Show Photos from FCDA Schooling Show, April 2012

The next weekend, we loaded up a bunch of students to attend FCDA's Schooling show, and again Linda came armed with a camera.  Here's the fruits of her labors.

Thanks Linda for all of the great shots. Too bad you didn't catch the one of Chris and Joe leaping from the ring... but then, it wouldn't be as funny without her yelling "Oh #it!"

Chris and Joe, fully recovered from the unplanned leap from the dressage ring.

Alexa and Ockie

Joyce and Pikasso

Jess and Moe

Liz just chillin'

Liz again, this time with Rocky

Kelsey and Pee Wee

Paige and Maggie

Show photos from Morven Park, April 2012

I'm still behind a bit, but thought I'd steal a few minutes to post photos from our first two shows. These are from Morven Park, April 2012 show. Secret was also along, but Linda didn't send me photos of her this time. She was fantastic, she is already qualified for Regionals.  Not a bad start to the show season!

Rebecca brought James, and I took my Morgan pony, Mandy for her first outing. We met tons of friends at the show, and of course had a great time.

This is Ensign's Stately Mandolyn, my Morgan pony, at her first show. She is SUPER.

Check out that hind leg! How fancy is that??

Mandy again. Ok, I'll quit now, but I so rarely I get to be the proud horse-mom :-).

James and Rebecca kicked butt at their first 1st level outing.

They really have come a long way. March 2011 was her first dressage lesson.  James has proved to be as amazing a dressage horse as he was a hunter. What an athlete.

And so it Begins

The slow time of year apparently is over. Not that it was all that slow this year…

We usually start our show season in May, but this winter has been unseasonably warm, and the horses have been schooling so well, we decided to attend VADA/NOVA’s spring show at Morven Park held over Easter weekend.

As usual, the weather made an impact on the scores. It was WINDY, and that wind had a cold edge to it. Secret was her usual stellar self on day one, but the wind had emptied her gas tank for day two. Mandy was really, really overwhelmed by the big warmbloods and cold wind, so my rock-star pony didn’t show very well.  Rebecca’s mount, James, seems to love cold, windy days—he was awesome, becoming the high-score SFD rider at this show with a 69.355 in First 3 on Sunday.  We brought home enough ribbons and stories to make the trip well worth it.

March and April we crammed in a whirlwind of clinics, hosting Phoebe DeVoe with OVCTA, attending Acadia Farm’s clinic with Lendon Gray, Hawk Hollow’s clinic with Catharine Haddad-Staller, and our usual trips down to Hasslers. With all of this consistent help, the horses are going great. 

And it continues—this weekend a bunch of students are competing at FCDA’s schooling show at Journey’s End, which is just around the corner. The next two weekends have JJ Tate and Linda Zang both hosted locally.  Then there’s our Training Demonstration this Saturday, on creating a plan for your horse’s workouts.

So, hence the short, just-the-facts blog.  Hopefully I’ll have some time in the next week or so do write more. Until then, happy riding.

Fruits of Our Labor

Riding is about horses, but the horse industry is all about the people.  I work hard to make our barn a safe, drama-free community where riders get a break from the stress and emotions of daily life.  I dare say, the teenagers need this as much, if not more than, the adult amateurs.

I’m sure this goes back to my own teenage years. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that Overtime, the big event horse I leased throughout high school, went a long way towards channeling my wild-child side. And as important as Overtime, Diane and Fred Peterson, his owners, became my “horse show parents.” They filled the roll of the “cool adults” in my life.  You know, that person who magically shows up with logical advice about the time your parents become impossible, illogical humans you are forced to live with until college.  Without their help, who knows how I would have turned out.

I try to return the favor. I try to be the listening ear when needed and to be the giver of sage, or not-so-sage, advice (don’t change yourself for anyone, learn to drive while eating ice cream, live life for the stories as well as the goals), and sometimes some of it sticks.   

