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School Horse Lessons Available: Burrito will have some openings for lessons coming up in mid March as Faith returns to Germany (to spread the word great school horses we have here!) and gives up her lesson spots. Let me know if you are interested. His show name of “Treasure” given by Jessica when she got him is so insightful. He is just that. His Birthday is April Fools day and he will be 27 young!!! Eleonor is showing him at the Mar 5th schooling show!
March 5th is a schooling show at Creek Hollow! We should have a good showing (pun intended) there with 4-6 riders!! If anyone wants to join us we will have Katie reading tests and Elizabeth warming up the riders. It is a great way to go down the centerline, cast off those jitters and learn to really ride in the show ring with out the cost!!!! If you need information let me know!
March 6th Katie will be holding a clinic in the Palos Verdes and Long Beach area. Contact Katie or Elizabeth for more info through the web site.
March 11-14 is Dressage Affaire! Artisan and I will be debuting 3rd level on Friday and Saturday. We are the only ones going from the home barn but Lena Volland and her friend Karen, from Katie’s clinic up north, will join me as Katie coaches them for their rides! We have a new friend as who will be there, Laurietta Oakleaf, coming from Ohio to ride in the 2012 Paralympic qualifier on her 2 stallions! Check out her inspiring web site: www.loakleaf.org She is looking for any help/sponsorship (host family, extra car for transportation while she is here, etc) in her quest to qualify and participate in the 2012 Paralympic Games in London. http://usparalympics.org/sports/summer-paralympic-sports/equestrian
March 19 I will be doing a clinic in Ramona at Murphy Sporthorses. It is a lovely private barn with a full sized dressage arena. I always look forward to my day up there! Contact me through the web site if you are interested in riding in it. If you know any inspired juniors / pony clubbers I really enjoy taking them through to the CDS Junior Championships in September (which have been moved to Del Mar Horse Park this year!!!).
March 26 is a CDS show in San Juan Capistrano. It is a great opportunity to compete in a smaller setting and for less $ as it is CDS only. The points still apply for RAAC, Junior Championships and CDS Championships. Just not USDF Ch. The entries close March 12 and can be found at: http://www.sjc-cds.org/Forms/march2011premium.pdf It looks like we will be going with a group!
Lots of tidbits of news!! We just went to the San Diego Chapter Awards banquet and enjoyed dancing and great food! Samantha and Lucjan were Training level Jr. Reserve Champions and Nicole and Carmaque were 3rd in the same division!!! You go girls! Artisan and I were 3rd place in 2nd level Open.
Barn news…… We have 2 new boarders for this month. We welcome Cathy and Ed in for training to help Cathy jump start her plunge into the dressage world! Veronica and Rambo moved in as well so Rambo can go to school while Veronica is off travelling!! Our school master Burrito (Treasure) has a full schedule this month and has officially offered his golden teaching internationally! He has a student visiting from Germany and is helping her learn her skills and confidence!! Welcome Faith from Europe! My clinics in Ramona are up and running again after the summer of travel and the holidays. Anyone interested please let me know! They are held at a Pat Murphy’s very nice private barn. The show season starts officially this month for us as we go to Somis to a quiet show. Tayo will experience his first real away experience and Artisan will do his first 3rd level. Samantha is on to 1st level! The next competition is Dressage Affaire in Mid March. Katie has settled in and started school again at Grossmont. She has been sharing her great eyes on the ground with me and her clinics in Palos Verdes and Long Beach are stating back up! She is available for lessons or training in San Diego County as well.
Happy riding. Elizabeth
Wow, way too long since the last update. The day before Thanksgiving, Katie returned from Germany!!! She surprised us by coming home a few weeks early!! She is home to stay (at this point) and is focusing on her college education. She is going to try to find a competition mount to lease or train and is going to be building up her teaching as well. When our young horse ‘Tayo’ is ready she will probably compete him this year.
Between the rain and the holidays not too much horsie has happened. We are enjoying the sunshine and looking at the new tests!!
News tid bits are:
Artisan will debut at third level in February.
Clinics in Ramona have started up again with a fun group, let me know if you are interested! Thanks to Pat Murphy for hosting them.
Currently I have one opening at my barn for a horse in training or a students horse.
Our school horse Burrito aka Treasure is hard at work teaching many lessons. If you are interested let me know. He is a true treasure!
