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Just got home from the latest 2 weeks of showing up at Thunderbird Show Park in Langley, BC, and what a time it was! I’ll recap by the horse to try to keep it simple.

FF Clintaro

Clinton was absolutely foot perfect throughout the two weeks of showing. He requires so little prep (I lunge him for 5-10 minutes in the morning on the first few days of the show – mostly to loosen him up without a rider on board) and is so consistent and predictable…not things you can usually say about a 4 year old horse! He picked up great ribbons in the first week, remaining in the top 5 in his Baby Green classes. He then went on to show in the Short Stirrup Hunters and Equitation with a 13 year old girl who was stepping up from a pony. Wow was I impressed with this young horse! He was calm and relaxed and completely went with the flow, taking mistakes with a chuckle and never holding them against his rider. They won one class and had several great ribbons in others.

Week 2 was a continuation of the great behavior. Clinton placed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in his Baby Green classes to finish the division with the Reserve Champion title! Another girl came up to show him in the Short Stirrups. This time a 15 year old girl in her first 2 years of riding. Once again he carried the kid around without a second thought about questionable decisions and riding. Chip? No problem! Take a flyer? Sure! They had one absolutely beautiful round that they won, and took great ribbons in their other classes as well.

Videos of both girls and a couple of my rounds are on Clinton’s sales page: www.flyingfsporthorses.com/horses-for-sale/ff-clintaro/

FF Evita

Evita once again refused to be upstaged by her younger counterpart. She had some lovely double clear rounds in the 1.0m Jumpers. But the real achievements were her absolutely spectacular rounds in the Maplebrook Young Jumper 5yo (1.10m) classes. Both of the rounds are on Evita’s sales page: www.flyingfsporthorses.com/horses-for-sale/ff-evita/ She held up her reputation as a warrior show horse and galloped around the big grass Grand Prix field as though she’d done it a hundred times before. She ended up 3rd out of a large and competitive field of horses (the class was judged 50% on quality of the horse and 50% on faults/time allowed). Could not have been more impressed with her demeanor and use of her body in the classes. She’s just so clever and so light on her feet….I feel like I could jump a house when I’m sitting on her!

Cassiana SR and William L

Billy picked up the Reserve Championship in his Jr/AO Jumper division in the week one and a 10th in the Grand Prix. Week two landed him with a Championship in the Jr/AO Jumper division and a lovely round in the Grand Prix.

Cassie jumped around the 1.30m Jr/AO in week one with a 3rd place in a large class. And then won her YJC 7yo Qualifier class in week two. It was fun to have her out on the grass at 1.30m for the first time!

Foxy Socks

The addition to the roster this time out was my 21 year old mare, Foxy Socks, who competed in the 1.30m and 1.40m with me many years ago. She now carries around my most precious cargo…..my 9 year old daughter. They showed in the 0.75m jumpers all week with a couple of 2nd place finishes in big classes. My favorite video may be the one below where Sadie was so focused on doing the super tricky turn (to the 3rd fence) that she totally forgot about every other turn on course, LOL! But the one turn was completely awesome! Great kid that she is, Sadie was totally happy with the course and walked out proud that she was able to pull off the tricky turn. I could sure learn a thing or two from her!

All in all the show was an absolute unqualified success for all of the horses. 

Now for a little break for everyone before gearing up for The Evergreen Classic in Monroe, WA that will lead off the group to the next two weeks up at Thunderbird!

Next shows on the docket were the May Tbird shows; the Canadian Premier and the BC Open. Always a season favorite with the opportunity to ride in the FEI classes against the best of the best.

Unfortunately this year’s show was preceded by an accident during the last jump school before the show. Cassie and I were working on rollback turns and she misjudged a rail off of a tight turn and got tangled up in the pole, landing in a heap on the ground on the backside of the jump. She went stage right, I went stage left (by the “grace of mare” I did not get stepped on) and the landing on my rib cage resulted in two broken ribs 4 days prior to haul-out day. Very relieved to report that Cassie was fine, but I was less so!

