Spring 2012!! Its upon us :)

Well, the new year has gotten off to a running start! I can hardly believe we’ve made such a dent in it already…
We are officially inside the 6 month countdown to that little thing called the Olympic Games, and I can imagine the thousands of athletes who are preparing for the intensity of this final drive to qualify, get selected, and stay healthy until showtime.

I’m pleased to share that Port Authority is making all the right steps towards achieving our goal of kicking tail at a Spring CCI and qualifying for London. Progress is good, and I’m going to keep up with the program that our team has put in place for us.

New to the team this season is Lee Byrne and the staff at KESMARC Florida. Ollie has been visiting often over the last 2 months, and I’m seeing a big difference in his body. Feeling it, too!! His trot is more powerful than ever and his hind end is so well muscled. It’s nice to see such a strong, happy boy at the start of our season.

As much as I focus on the big guy, he now shares the stage with a few others, and I won’t forget them!!

Vienna did her first real Prelim at Rocking Horse in Altoona, FL! She was so good, really stepping up to the plate and focusing on her job. I’m so proud of her for trying so hard to learn her new sport, and showing so much potential!

Trubie and Mosby ( the OTTB’s) are no slackers either. Both have been initiated into the club of baby event horses by jumping ditches, banks, logs and playing in the water at Longwood Farm last week. We are going to have so much fun!!

Through all this action on a daily basis, I am working hard on staying focused on actually treating myself like an athlete. I have started back up with Dave Freeze, the sports psychologist I worked with as a Young Rider in BC. Dave is excellent when it comes to giving me tools to overcome the distractions that could prevent me from staying focused on my short (and not so short) term goals. I am paying much more attention to details like proper nutrition and sleep… Seems simple, right? But these “details” are all part of the big picture which to me, is about keeping a positive attitude. Amazing how square meals and a bedtime make things seem a little easier to handle!!

This last year has been full of challenges, and it was easy to let some things distract me from keeping my eyes on the prize… My priority with Dave is to make sure that I develop good habits so I can focus on being as good as I can be at my job! More on this as we go, because I feel strongly that our mental game is something we can control, and it’s something that can be the difference between success and failure. We can’t ignore it in between competitions!!

Anyways, I’m off to check out the state of my schooling area after last nights epic tropical downpour. I think I’ll be playing in some sandy mud today!!

Until next time…

The Holidays!! Stop to enjoy them!

Christmas! It’s that time of year that sneaks up on us before we know it. One minute it’s Halloween, and then all of a sudden Thanksgiving (yes, the American version.. My attendance record is 5-0 over the Canadian version these last few years) comes around. I would blame the turkey coma for the last month disappearing into a blur, but I’m pretty sure you have to remain still to qualify for a comatose state.

I personally feel like I haven’t hardly stopped moving much since my arrival in Ocala last month. Today, however, has been a lot of sitting still!! One thing about Christmas that I have opted out of for a few years is traveling… But this year, a wonderful friend hooked me up with a trip home for the holidays!! (It helps to have good friends!!) Flying across the continent always takes a whole day, no matter what. Today, I woke up at 4 (oops!! Was supposed to be 315) and drove like a bat out of you know where to the Tampa International Airport. Once I got settled into 85mph on I 75, I realized I pretty much patted my dog on the head as I bolted out the door… I hate leaving her and I usually get a really good snuggle in before I go. But… She didn’t even really wake up as I threw my clothes on and bolted, so I hope she was happy to see Autie Alexa and her boyfriend Motor a few hours later!!

This mad rush has led to a day of SERIOUS sitting around in airports. But I kind of don’t mind!! I have gladly been putting in very long days, starting at the training track and spending the afternoons at my barn, but I have been going a little harder than can be sustained for long periods of time. My mom scolded me the other day for trying to muck stalls one handed while talking on the phone, and I eat lunch (sandwiches or whatever) while walking/grazing / driving my truck to KESMARC! I choose this life, and I do it because I love it, and I’m not complaining, but… To sit is nice I plan on doing a lot of it this week, and I really hope that the rest of you can take some time out of your hectic schedules to simply relax!! Don’t wait for an “unforeseen maintenance issue” with an airplane to force you into 2 hours of submission!!

Like my mom said. Take 20 minutes to just sit down and eat lunch without checking emails or making calls at the same time. Single tasking isn’t a crime!! The competition season is fast approaching and we won’t get a real break for a while, people. So sit down, shut up, and eat the sugar cookies!!!