It has been a busy few weeks for me. Artisan and participated in the San Diego Chapter Axel Steiner ‘New Test’ Clinic riding 2nd level test 2. It was intimidating at first but proved to be a fun finish to our 2nd level year with Artisan showing me his confidence in our schooling! I have once again started lessons with Shannon Peters and am really looking forward to a couple solid months of schooling. Artisan’s little brother, Santayo (Tayo), is growing up (coming 4) and showing great potential and is a kick to ride. We are all looking forward to Katie coming back soon!!!
We all survived the championships!! After a VERY muddy start with minimal footing and warmup and then HOT weather, we did it! Artisan got his insecurities challenged with terrible warm up footing (even soap bubbles on the ground are a challenge) and horribly crowded schooling arenas (he seriously values his personal space). We ended up in 5th USDF and 5th CDS horse of the year. All in all he was a good boy and is very tired! Ellie and Garret did well with Garret thinking he should possibly run the show! They finished in 6th USDF horse of the year! Samantha and Lucjan ended their season with reserve champion USDF!!!! I am very proud of our East County group. Thanks everyone for your support! Next year, here we come.
This awesome organization is having their annual show and fund raiser on October 16th in Lakeside and I am honored to be their judge! Please if you can donate anything for their silent auction or want to make a donation directly go to their facebook!! Come to the show, these kids are amazing and inspirational. Click on the picture of to the left to see their video clip!
Finally a report on my Germany Trip!! Would have done more from over there but Katie’s computer decided to sleep in and not wake up!! I haven’t had a chance to do pictures yet either!
I had a great 2 weeks with Katie in the small town close to Oldenburg at the farm, Gestut Nymphenburg. The farm is very old with the customary all brick buildings. The indoor riding hall is very big with lovely footing. Outdoors the green is almost blinding when the sun it out, which is certainly not as often or as bright in San Diego!! In the area and surrounding the farm there are fields and fields of corn, used for cows and biofuel, and trees of all shapes and sizes. And when I say shapes, I am not kidding. They keep then trimmed and pruned perfectly so they can be sold for landscaping! Trail riding through them was beautiful. I got to ride some wonderful horses and hang out in the barn daily. It was so nice to put faces (Equine and People) with names. They were so welcoming.
We also went to Warendorf to watch the Bundeschampionate (National German Young Horse Championships). There were some amazing young horses but I was particularly struck by the quality of the ponies!! I shared Katie’s 22nd birthday with her as well when I was there. It was a weekend full of very incredible food and fun with Herr von Fircks, Johanna and her sister Cosima. And as well we had quiet mom and daughter time.
All in all a great time. Now I am home to focus on the USDF regional finals for Samantha, Ellie and Me and CDS finals for me. It will be held Oct 7 – 10 in LA. When we get our times I will post the info.
Once again I reflect on how lucky I am to have those in my life to make all the travel I have done a possibility. Thanks guys.
Elizabeth
We spent a couple weeks on a wonderful family vacation in Canada and missed having Katie there with us. The barn is back in full swing a week after returning and in full show prep mode. On a sad note, while I was away, our retired barn mascot Meeko was lost to colic. He was a character and we all miss him. I am still processing in my heart the hole he has left in the barn.
Katie has been very busy as well going to shows in Germany almost every weekend. She missed a very good chance for going to the national young horse championships on the young stallion due to a poor elimintion call made by a judge. Very frustrating. Many ask when she is coming home….we will keep you posted. It seems they like our California girl over there! I have my tickets to go see her and ride for the beginning of September!!
Next weekend 4 of us are showing at the SD chapter show in Del Mar. I will post times as soon as I get them. Ellie will be in the RAAC championships at this show!!!
The last wknd of Aug is the S. Cal Junior Championships in LA and Samantha and Nicole have qualified!
Big news in progress!! Nicole (14) is at the Pony Club National Championships and has swept everything so far with scores ranging from 72% to 78%!!!!
I am sorry to say that I will not be riding at the Del Mar National on Urbana. We had planned on it but she has a bruise in a hoof that has caused us to pull her from the competition. I know I had steered many of you to check the site for times. Pam, her owner, is very sad but we will have her in the show ring soon!
Katie made the journey to visit for the holiday week. To say we were all happy is putting it mildly. She kept herself rediculously busy with visiting and riding. Yes…. she was on a horse before she was here for 24 hours! I really enjoyed the ‘in house’ eyes on the ground and a little new perspective she has brought home with her. For her, horsie highlights were driving up to LA to ride Milo and visit Pam and riding out young boy Santayo! She arrived back in Germany mid day today (our time).