So just the two sales horses were hauled up for a friend, Tracey Epp of Signature Farms (signaturefarms.ca), to ride and show for me. I couldn’t have placed them in better hands and both horses had absolutely stellar weeks in their respective divisions. And while I was really disappointed to have to leave Billy and Cassie in their fields, I got the sense that they were AOK with the time off 😉

Clinton (FF Clintaro) confirmed his show veteran ways by loping around the Baby Green Hunters and Young Hunter Development classes with several top-three placings in large classes. He clearly never bothered to translate the German word for “spook” into English, as he has yet to be bothered by anything we’ve presented to him. I know I sound like a broken record, but this young horse has a level of composure that’s almost unheard of. I know a lot of people say it, but I really mean it when I say that this horse is going to be the no-prep horse that a kid can pull out of the stall 5 minutes before a class and be able to walk in confident that there will be no silliness, no spooking, and no misbehavior. Wow!

One of his rounds from the week:

On that note, I gave him 6 days off after his last day of showing and hopped back on for our first ride yesterday. Didn’t lunge him or prep him in any way and he went back to work (with me and my tender broken ribs) like the good packer baby he is!

FF Evita wasn’t interested in being upstaged by her younger counterpart. Tracey walked her into the 1.0m jumpers with some lovely rounds over the two weeks. She’s still incredibly sensitive and had several “moments of thought” in her classes (being able to look out over the little jumper ring way down below was tough every time the course path wandered that way – as you can see in the video below), but I don’t mind a horse that is so keen to figure things out at this stage in her training. The jumps were not an issue in the least, and it was fun to watch her figure out the nuances of full courses day after day. Again, I couldn’t have been happier with the riders sitting on her through the week. Clinton was kind of a “given,” but feeling comfortable with a rider on your sensitive, green, intelligent mare is a whole ‘nother issue. Tracey and Kevin showed grace, tact, and brilliance in bringing out the best in both of my horses. Talk about a program that I would not hesitate to send horses to or buy horses from!

So the wrap up for the show is a little bit short this time around from a horse perspective. But in the name of working on that, I started jumping my big horses again this week. I’m not quite “there” yet (hard landings still really hurt!), but hoping to have everyone (and by everyone I mean ME) ready to go for the next set of Thunderbird shows in 2 weeks.

So until then! 🙂

I’m finally getting around to updating the results from our first “regular season show” of the year. Normally we travel to Monroe, WA for the WSHJA Spring Nationals show. But the cancellation of all upper level jumpers meant that we had to go a bit further and expand our Thunderbird schedule for the year. This meant a bit of scrambling when I didn’t research Coggins documents thoroughly enough, and found (at the 11th hour) that international Coggins reports are not sufficient for crossing the US/Canada border. Yikes! But my fabulous vet got everything sorted out just in time for our trek north.

We had 4 horses in tow – Billy and Cassie from the regular show crew, and Clinton and Evita representing the sales horses.

This was a big step for the young horses. Both horses were newly under saddle when they came over from Germany. Clinton is such a clear-minded and simple horse that we took him around the schooling rounds in Thermal. But this would be his first time walking into the show ring with the intent of doing a full course and all of the requisite pressures of showing. Evita was scheduled to walk into the 0.75m jumpers, which was also a big step. From her first days here it’s been clear that she is wickedly smart and a very sensitive horse. This is not always the easiest combination to work with in a young horse because of the worry of pushing the horse too hard resulting in a meltdown (or even worse – instilling fear). We had been careful with her in Thermal, and only jumped her in the schooling rings over plain white rail fences. She’d shown bravery over spooky fences at home, but thanks to an abscess that had her out for the week and a half leading up to the show, even that experience was super limited.  I had a range of plans for her based on the hundred reactions she could have had with no way to predict which direction she would go.

Starting with the “big” horses – Billy was super all week with only 4 faults across the entire week of showing. Unfortunately his rail was in the Grand Prix, but he still picked up a 6th place in good company along with his High AO Jumper Championship.

 

Cassie was equally good, picking up the Medium AO Jumper Championship and the win in her AO Jumper Stake class.

 

But the babies were the big stories of the week.

