps me going every day.

Sabrina aka Wonder Woman and her new mom, Jenny Salinger, are tearing it up in Area II.  Jenny will be returning to her senior year in High School next month so she's not wasting any time getting some events in on her new mount.  The two of them did spectacular at their first Preliminary this last weekend at New Jersey.  I have to admit that after they cruised through the water complex I turned to the other people standing by and literally had tears in my eyes and said "those are my girls!".  Sabrina came to me years ago to find herself a career... she's been a big part of my time out here and I'm thrilled beyond words to see her in her element.  I love this horse and I think Jenny does too! :)

At the New Jersey horse park I saw a girls father just hanging out with a horse.... literally just having a good time together.  He was there at the trailer, petting and smiling and the horse was taking it all in. He's not a groom, not a rider, just a guy that loves horses.  Seeing this man's love for the horse brought me great joy.  That night as I made my daily rounds to my horses feeding them carrots, I realized that no matter how tough things get or how good things get.. I just love these horses and enjoy seeing them so happy for a tasty carrot.  I hope everyone that reads this has some time in their life to do things simply for the love of the horse.

`Molly