Teenagers have a habit of growing up.  One of the kids from years past is already married with 2 kids, and three others are tying the knot in 2012.  Last weekend I attended one of the weddings.  I haven’t seen Victoria since last June, but the warm reception from both her and her parents confirmed I was as important to Victoria as Diane and Fred were to me. I admit I am sentimentally happy to have been a part of her, and frankly, all of my horse teenagers growing-up years.

I stayed in the area and judged a fix-a-test the next day, and her father stopped by to show me the latest award that had arrived from USDF. “The fruits of your labor,” he called it. 

“No,” I corrected him, “a good grown-up is the fruits of our labor.” 


And that really is how I see it.  My horses, and the people that surround them, inspire me every day to be not only the best rider I can be, but a more compassionate, understanding person. If I can help pass a little bit of this on to our next generation, hopefully they will remember the lessons, both in and out of the stirrup.  


They say it takes a village to raise a child, I'm glad I can be part of that community. Congratulations Victoria and Angel, Samantha and Ryan, and Lisa and Skylar, and I wish you all many happy years together. Now it's your turn to be the village for the next group of young people trying to become good grown-ups. 

  

The calm before the storm

Like any business, the horse business has its busy times and its slow times.  My slow times seem to be rather limited the last few years – January is usually pretty quiet, but by February the winter short-term training horses usually arrive, which means busy, but busy at home.  In March and April our area usually has some pretty fun clinics, involving busy days, but again, mostly I get to sleep in my own bed.  But then, in April show season picks up, and things roll along until the first weekend in November.

Which means right now I am enjoying the calm before the storm. But I’m not so sure Amy and Kelsey are…

Because when I have time, I think too much, and come up with lots of great ideas, which, of course, trickle down to Amy and Kelsey’s job lists.  The big items in the last two weeks have been organizing, leveling stalls, and parasite management.

Working for a red-headed hyper type-A dressage geek means that down time usually means organize.  I HATE looking for things, and with 22 horses, keeping things neat is a daily challenge.  Hence whenever SFD has down-time, I pull out my p-touch label maker and go nuts. Everything needs a place, and if things return to their place, then the order in our tack room defies the disorder in my thoughts. 

With the spring organizing comes the spring pitch-session. We did a respectable job getting things clean before the clinic, but now I’m taking it a step further.  The back cubbies get sorted out and extra stuff stored up stairs, taken to Equine Exchange, or tossed.  Systems for efficient storage need purchased and put into place.  That squirt bottle that we don’t use because it sticks now lives in the garbage instead of on top of the water heater. Clutter goes away. 

The stalls also get addressed this time of year. I don’t care for stall mats, which means we must routinely add screenings to keep stalls level.  When we are in there, we also spray the walls down with dilute bleach to kill any ascarids that may be using a stall for breeding – which is part of our parasite program.

A big part of the worm program is the spring pasture cleaning. So far, we have cleaned 3 of our 10 smaller fields completely and are picking them weekly.  On the 1^st, I’ll rent a big trailer and everyone will pitch in to get the two huge pastures cleaned.  I do this because worms can’t breed inside of the host, which means if we can eliminate Mr. Parasite from meeting Mrs. Parasite in our fields, then there are less expecting Mrs. Parasites to re-infest our fields, and then re-infest our horses. 

I have been picking paddocks and pastures as long as SFD has been around, and it has paid off. This year we did fecal counts on all of the horses, and (yes, I am bragging here) any horse that has been in my care for more than a year was essentially clean.  Which means we only need to worm these guys twice this year, and save the stress that worming products put on their systems and on the environment.

Then, on April 7, the show season begins. And Amy and Kelsey can get a break.  I'm sure they are looking forward to it.

Clinic Preparations

I like riding in clinics. Investing in my education is really important to me. I enjoy seeing what another dressage pro does with the raw material I work with every day, having an additional set of eyes to catch the inevitable training holes from working on my own, and getting to meet other  like-minded horse folks. 