We hauled in on schooling day, coinciding with thundershowers and lots of rain. Evita was out first, and aside from a few dicey moments when thunder rolled through (which terrified me, but didn’t seem to bother her in the least), things were pretty calm. We headed down to the jumper ring and so began her introduction to the show world. I missed the 0.75m schooling and walked into an arena of 0.90m fences. I had a terrific helper with me who walked into the ring and set the top rails down for our first approaches. But by the end of schooling that day she was cantering around short segments of 0.90m courses.

That’s pretty spectacular considering her limited time under saddle and her utter inexperience jumping anything other than the jumps at home! She continued to impress through the week, culminating in some lovely clean rounds in the 0.75m jumpers (one of the videos is on her sales horse page). I had a major stretch goal of getting her into the Tbird age classes (which are slightly lower than the corresponding YJC levels – so her 5yo age group will be set at 1.10m) by the end of the year. But this show gave me a little more insight into the workings of her mind. What I had initially pegged as anxiety, I now see is just her process of working out what’s expected of her. Knowing how clever she is, I’m now working towards debuting her in the Tbird 5yo class in May. Not sure if we’ll make it quite to that point, but I’m certain that she will be ready for the class by the time the June/July show rolls around! The hardest part for Evita is keeping her attention IN the arena. She’s so attentive to everything around her and spends more time focusing on things outside of the ring than in. The jumps in the ring were never even the slightest concern in her mind. Ultimately this will be a non-issue, but is likely to be the reason why I may not push her to the age classes this month.

Clinton was up next, though I was less uncertain about how he would perform. He’s been so solid from the day he arrived, and he was in no mood to change my opinion. My helper was running short on time on schooling day, and so despite having had the prior two days off, I pulled him out of the stall without any prep (no lunge, no walk around the grounds, only 2 hours after arrival on the new-to-him showgrounds) and we set off in the driving rain to walk into the baby hunter schooling ring. He was a bit perturbed by the large quantities of water throughout the arena, but quickly figured out that the water and sand splashing his stomach was something he would have to deal with. He spent that day (and the rest of the week) splashing through the puddles like a toddler in rain boots! At one point he pulled me straight into a puddle as we trotted around the ring in a flat class. Not going to lie – I laughed out loud as he splashed his way through the water. Boy what an attribute in the rainy NW! In addition to learning about puddles on schooling day, he jumped around the entire course without so much as a peek at any of the jumps, and also offered up flying changes whenever necessary. Wow, what a brain on this horse! I hacked him in the other two hunter rings as well and he was just as cool and confident in those rings as well. So it was no surprise when he walked into his first hunter rounds the next day and performed like a horse beyond his years. He still had a couple of baby moments; he broke to the trot as we cantered to fence one in one of our hunter rounds (see video below), and then did the same as we cantered around in his first flat class (note to self – you have to remember to keep your leg on the young horses, lol!).

But to have a 4yo who stays *that* relaxed under stressful circumstances is absolutely incredible! He was so good, in fact, that I allowed a friend to show him in the Long Stirrup Hunters over the weekend. She was nervous and he took care of her like a horse many years his senior. I cannot state it enough – this horse is absolutely incredible!

The end result of the show was a boatload of ribbons and 4 horses who walked out of the show better horses than they walked in (well, maybe 3 horses, since Billy is a pretty constant performer in his 16th year on this planet!). I couldn’t have been happier with the crew, and I cannot wait for the first big show of the year when we head back up to Tbird for the Canadian Premiere and BC Open shows.

Part IV. Week three for us (Week VII for the show)

The horses continued to perform to the high standard they had set the prior two weeks. The weather moved into a bit more of what we expected for the desert….hot hot hot with temps soaring into the upper 90s. Lovely when the horses went early, less so when classes were in the 12-2pm window!

Clinton (2013 Clinton x Camposanto gelding) cantered around his first full course in the ticketed schooling ring and was absolutely incredible. You would never guess that he is a 4 year old with his calm collected nature and easy going temperament. No question that he is going to be a top top hunter in the years to come (or maybe that should read “MONTHS to come”). I’ve never had one so ready to walk in the ring so early in their career!