Can’t wait to see my family

Gotta Give Thanks…

So today, I’m fast approaching the two-week mark of my winter/spring season in Ocala. Today is also the celebration of American Thanksgiving! It’s good timing for a day that encourages me to sit back and reflect on all the blessings in my life.
This year has been tough, with what felt like blow after blow of less than ideal situations, mixed with some just downright crappy circumstances. This morning, I got to have a little sleep in, which was very welcome, considering I started work at the training track again on Monday! (thankful to be gainfully employed) Its been over 18 months since the last time I sat on a racehorse, at which time I was incredibly fit. But I’ve sat on 7 TBs each day all week, and my body hurts!!! (thankful for Advil) so, this morning at about 8am (thankful for sleep!) I got up, and fed the 3 lovely horses in my barn. (thankful for each of them for different reasons)

I have spent most of the day at a friend’s house, watching an all day Bones marathon on TV and eating a wonderful home cooked Turkey dinner with all the fixings. I may have missed Canuck thanksgiving every year since 2006, but I have always had a huge sense of family each year that I have spent in the USA, no matter which of my adoptive american families I have been with! (The Fork family in ’07, the Von Schweinitz in ’08, The Johns in ’09 and ’10, and The Barry’s in ’11!)

I certainly had a lot to be thankful for this time last year, enough that I’m still thankful for it now and will be for the rest of my life. This year, even though my blessings may not be quite so obvious, I still end up with a whole lot of reasons to be grateful, including a hopeful view of the future I hope that all of you can say the same!!

Virginia to Toronto and back again… Now, to Florida!

Well… Its been a crazy 10 days of packing, flying, packing, driving, a little indoor eventing action, more packing and flying…Maybe you get the idea. Thank goodness for the Mosby and Vienna riding, Ollie handwalking, and other normal daily activities to keep me feeling grounded. More packing and driving to follow!!

Last Wednesday, I hopped a plane to Toronto, Ontario for the Royal. My good friend (and total rockstar) Jessie Phoenix picked me up and took me to her farm in Cannington for some pre fair prep. I love spending time with Jess. Her enthusiasm and positivity is totally contagious, and spending time with her was exactly what I needed to break myself out of my little funk.

The indoor eventing was, overall, a huge success. I think sponsor Don Good and the folks at the RAWF are wonderful for keeping this event running every year, and I can hardly wait for the Royal 2012. My weekend loaner horse, Sunday Best, was such a champ in the Ricoh Coliseum. I am still not super experienced with hopping on random horses and figuring them out right away, so I appreciate his cooperation and forgiveness for the mistakes I made! Competing in that setting is a lot to handle, and not many young horses could go in to a situation like that and be better for it. I was so proud of him for going in on the second night and buckling down to work, and I felt like I rode much better for him the second night. Thanks to the Simmonds family for letting me ride their lovely horse!

A few very exciting news updates…

County Saddlery has joined the SRB Equestrian crew! I am very lucky to have a partnership with such a reputable company, and I am feeling great riding in my Conquest jump and Perfection dressage saddles.

Check them out at www.countysaddlery.com

Also, tomorrow is the move to Ocala, FL. I look forward to having the chance to get baby Mosby rockin and rollin in the sunshine, and I can hardly wait to get as many lessons as I can with KOC and DOC on Vienna.

Aaaand!!! I can get on Ollie next week that is a nice change from all the handwalking. So now I will get to ride him, and in a couple weeks he will be hitting the aquatread at KESMARC Florida. So glad to be on track with him.

Anyways, thanks for reading guys. Keep ya posted on how things go in the sunny south.

Wrapping up the VA Fall Season

Well, folks. That’s it! Another season of eventing in Area 2 has come to an end. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it when I look at the calendar and see that there are still a few competitions going on, but I’m feeling great about how my horses have been performing at home and away, and I think they are ready to move on to their separate plans for the rest of 2011.

