Clinic Weekend in Pennsylvania

When I flew to Philadelphia on Friday it was a balmy 59 degrees there.  When I left yesterday it had dropped to a more seasonable temperature of 33 degrees with a blizzard en route.  My flight left the Philly airport at 4:55.  Snow had dusted the ground through the day.  We learned when we landed in Orlando that by 6:30 P.M. the storm had hit and the airport had shut down.  I was actually sad to miss the snow storm, because I do love snow when you can hunker down and sit by the fire all day.  When you have horses to ride, however, the snow can impede you.  Right now I have horses to ride!

We had a good group who participated in the clinic this weekend, and although I could see some decline in the fitness and coordination of both the horses and the riders (which is perfectly normal for the equestrian in Philadelphia in late February), overall I was pleased by the level of riding. 

Back in Florida, we are spending the week preparing for the Rocking Horse Spring Horse Trials next weekend.  I will take Doc over to Bruce Davidson's farm tomorrow or Wednesday for an intensive jumping school.  My plan was to run him intermediate this weekend and advanced in his next run.  I just found out that because of the cancellation of another event, Rocking Horse is going to add an advanced this weekend.  Pending how the jump school goes, I may bump him up, but I have a feeling I will stick to my original plan.  I was happy with letting him have two runs at sub-advanced level to get him going again.  Jet will also run this weekend at preliminary level.

Off to do trot sets!

Ashley

Results, Rocking Horse III

Doc jumped double clean in stadium with no problem and then skipped around cross country with 3.2 time faults and no jumping faults.  He finished 7th out of 24 in his preliminary division.  More importantly, however, is the fact that our test run was a great success and his knee is stone cold today.  I think Doc is officially back in action.  He will run intermediate in two weeks and then Advanced at Southern Pines in March.  It is almost time to bring the "R" word (Rolex) back into our vocabulary.  If we run well at Southern Pines, we will make another bid for Rolex this year.  Jet also jumped clean on cross country, but with a few more time faults he finished 14th overall.

We had a really fun weekend with a lot of people in town to visit us.  The Wetherills came to see their horses run and my student Lynn Rzonca, who also rides at Ardfuar in Pennsylvania, came down for four days with her parents for a little mini-vacation.  My mom and Holley also came to the show.  Pictured here are the Wetherills, Holley (in the pink hat), me, Jet (the chestnut) and Doc (the bay).

    

How surreal life is!  Today is the first day of Rocking Horse Winter III and here I am at the show grounds on my wireless card catching up on my blog!  I am competing Jet and Doc at preliminary here this weekend.  Between last weekend and this weekend life has been crazy as I tried to catch up after the show last weekend, finish my taxes, host another event rider from Texas, and do a final few schools to prep for this weekend.  On top of all of this, the Wetherills are visiting this weekend as well as my student Lynn Rzonca and her parents. 

Today we did dressage and show jumping and tomorrow we do cross country.  Jet scored a 37.5 in dressage and Doc scored a 38.3 with a different judge.  Jet jumped stadium well but took one rail down.  Doc will go at 4:44.  Below are some final pictures from last weekend.  The horse pictures are the Irish draught stallion K.E.C. Double Diamond.  I rode him for my dressage instructor here in Ocala, Jutta Heinshon.  We competed in novice and it was his first horse trials.  "Oisin" was fabulous and jumped clean everywhere to finish fifth of about twenty four horses.  Our go inspired Jutta to compete him at a dressage show in a few weeks.  

I'm off to ride Doc! 

Ashley 

Gavin jumping a bench.

Gavin's Glory in beginner novice at his first event.

Gavin's Glory is my mom's off the track thoroughbred that she bought last year.  He has been in training with me since the beginning of December and he just did his first horse trials at the beginner novice level this past weekend.  He was a champion and finished third in his division.  He is for sale.  Does anyone need a thoroughbred event horse?

Pictures from the weekend

Hi All!  Sorry I haven't gotten these up sooner.  I'm trying to get our taxes all squared away!  This set is of Monte competing at training level last weekend.  

Doc is back to jumping

The best news of the last few weeks is that Doc is jumping again and his leg is doing fine.  The Wetherills are planning to visit us in another ten days and they will be just in time to see Doc back to competing.  I am going to run him in the prelim division at Rocking Horse the weekend of the 20th to the 22nd.  We will see if his knee holds up to the competing and then go from there.  

This weekend at the Ocala Horse Trails I am competing my mom's horse Gavin (pictured at bottom) in his first event in the BN division, the Irish stallion Oisin (pictured below) in his first event in the novice division, and my horse Monte in the training horse division.  In general, there are not as many snow birds down here this winter, but this show will be going strong with over 440 entries.  

I'll report more over the weekend.

Ashley