Evita (2012 Cormint x Landgraf) continued hacking and jumping in a variety of arenas and went on several trail rides.

William L ended the week with a 5th place in the $10,000 1.45m High Amateur Owner Jumper Class and with the Grand Circuit (and 2nd Half) Reserve Champion award for the High Amateur Owner 1.40m Jumpers.

Cassiana SR (2010 Cassiano x Calando I) placed in the top 3 in most of her YJC 7yo 1.30m Jumper classes with some really stellar rounds – and in two classes was one of only 2 or 3 horses to go clean.

My helper for the first two weeks of the show left for the 3rd week, so it was a bit of a scramble to find people to assist. So I have to say a huge thank you to all of the friends and family who stepped up and filled in! That includes my husband who drove down to Palm Desert on Friday to get in the truck and trailer with me to drive the horses back home on Sunday/Monday. It was a lo-ong drive that we did straight through. I think it’s safe to say that the horses weren’t the only ones happy to fall out of the vehicle when we finally arrived home Monday evening!

So now with the first foray out into the show season completed and nothing on the docket for 4 more weeks, I’ll take the opportunity to get to know the young horses a bit better and hope to update this blog with the progression of the youngsters. Stay tuned!

Part III – Week VI / the kids

Week V in the desert brought with it some wind storms and a considerable amount of rain considering our location. Week VI was definitely an improvement with more of the “summer” weather we were expecting!

The early part of the week was the first time I started to feel that we had moved into a comfortable rhythm. The babies got out every day for their walks and hacks. I had a couple of top notch hunter trainers sit on Clinton, and they raved and raved about what a fabulous prospect he is (with offers to sell him for me – which would be fantastic if that wasn’t my job already!). Clinton got the opportunity to walk into the ticketed schooling ring for the first time and wowed us all by loping around over all of the scary gates/boxes/flowers with nothing more than a little peek at the very first jump we jumped. Once he figured out that his “job” is to jump flowers he took to it like a duck to water!

We took it slower with Evita. She is what I would call “hyper aware” of everything, and with the higher degree of sensitivity I didn’t want to push her too far. So we stuck to the schooling rings with her and she happily cantered over little 2’6″ – 2’9″ jumps with both Danielle and me.

The big horses continued to impress.

Cassiana SR competed in only the YJC 1.30m 7yo classes (where the week prior we had done a 1.15m and an open 1.20m before joining the YJC on the second day of YJC classes) and again picked up great ribbons, including a 2nd on the qualifier day with a beautiful double clean round.

William L remained in the top 4 in the AO Highs and then reminded me why I consider him “my champion” when I started to go off course in my 1.45m High AO Classic and tried to pull him off of the wrong fence and over to the right fence at the last possible second, causing him to jump/crash through a vertical, start to fall (which pitched me off) and then caught himself and continued down the 4-stride line to jump the oxer without me. I’m positive that he landed from that riderless oxer and went, “what the what? Where’d she go???” That seemed like a perfect summary of horse sport – great, great, great, great……OOPS!!!! And then back to great, great, great. Or something like that 😉

Rasen BHS schooled over a 3’6″ – 4′ course and was even more fun to gallop around the big fences than he was over the littler ones! Though his week was directed towards a much smaller goal involving much more precious cargo. He carted my 9yo daughter around all weekend. She had only ridden him once before we shipped down to Thermal, so she wasn’t feeling brave enough to show, but had an absolute blast with his caretaker nature!

And then on to Disneyland. Having my husband and both children at the show was a bit of a challenge that added to the chaos of our schedule, but it was wonderful to get to see them in the middle of the trip, and taking two days to visit Disneyland while other people took care of the horses was absolutely fabulous!

So the wrap-up to week VI was as good as it was for week V. Every horse grew and improved upon the prior week. And that’s all you can hope for in the best circumstances!