This past weekend was the Waredaca HT in Maryland. This is always a great event, and even though it is nearly 2 hours from the barn in Middleburg, it is well worth the early mornings!! This weekend was especially rewarding, with both William and Vienna putting in some great work. Will had one of those weekends where everything just seemed to come together. You know the ones. They are elusive, but my faith has been restored that they can happen!!
His owner and I put a lot of energy into making sure things are juuuust the way Willie likes them, and we were rewarded with a very relaxed, forward and flowing dressage test. What I wasn’t expecting was the freaking score. My hot little redheaded Thoroughbred and I leg yielded and counter cantered our anxiety into oblivion for 35 minutes in warmup and were rewarded with a 15!! I honestly thought it was a typo. He was great, and I was thrilled coming out of the ring, hoping it would be enough to put us ahead of the pack. I never in my life would have thought I would score in the teens at any level, so to do so at Preliminary on a horse I have been working with for a couple of years is seriously rewarding. After a few days of hacking around High Meadows farm in The Plains, Will is going to go home to Rappahannock county and spend the next few months regaling his retired pasture mates with stories of his awesomeness (Now, we’ll see if Stormy and John believe him!!)
The female member of my sassy red headed matched set was also a star this weekend. Miss Vienna had the most wonderful, forward and relaxed warmup that she has ever given me at a show (Thanks to the great final warmup area in the real footing right outside the competition arenas!!) She only lost a tiny bit of cadence going into the arena, and I really felt like she did a great job of staying loose through most of the test. Unfortunately for us, the judge has no idea how far we have come, so she still penalized our slightly nervous moments more heavily than I hoped. She scored a couple of 8′s in her canter work, but with a couple 5′s thrown in for moments of tension we lost our chance at being really competitive. She is a lovely mare and I’m lucky to have the ride on her. I have absolute faith that she we are building a great partnership! I have taken 4 lessons so far this fall with Lauren Spreiser in Marshall, VA and we have been working on some great exercises to get Vienna to relax her back and really engage her hind end. If she’s cute while she’s just kinda movin along, she’s LOVELY when she really gives it up. I’m so excited about her. She has been jumping 3’6″ at home for the last 6 weeks, so I think going into the Training level showjumping course felt like a breeze. That 3″ shorter was seriously easy for her, and she stayed calm and rideable while still giving a good effort at each fence. Cross country, of course, is a non issue for cocky little redheads like her, so its always a good time. I was so happy with the things that we achieved in the Dressage and Show Jumping phases on Saturday that I can hardly wait for every day that I get to keep practicing. I will continue to work with Lauren for the next couple of weeks, and then it will be off to sunny Florida to work with mom and pop O’Connor in prep for what I hope will be a great Preliminary level debut in January. There are lots of opportunities to go to schooling shows in the Ocala area, so I know we will have every possible chance to get our game face on.

Another super exciting thing on my November/December list of things to do is little mister Mosby’s big-kid-in-training education.
Now, those of you who have been following all year will remember Mo as the off the track Thoroughbred that was given to me by his owner Jeffrey Tucker and trainer Jimmy Miranda. I rode this adorable dude at work in the spring of 2010, when he was 2, and it was love at first ride. He was a shrimpy little plain bay fuzzball with the best natural balance I had ever sat on. I started riding him in the roundpen outside the shedrow, then in the big pasture, and eventually on the track where Mos demonstrated his innate ability to be very pretty and very very slow. thank goodness he proved to be consistent in these abilities, and after Jeffrey and Jimmy tried everything they knew how to do for the whole of 2010 to get his butt to MOVE, he was given to me in February of 2011. Since then he has grown 2 inches, gained about 200 pounds and turned into a serious hunk!! Secrets out, he just didnt want to be a racehorse. Who knows if he wants to be an event horse, either, but thats what we’re about to find out. He is coming 4 in January, and he walk trot canters (both leads!!) and hacks around wherever with the dog crashing through the underbrush. He’s a winner in my books. Nov/Dec we will learn to do some on line work and hopefully learn to jump like a baby rockstar in prep for a Beginner Novice in January.

The big man is up to 25 minutes of hand walking, and I split this up into 2 so we have a lovely stroll with Shelby dog in the morning and again in the afternoon. Dr Ober comes back up north from her adventures with the team in Guadalejara to hopefully green light us for some even longer (perhaps mounted?) walks. If I have to keep handwalking him, I’m buying some skechers shape ups.

Anyways, now all I have to do is start counting the days until the Royal Winter Fair(10) and look forward to spending a chilly but fun filled weekend in the Ricoh Coliseum

Thanks for reading.

Fair Hill Week, not quite as planned

Well, for any of you who keep tabs on me at all, you were probably wondering why Ollie hasn’t surfaced anywhere since Southern Pines at the beginning of September.
Turns out that we are out for the fall season, and didn’t get to head up to Elkton, MD with everyone else. It looks like we will be back at it before too long, and have a good shot at a 2011 spring season.

As for the rest of the crowd, everything seems so far so good. Vienna was very brave and rideable at Middleburg in her 3rd training level event and William and I finished 2nd in our Prelim debut after a week of rain and mud here in Northern Virginia.

William was also very very good at the Maryland HT this past weekend, although 2 unlucky rails in the showjumping left us down in 8th place. I was very happy with his attitude in all three phases, and thought that the challenging xc was not a problem at all for Will!

Looking forward to Waredaca next weekend, and lots and lots of hand walking and quality time with my Ollie man.

Thanks for reading

Five Points Horse Trials

After a very successful weekend at the Carolina Horse Park, I would have to say that I’m feeling very good about my plans for the rest of the fall season.

