I knew that things had been rolling along at a quick pace here at MKE but I didn't realize that it was nearly 4 months ago since I really made a proper up date!
Here in Area II we are lucky to have an abundance of things to do with our horses. Having said that I'm a firm believer that you shouldn't wait for your horse to have a problem (health or otherwise); you should choose times within the year to lighten up on their work loads. "The dream team" aka Benny, Bristol and Leto all competed in the CCI at VA in May and after that had an "easier" month - no competitions just lots of flat work and hacks. Then they competed at the New Jersey Horse Park, MD horse trials and Millbrook. We are aiming at the CIC at Plantation in a few weeks so my game plan was to give them a few easier weeks after Millbrook then work on their conditioning and skill sets (jumping and dressage) as our Plantation prep- I felt we had done lots of competitions and should stay home with our heads focused with our fall goals ahead. If Plantation goes well I'll be looking towards a CCI with Benny and a possibly move up with Bristol and Leto... fingers crossed!
At the barn theres been some exciting horse switching going around. We found "Rissa" her dream home with a wonderful long time eventing supporter. Rissa now lives in luscious Virginia and will get to do some jumping and show off her lovely dressage gaits. My student, Vanessa, was doing some horse shopping this summer and I'm super excited to say that we have a wonderful chestnut Irish gelding in the barn named "Teddy Sarco". Vanessa is one of the most interesting young ladies I've had the pleasure to work with so I very much so look forward to many adventures ahead! We also have welcomed in Densey and Ron Juvonen who have brought over their group of hunt horses. The Juvonens and their right hand man Goyo have brought a lot of joy to the farm and you'll most likely see them out hunting with Andrews Bridge as that's their true horse passion :)
At the moment we have 3 horses with us for sale; all very athletic and promising individuals. More videos and pictures to follow on these guys- ranging from 15 hands to 16.3hands- let me know if you're in the market!
It feels weird to have taken a few weekends off of competing, something about being an eventer... we aren't allowed to miss anything! I am so far very happy with the schedule; I feel like it's giving us time to really get things ready for our fall season. This last Saturday I put on my first "Dressage Play Day" aka DPD as it'll be known from here forward. This was an in-house fix a test of sorts - but was held for so many more reasons. I made sure to make it as "show like" as possible; flowers, judge canopy, etc... and it worked! Some horses were nervous at first and more than one rider forgot a movement, had a show panic, etc etc... but most of all they all got to practice a test they've never ridden and figure out how to make it even better for the second go round. I had a great time watching MKE's lovely riders and equally nice horses. I can't wait for more of these!
Probably the most exciting part of this summer came just about a month ago. My two favorite boys have joined together and became a team. HAVARAH"S CHARLY IS BACK!!!!!! Charly has been hanging out around the barn for awhile now, just waiting for the right situation to come about and then it happened. My husband decided it was time to utilize Charly's SKILLZ and learn some dressage. He even rode in the DPD and it was a glorious sight, Charly is moving so well and with just a few weeks of dressage riding Bryce has really turned a corner. Charly is still pretty young, '98 baby, but at this point in time we are going to keep him just strutting his stuff in the dressage arena so he can stay healthy and fancy for many years to come.
11 day countdown to the BEST.EVENT.EVER! Can't wait :)
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