Part II. Week one of showing (Week V of the show)

HITS Coachella – Week V started with the arrival of new horse number 2. FF Clintaro had cleared quarantine on Thursday the 16th at LAX and had been transported to Rancho Polo with a dear friend, Tracey Epp, until we arrived. So we headed back out in the truck and trailer to fetch “Clinton” (with the exhaustion of the trip we were extremely limited in our creativity, and months of calling him “the Clinton gelding” led to the extremely unoriginal name). Tracey had commented that he was a super chill gelding, and true to her words, we were greeted by a perfectly content and calm baby horse. And true to his nature, he loaded up in the trailer and shipped over the Thermal show grounds like he’d done it a hundred times before. The funniest part of his pickup is that the breeder I had purchased him from told me repeatedly how fabulous and gorgeous the Evita mare was, and then would always end it with, “and your gelding is nice too.” So I was expecting a “nice” gelding and a spectacular mare. Well, the mare was indeed spectacular, but Clinton is right up there with her. He is absolutely stunningly beautiful, and also my first ever “full hunter” type. There will be no aiming this one towards all 3 rings!

The arrival on the showgrounds was what we were a bit more concerned about. We were stabled next to a horse that would best be described as “part shark, part battle ram,” with her proclivity towards making a nasty face and then slamming her teeth against the mesh wire between the stalls. We had tried all 4 of the other horses in that stall, but my [older, more experience] horses either cowered in fear or rose for the fight, and all had to be removed from the stall in short order. So with bated breaths we tossed Clinton in the stall and waited for the fireworks. He went and stood by the mesh and the shark mare did her thing – running at and slamming her teeth into the wire with ears pinned. Clinton not only stood his ground, but did not cower, fight, flinch, or react in any way whatsoever. I have never been so impressed by a 4 year old in a new environment in my life! I do have to tell the rest of the story, though, upon conversation with the seller where I relayed this amazing story, he chuckled and mentioned that Clinton had been used to separate stallions in the barn in Germany. So it turns out he was no stranger to aggressive attitudes and posturing! Within 24 hours the two horses were best of friends, though I suspect he would have been perfectly happy either way!

The next Herculean chore, so to speak, was the first ride of the babies in quite possibly the most intimidating environment anywhere in the world. Golf carts, tractors, trucks, loose horses, barking dogs, flapping tarps, flapping tents, crackly speakers…….all of that and no arena fences. But both Clinton, at age 4, and Evita (the new mare), at age 5, took it all in stride (pun intended), and Danielle and I enjoyed lovely rides around the show grounds. I think we were both more shocked than it would be possible to convey that we survived ride #1 with no lunging, no ear stuffing, and no other preparation of these young horses who had literally just walked out of quarantine to everything new and unfamiliar. I buy my horses from one breeder in the US (who has his stock in Germany) and one breeder/farm in Germany because when they say “good brain” they mean “best brain you’ve ever seen,” and once again they absolutely outdid themselves in finding me these young horses who refrained from setting a hoof out of line despite being given every excuse to do so. I would have laughed at a buck or a spook, and though there was plenty of nose blowing and “looking,” there was nothing during our three weeks in the desert that even resembled a “misstep or misbehavior.” Wow.

The “big” horses started showing that week and we had some phenomenal results there as well.

Rasen BHS stepped into the 3’3″ hunters with both me (his amateur owner) and with Danielle, and then on a spur-of-the-moment decision also jumped around a 1.0m jumper course with Danielle. He absolutely blew us away with his calm disposition and not only willingness, but actual happiness to gallop around the many rings we had him in throughout the week (Hunter rings 2-4 and Jumper 2). It’s tough to put into words the undefinable characteristics that make a horse a true joy to ride and lead to the understanding that a small child could take the reins and have as much fun as a seasoned show veteran. This horse embodies those qualities and I can say without hesitation that literally anyone could sit on this horse and have a good time!

My young mare, Cassiana SR (Cassiano x Calando I), stepped into her first ever 1.30m rounds in the YJC 7yo classes and managed to hold her own against the best of the best with a 2nd and 3rd place ribbon in phenomenal company that week.

And my thoroughbred, William L, jumped out of his skin all week to wind up Champion in the High Amateur Owner Jumpers (1.40m). I found out this winter that he’d been jumping around on a broken coffin bone in August of 2016, and we did a round of Osphos to help address and lingering bone issues. The Osphos sent him into kidney failure in January, and resulted in several days in the vet hospital. This was a comeback in so many ways, and I was overjoyed that he felt as comfortable and happy to jump around as he did.