I was helping one of my endurance friends (she rides 100 miles. Seriously. 100 miles is for cars.) at a race, and someone complained about something, I really don’t remember what, and my friend replied “you really don’t have the right to complain until you have organized a race.”  I thought that was sage advice, so I try to host at least one clinic a year. Because let me tell you, hosting is very different than riding.

This year, again in partnership with OVCTA, we are hosting Phebe DeVoe, a popular ‘r’ judge and FEI trainer based in MD. I like Phoebe a lot, her positive attitude and fun personality make her great to stable near at shows. 

The clinic is this Saturday, and it is full with a waiting list (YEA!) and we expect auditors. So of course, the spring cleaning has commenced. This is also our first major event at our new home, so we want everything to look really spiffy.

Amy and Kelsey have been sweeping, scrubbing, and organizing.  Our barn has stalls at the end of the indoor, with overhead hay storage, which Kelsey creatively stacked it into stadium seating.  We moved the winter blanket storage to make room for refreshments. I made myself stay inside part of this GORGEOUS week to make a schedule and a program and a blog about the clinic. I took the opportunity to purchase a wireless headset system to the riders can clearly hear Phoebe.  I have been prepping my students as to how to prioritize their warm-up, how to stay organized and on time as you get ready, and how to get a tail really, really clean. 

So it is now Friday, day before the clinic, and SFD is pretty much ready.  All we have left to do is the final arena footing prep and make the order-of-event sheet for the staff (yea, I’m anal like that). And post a blog and constant contact. And make sure Phoebe and the auditors lunch is picked up. And ride. Oh yea, ride.

I actually get a bit more nervous for clinics than I do for competition – clinicians evaluate my training process, judges judge the finished product.  The “finished product” includes factors the horse brought with it when they arrived in training – genetics, previous training, inherent crookedness, etc. so I feel like I am responsible for about 50% of the score.  But the training process? That’s all on me.

This time, my barn organization and stable management are also on display, an additional stress absent from clinics I trailer out to. 

At this point, 24-hours from start time, my attitude towards clinic organizers is one of amazement. How do they do this if they work a full-time job and don’t have an Amazing Amy or a Kick-butt Kelsey to help? I am suddenly quite patient that the ride times aren’t available until the week of the clinic and that the parking isn’t clearly marked.

So my friend was right, organizing a clinic does cure all complaints.

Let the rides begin!

Mastering Habits

 Several years ago, I attended Gil Merrik’s Mastery Class down at Hassler Dressage. I almost didn’t sign up, as the name “Mastery Class” seemed a bit touchy-feely-vague for my tastes, but I got the impression they were a bit short on people, and I had the day free, so thought I’d be a good egg and attend. 

Boy, am I glad I went.  I was pretty blown away by how much I got out of that day. Now, years later, I still refer to my notes from Gil’s class.  Last week, in preparation for our annual “Show Goals and Planning Party,” I again reread those notes, and realized that when I applied one part of Gil’s class, I reaped unexpected results.

The part I am referring to is Gil’s discussion about moving goals forward.  He talked about taking goal planning one step further, and creating a process for achieving those goals. He explained his process, which involved making a commitment, applying certain actions to that commitment, and getting results.  He had a nifty white-board to draw all of these circles and arrows on (my notes actually call this ‘the circle thingy for goals’), but I am limited a bit by the media, so I’ll do my best to explain it in words.

It starts like this:

            Commitment + action = results

According to Gil, when commitments match up with actions, trust and integrity are created.

Underneath it all, I am a practical Midwestern girl, and I remember rolling my eyes (inside, of course—once I hit my mid 30s I learned to do that, well, sort of) at Gil’s whole discussion of creating trust and integrity. Integrity is all well and good, but not very measurable, so I had a hard time correlating “integrity” with the more concrete, usually-quite-measurable “goal.” 

Aside from that, the next part really resonated with me. He said the problem with this equation is not the results, it is taking the stand.