I had a very successful return to the Advanced level with Ollie, finishing 2nd after adding just one rail to our competitive dressage score. Obviously, after making a mistake and popping off at Richland, I was bound and determined to make things go well at Five Points. Tremaine Cooper certainly gave us enough to do on the 7:17sec Advanced track, but that was just how I wanted it. One of the reasons that I made the 6 hour hike to Raeford, NC was because I knew the track would be awesome and it didn’t leave me wanting more!!

The offset houses out of the barn, two tough coffin complexes and several other combinations that made you ride forward and stick to your guns was exactly what I needed to rebuild my confidence at this level. I rode with a purpose and Ollie stepped right up to the plate and rocked around like a champ.

Little miss Vienna completed her second Training level event in style, shaving 9 points off her last dressage test and adding just one tired-pony rail to her score. She is so brave cross country, which makes my job easy. I am focusing on getting the ride right for an even better dressage test with this mare in the future. She has all the pieces, but she’s definitely a challenge!! She finished 8th in a large, competitive division and I couldn’t be more pleased.

Now, back to rainy Virginia ( yayyy for the footing… boo for the fact that I just bought two cans of camp dry for every thing I own)

Wishing everyone luck at the American Championships in Georgia this weekend, and looking forward to a few weeks of dressage and fitness work on the nice squishy ground!!

Stay tuned

The long drive home

So, sometimes things don’t go the way we want them to. I’m learning that this year, maybe repeating it a bit more often than I’d like..

I was feeling great heading into this weekend, very excited to get back at it with the big guy. After his very competitive dressage test, I was feeling even better about it all!! The course looked great, the footing was a dream come true, and Ollie started out like a million bucks!!! Unfortunately, the thing about our sport is that it doesn’t take much to go from great to sitting on your you-know-what marveling at the fact that you’re done for the day.

I’ve decided to treat this situation as such; this past Saturday at approximately 1218pm I was given a kick in the pants by Ian Stark’s wonderfully challenging course to be a more proactive and attentive rider. I hope to go to every competition in the future and ride around like I really mean it, not just like I’m here to have a good time. No excuses, just an appreciation for what I have to do to get it done, and gratitude that I had this moment here, and not somewhere where my results let down people other than myself!!

Take note that the Advanced at Southern Pines this weekend has been added to the competition schedule!!

Thankfully, Vienna was a rockstar this weekend. She will be even more fun on the flat once we relax enough to walk the WHOLE way down the diagonal… But whatever, she more than made up for it when she was being so brave in both jumping phases. I’m so excited about this girl, I think she’s going to grow up to be very special!

We are a few miles from home now after a layover in Pittsburgh and a lightning fast, interstate-side tire change. ( I love power tools ).

Here we go, on to the next!

…

Steph

Richland Park

Well, on this stormy Wednesday morning, we are headed North to compete at the Richland Park Horse Trials. I am catching a ride with my friend and barnmate Lisa Barry, for which I’m sure my rig is grateful!

We have 4 horses, 2 dogs and oh my goodness SO much stuff, and we will be very happy to arrive at our destination.

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to have a dressage lesson with the elusive David O’Connor, of which Ollie I haven’t seen much all summer. Even though we have only had 3 lessons since Ollie came back into work for the summer/fall season, he has been very obedient and rideable for me. I have been working on a lot of the homework I was given by David and Gunnar Ostergaard during the spring season to get Ollie more engaged and working over his back better. So, after a good warmup I was able to start my lesson on the right foot, and David helped us work on getting an even better general quality of gaits as I ran through pieces of the test I have to do on Thursday in Michigan.

http://useventing.com/competitions.php?section=dressage&id=2224

He sure feels good! My goal is to get that same quality of movement into the arena, and then to make my test have a smooth and accurate feel to it. I can sometimes get a little too aggressive in the ring, and end up making it look a lot more difficult than it already is as my horse worries about what the wild crazy girl on his back is trying to achieve!

I also have The Ortynsky family’s CWB mare Vienna with me getting set to do her first Training. She has been working really well, and she really enjoyed her cross country school yesterday morning at Morningside Training Farm in Warrenton. My goal for her this weekend is to put a more educated and confident horse back on the trailer to go home. She might be a little nervous in the sandbox, but we will learn more about what works and what doesn’t this weekend. She should be a lot of fun!!

Anyways, we are set for an 11 am arrival so the ponies can rest while we unpack. They will both stretch and hack around this evening, and Ollie does his dressage at 130 Thursday afternoon.

Look for updates through the weekend!! Super excited to be blogging from my iPhone!!

Steph

Blog Home Central

Welcome to the new home of my blog! I’m very excited about the new direction of my online world, and I’m looking forward to working with this new format.

Please bear with me as I get things up and running and figure out how to get the most out of the WordPress system! Feel free to leave a comment or send me a message with any suggestions and comments…

SRB