2008 News

The last six weeks have been a total blurr. Between managing family, Art's breeding contracts, competitions, and my full time job, it is a wonder I can see straight (and even that is questionable at times!). I think it all came to a head last weekend at the Area III championships where I just could not get the job done to my "normal" expectations, but more on that later.

The end of May brought a very exciting milestone for our family when Ethan graduated from High School. We were all quite proud when he graduated along with over 600 other senior classmates. Tuesday after the graduation Devon and I packed up Dan and all her "stuff" and headed north for her annual 5 week stint at Blue Hill Farm where she works for Missy Ransehausen. I dropped her off and turned around and made the long haul back home in time to be in the office by Friday. Then I spent two weeks back and forth to CA for work, as well as a week in Vancouver, BC. I managed to keep Art and Monte going in between the flights here and there, and felt physically pepared for the Championships at Poplar Place Farm.

The weekend of the championships brought a premature heat wave to Georgia. The championship division which I ran Art in was the most competitive we had ever been up against - almost all professionals and REALLY nice horses. Unfortunatley my head was not in the game, and I made some pretty pathetic mistakes all weekend which cost us time faults on XC (two circles before the last jump bc I spaced on optimum time) and rails in stadium. Art was in great form, I unfortunatley was not. Here are the photos from David Mullinix Photography. >Poplar Pics >>

His dressage was awesome as usual, and you can see he was jumping well, but as Mike Winter said, both rails were at the two verticals from left hand turns where I just wasn't straight (and you can see that in the pics on the first vertical; the second vertical he took from behind which is always a rider error).

It is time to simplify things a bit and regroup. Easier said then done, but necessary. Our next competition is not until early August, so that will give us time to decompress. Then we pretty much begin our fall season which includes the AECs and possibly a one star for Dan and Monte.

Spring is here!!!!!

We managed to build a Spring Competition schedule of 4 competitions in a 5 week time period. We squeezed them in between Varsity soccer games and over Spring break. As the saying goes, if there is a will, there is a way. We began the schedule with a one day at Sporting Days in South Carolina on Sunday, March 16th. Timing was perfect for us. All three boys were great, considering we worked out of the trailer all day. Whether they were tied to the trailer, backing in and out, or standing inside, they were incredibly tolerant. We had a great day with great results.

The second event in the series was FENCE the following weekend in North Carolina. Saturday's dressage was awesome. Art won the dressage, Monte put in a great Prelim test, and Devon improved on her previous test at Sporting Days. Devon and Donna were in the same Open Preliminary division. Following Devon in show jumping, Donna went in and had a fantastic round up until the final jump which was an ascending triple bar. Donna unfortunately did not half halt on the approach, and Monte misjudged the jump. He jumped into the back rail, fell to his knees and rolled on the back side of the jump. He ended up with a very sore left shoulder, but otherwise fine. Although quite rattled, Donna went in and jumped Art in the training division with a clear round following the fall. Dan and Art had a fabulous day on Sunday, going clean XC.

The third in our series was the first weekend of Spring break at Pine Top farm. We had a wonderful weekend stabling along side our good friends Cindy and Katie Philips. Monte was scratched as his shoulder was still sore. In spite of the rain on Saturday, we had great dressage tests and show jumping rounds. Art once again won the dressage with a 26.1. Cross country was a blast on Sunday. Devon ended up second in Open Preliminary and qualified for the AECs. Very, very exciting for her.

Directly following Pine Top we hauled the horses over to my sister Tracey's in Aiken for a two day visit. Since Roger had to travel for work Monday, Ethan piled the three dogs in his truck and met us over there. Poor Tracey and Jim had the Miller Brown's descend on them - horses, dogs, and all!! Too short a visit, but fun.

The final show was this past weekend at the new event, Chattahoochee Hills in Fairburn, GA. It is a beautiful facility and very close to home. Once again we had the good fortune to stable next to Katie and Cindy Philips.

We had rain Friday night and Saturday morning, which caused some footing issues, but the organizers did a great job moving jumps around to ensure a safe course. Monte was originally entered in Preliminary, but since the fall at FENCE, was dropped to Training. It was a tough weekend for Donna bringing Monte back after FENCE, but he got better and better as the weekend progressed and ended with a great XC run on Sunday.

Devon and Dan had a beautiful XC round and finished within the time. This was a first for both of them on their most challenging course. Art put in his usual awesome dressage test, winning the dressage in a very competitive field, but Donna's nerves got the best of her (she show jumped Monte first) and took three rails, a first for Art. Well, everyone except our good friend Cindy Phillips and her amazing off the track TB, Time To Flare, had rails. That moved Cindy and Buddy to first, and amazingly enough, only dropped Art and Donna to second. They held on to that on Sunday with another great XC run. It was great to see Cindy and Buddy win a very competitive division on their dressage score.

Next up - the ACPS Inspections in two weeks at Fort Rucker, Alabama.

_____________________________________________________________ February
_____________________________________________________________ *****NEWS FLASH*****
Art wins ACPS/USEA 2007 National Purebred Horse of the year for Eventing at the Novice level. _______________________________________________________________
Our first event for this month was Pine Top Farm. We had Monte and Dan entered at Training, but had to scratch Monte due to an infected puncture which was healing, but had too much time off and wasn't ready. So, in went Art. I had not been planning to move him up to Training yet, but figured I would give it a go and at a minimum make it a combined test, knowing they run dressage and Stadium on Saturday.

The weather was spectacular - paybacks from Poplar. Art and Dan once again scored the same - 27.9 - in front of two different judges, placing them first in Training Horse and Junior Training respectively. Art scored two 9's and a WOW! from the judge on his canter lengthening. Art jumped clean stadium, and Dan had a rail, but enough of a lead kept them in first.

I walked the XC, and although a challenging one for move-up, I decided to run Art. I did not push for time, and he put in a gallant effort but 8.4 time faults dropped him to 3rd. Once conditioned, he should be able to make the time easily.

Devon and Dan had a fantastic run, finishing clean and well within the time, to hold their first place.

This is our last recognized show until March, as Devon accomplished her goal of making the Milton HS Varsity Soccer Team. She practices every day after school and has games every Friday.

We started the year well with an outing at Poplar Place Farm. Winter in Georgia is diverse. You can have warm, balmy 50+ degress, or you can have freezing rain and thirties. We had all of it. Friday's arrival was quite nice - fifties and dry. Saturday dawned grey and rainy, with the temperature steadily dropping, and the wind steadily picking up. Fortunatley we packed as many jackets and rain coats as we possessed, and the organizers let us wear whatever we wanted.

When Devon was asked about her bulky attire (about 6 layers) she stated that it was helpful for dressage and would help keep her position bc she couldnt move! Well, it must have worked, bc she and Dan pulled a 25 in dressage.

The organizers had to scramble bc the jumping field was flooded and they moved the whole course into the warmup ring. This ended up juggling the schedule, but all divisions were set to continue.

Sunday dawned frozen solid. I had to kick the doors of the truck open as they had frozen during the night. The ground was frozen and fortunately we had filled the water buckets the night before, as the water spickets did not thaw until late in the day. Cross country was not cancelled, however the ice skating ring (aka the water jump) was removed from the course. Since our horses were just going Novice and Training, we decided to continue and show jump and run XC.

In spite of the weather, Devon and Dan won JN on their dressage score, as did Donna and Art in the NH division. Monte came in a respectable 4th in OT.