Because by taking the stand, I could, by definition, fail. Without a stand, there is no failure. But with a stand, there is. Failure is scary. And let’s face it, fear can easily lead to creating stories. As kids, how many stories did we tell to avoid punishment? But a story is not an action, and when we replace action with story, we get our second equation:

Commitment + story = no results

But the bigger problem is, in our culture -

                        no results + a good story = kinda looks like results

But that's not true. 

                        In reality, no result + a story = no results. 

According to Gil, in this situation, there's no integrity and no trust.  He stated that taking responsibility for our words and commitments needs to matter to us.  Which I agreed with, but I’m kinda hard wired to “say what you mean, and mean what you say,” so again, I didn’t find the integrity part all that earth shattering. But seeing how clearly stories can derail results, well, that did resonate.

Gil went further. He said the additional danger of the story is it is based on your history, your past and your experiences, not necessarily all of the facts.  This may be incomplete info, but we perceive it as THE TRUTH, and boy, is it easy to fall in love with THE TRUTH – just look at all of the different religions, exercise nuts, health food advocates, the list goes on.  Once someone has fallen in love with TRUTH, we will defend our truth. A quick look at the current political climate confirms this. TRUTH is really easy to commit to, but then actions line up with the story, instead of with the commitment, which leads to no results. Which is all too common.

Last week, as I re-read the notes, I realized I had applied Gil’s process of moving goals forward to Venus, and in large part, that process had been as much a part of her rehab as the vet services.

Here’s how it applies to me—I bought Venus, and told everyone that I was going to do FEI Young Horse with her and then take her to Prix St George, which meant I needed help. So I took my first lesson with Scott Hassler, the USEF Young Horse coach.  That was my action to support my commitment.  I did my homework, and returned for regular lessons.

Before you get to thinking “well, she had this great opportunity and this great horse, of course that’s what she did.” Yea, no.  Venus was the best horse I could afford, and my budget was very, very small.  I could afford a nice front end, a nice back end, or a nice brain. I went for the back end, but the problems came out with her fearful, slightly tense brain. She ran through my aids A LOT as a youngster. 

Plus, have you seen the horses at Hassler’s? Hasslers arena was, and is, full of beautiful horses, being ridden by beautiful riders who seem never to move, or have ineffective aids, or get frustrated, and I was just trying to steer and stop enough to not run into them.

Many, many times I nearly quit going. I nearly bought into the stories I told myself -- I’m just a poor working horseperson just trying to get along, not like the rich, pretty riders down there, or I can’t afford to give up 6 hours, I could get a lot done, etc.   But I didn’t, not because of integrity, or honesty, or any other abstract term.  I kept going because going down there every-other Wednesday became a pattern, and everyone knew that was my pattern, and would ask about my lessons, which, of course, reinforced the pattern. Soon, that pattern became a habit.

After a while, that habit began to yielded results—Venus started to become more consistent in her responses, I started to develop a bit of confidence, and she and I competed in the FEI 5-year-old division. So for me, Gil’s equation began to look more like this:

            Commitment + action = habit = more commitment + more actions = results

Then Venus got hurt. I did the rehab, and put her back in training.  Frankly, I wasn't hopeful of her becoming an FEI horse. I bought into the story that she had done a lot of damage to her body, and probably wouldn’t make it.

But aside from that story, I had a habit. I was in the habit of climbing on her back and heading to the ring every day, and putting her in the trailer and heading down for Scott’s help on a regular basis. So I kept up my habit.

Last winter her training became really, really frustrating, but again, my habit was to take her in the arena, so I kept going.  When I was off of her, I would lament about her lack of progress, but my habit was strong, and I just kept putting my foot in the stirrup and swinging a leg over.

And somewhere, when I was doing what was habitual, Venus began to blossom.  She has become the light, forward, delightful horse I dreamed of when I bought her, and our short-term goal became to compete 3^rd level this year, with goals of moving up in the future.

All because of mastering a habit.