The two babies also continued their education with forays into many of the warm-up rings for both flat warmups and jumping sessions under both Danielle and myself. We also took them on some trail rides and started utilizing my turnout paddock to give them some time to stretch their legs. Every “task” was met with ears forward and far more composure than I ever could have hoped for from horses their age!

With week one/Week V under our belts were were ready to settle into a routine and move into week two/Week VI…..

Part I. 2017 HITS Coachella  – the drive

February 17, 2017 – My horse show helper, Danielle, and I packed 3 horses, a 10 week old puppy, and a baby bunny into my 4 horse trailer and started our drive down to the desert, encountering a lot along the way to put our coping skills to the test.

The drive through WA and OR was quite lovely and problem-free. We stopped for diesel a couple of times, stopped at a couple of rest stops for the puppy, and mostly enjoyed the rare day of sun after many months of a wet and miserable winter. Crossing into California, however, brought quite the surprise – RAIN! But in the daylight the rain wasn’t bad, and we kept chuckling about the irony of coming from the sunny NW into rainy CA.

We made it halfway over the Siskiyous before the sun set and the combination of what had turned into torrential rains (really, torrential – as in I-5 was flooded the next morning, wreaking havoc on everyone) and pitch black made the drive an absolute white-knuckle experience and the 2 hours it should have taken to get from Redding to Sacramento/UC Davis stretched into 4. I was extremely grateful to have three  calm horses on board who were perfectly content with their full hay nets and water buckets and blissfully unaware of the awful driving conditions!

We finally pulled into UC Davis, road weary and exhausted, at 9pm and proceeded to drive down the wrong road (thank you, Google Maps), causing us to back up half a mile down one-lane road with a barbed wire fence on one side and a drop-off on the other in my truck and 4H Gooseneck trailer (and did I mention the combination of pitch-blackness and pouring down rain?!). At this point we were also getting low on diesel, which added to the air of anxiety. But a mere 90 minutes of backing fun brought us to the barns where we got the horses unloaded and settled safely. We then attempted to park the trailer in the “dry lot” (I’m sure you can see where this is going) and ended up mired hopelessly in the mucky mud, courtesy of the freakish rain storm. Big sigh. We called “uncle!” on the night and had a Lyft driver transport us to a hotel and attempted to get some rest (cue sitcom-ish moment of hesitation when the Lyft driver noticed the 10 week old Bernese Mountain Dog in my arms).

One of the farm workers managed to tow us out with a giant tractor the next morning, my USRider’s insurance policy provided a can of diesel, and we were back on the road by 10am, no worse for the wear. And on board with us was the new mare who had just cleared her 2 week mare quarantine at UC Davis for a full 4 horse load in the trailer for part II of the trip. We were both extremely grateful that the mare clearly got the memo to go easy on us, and loaded up without issue. And another moment of fortuitousness came when one of the UC Davis employees fell in love with the bunny and gave her a home that most bunnies only dream of (including vacations with the family, a victorian-era mansion…er…hutch, and siblings in the form of dogs).

The next day brought the second half of the trip, and once again we made the driving portion with little to no issue, but hit chaos upon arrival at the Thermal showgrounds. Once again our arrival coincided with sunset, and we realized that the show had not delivered hay nor shavings, 3 of our stalls had been reconfigured into 2 stall-and-a-halves, and 2 of our other stalls were missing doors! We made the best with what we had, and with some baling twine and ingenuity, managed to get all of the horses “locked” (in one form or another) into stalls. The next morning brought a lot of scrambling around to fix all of the problems, but by the end of Sunday afternoon we were all settled in and ready to start our 3 weeks in the desert sun.

Never have I been so happy to unpack and prepare for a competition!

2017 represents our first year of operating entirely in the horse world, and we’re excited for the opportunity to do what we love full time! We’ve purchased our first couple of horses and are working on a few others in order to have a full slate of sales horses in time for the Coachella horseshow in Thermal (weeks 5-7). Looking forward to sharing what we have to offer in the coming months!