Page 1 - January

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January 5-6	Driving to Florida. . . spent the night in Orangeburg South Carolina at a Holiday Inn Express which was filled with participants in that local "coon hunt" - the largest such event in the country I now know. I had never heard of such a thing and I have to assume that "coon hunting" is illegal everywhere but Orangeburg SC, which explains why this hunt was the largest in the country. I met a man who sells "coon dog kennels" and he gave me some brochures. I think that he thought I was a kindred spirit with be big pick-up truck and trailer. On Sunday morning My truck started making a strange, and frankly bad, noise. With a mere 650 miles to go why worry! But worry I did for all 650 miles of the trip and I worried more after taking a look under my hood to find that a large chunk of insulation had ripped off the inside of the engine compartment and was now stuck in the fan belt. I actually did make it to Wellington and I am sure that everyone could hear my arrival for miles away. It was so great to pull down the driveway and finally be done driving. It is like Little Cleveland here at Havensafe Farm South this year and I had plenty of help unloading my trailer from Lauren Ball-Tisdale and her husband Chad.
January 7	Today was a day of unpacking. First I unpacked my room in the house. I am living on the farm this year with Betsy in her beautiful house which is decorated very stylishly in the manner of a Ralph Lauren concept home. This is a major departure from last year's ultra-modern digs at the polo club and feels much cozier. Of course all recent living arrangements represent a huge improvement over my first season in the condo with the giant rat (life sans rat is much nicer). I also unpacked the rest of my trailer and then the horses arrived about 1:00 and I unpacked them too. They all did really well and came off the semi bright-eyed and energetic. Throughout the day of unpacking I was able to watch the goings on in the front ring which is conveniently located right across from my stalls. The day began with Rocher, who looks better than ever, and kept going with one great horse after the next. George rode one of Betsy's new horses Don Bailey and that was great fun to watch too. Lauren and I are stabled next to each other and this seems to be compounding the confusion about just which one of us is which. Joanne Smith started asking me a bunch of questions this morning which didn't make any sense to me and I was feeling a little flustered until Chuck piped up and said "Joanne, that is Sarah not Lauren". It concerns me that someone who has known both of us for about 5 years would still be so confused. I am beginning to think that we are becoming completely interchangeable. Both Lauren and I went to dinner tonight with Betsy and other Clevelanders Joanne White, Mary Austin Modic and Alicia Norris (who were all able to tell us apart tonight but probably won't be able to for much longer).
January 8	The horses were surprisingly vigorous this morning. I was anticipating a little exhaustion after such a long trip but I was wrong. I hand walked everyone around and then put them out in their little paddocks for some sun. The three of them have become unbearably attached and anytime one of the bunch is out of sight for a moment they all remain in constant verbal contact by the not so subtle means of screaming and whinnying, hopefully this will pass. I watched George ride Rocher while cleaning my stalls, a pleasant distraction, then Lauren and I headed over to see Mary Austin who is stabled at Robert Dover's facility in Palm Beach Point. We got there in time to watch Tami Crawford ride in a lesson with Dover. He was telling Tami that she had to be able to ride through the entire Grand Prix with one hand (she was managing it but as I can't get through the PSG with both hands I think that this technique is one that I won't try at home) and boy was he insistent about it. While we were watching her ride another girl came out on a horse and Mary Austin told us that she was the winner of Dover's Dressage Idol. As soon as she came out Dover yelled at her to put her right toe forward (and he sounded like he meant it or else) so all of us who were watching quickly snapped our toes forward and sat up a little straighter. Lauren is watching the show on-line and said that it was just like one of the episodes. Though the lessons do appear grueling he really seems to help each rider get the most out of her horse and that was enjoyable to watch though it made me a little stressed at the time. In the afternoon I had some time to sit and watch George ride Betsy's horses. It was particularly exciting to watch him on her new Horse Don Bailey who is a real pleasure to watch with a light cadenced trot and a great attitude.
January 9	This morning I decided that it was definitely time to put the horses to work. They had way too much energy for it being so warm and I didn't want them to get any fresher before I rode. Lauren had the same plan so we sort of worked our horses on the buddy system, pairing a young and frightened one with an older quieter one so that everyone felt safe. We realized while doing this that not only do WE look alike but so do our horses (we both have a dark bay, a chestnut and a gray here with us) which I am sure will compound our identity problem. The horses were pretty good though I think that Felina was very disappointed to find that this was not actually going to be a vacation. She clearly suspected that this whole experience was not going to be to her liking when I was the first person she saw when they opened the doors on the semi. She looked as if she might prefer to just get off at the next stop thank you very much. However, she is now conflicted in her feelings towards me as I feed her (all day long), clean her stall (about five times a day) and turn her out. Clearly, other than the riding business, I am not as bad as she originally thought. I was done riding and cleaning tack by about one so I watched rides for the rest of the afternoon. Betsy had three lessons in a row and I was able to see her ride her new horse which was fun. I also watched one of the young riders have a lesson on a really lovely mare. As always, George's favorite suggestion to all the riders was forward which he pronounces foward and just this little suggestion does seem to make everything better, the power must be in the pronunciation.
January 12	There is a show almost every weekend down here this year as there are now three big show grounds. Today began a two day show at the newest of the three venues. Lauren and I went to watch this afternoon and we got there in time to see Mary Austin and her Westphalian gelding Furst Dali in a second level class. Dali is extremely happy about his job and gets so excited about going down the center line that he almost forgets about stopping at X. After we saw Mary Austin we sat by the warm up and watched horses preparing for the Grand Prix. The class was huge and it was really fun to see so many top notch horses in one class. Unfortunately, we missed some of the earlier rides in this class including those of Ahley Holzer, Lars Peterson and Lisa Wilcox but there were plenty of great rides in the second half of the class with Tunie Page, Tami Crawford, Kathy Priest, Jackie Brooks and Jan Brons to name a few. The real fun is watching the schooling ring and listening to the who'se who of the riding/training world coaching. Ashley Holzer had a few riders and Lars Peterson was helping a few as well. Oded Shimone was coaching at the far end looking more like a special forces commando with his buzz cut and assertive bearing. But, as usual, Robert Dover stole the show with his powerful voice and high intensity teaching style. He never stands still but bobs up and down with every piaffe and passage step (he must burn thousands of calories just bouncing around like that). Dover never goes very far without his constant companion the winner of Dressage Idol (it is like they are still filming). After an afternoon of high end dressage I slipped uncomfortably back into reality with an excruciating couple of hours unloading hay from my trailer. There is just nothing worse than moving hay around. It is heavy, awkward and so scratchy! I was wearing shorts and now I look like I have taken up shaving my legs with a cheese grater. Why, you might ask, did I bring hay all the way from Ohio only to spend days unloading the vile stuff when there are warehouses all over Wellington filled with the it just waiting to be delivered and stacked for me? Well, I can sum it all up with just a few little words...18 dollars per bale! Just for reference sake, I paid about 5 per bale in Ohio and as all three of the horses I have here go through about a bale a day each it is a serious matter to bring as much as you can with you. I suppose that all the pain and suffering is worth it, but next time I should remember to wear jeans.
January 13	Sundays are usually the day to relax down here unless you happen to be showing that weekend. I had sort of planned for one of those days where I could spend a little more time organizing my tackroom and letting the horses stay out in the paddocks for a good portion of the day. However, such a day was not to be. The morning started with unloading yet more of the dreaded hay. This time the Cardella's helper was dispatched by Judy to assist me with a quick "Juan, go help Sarah". He happily got in the truck, imagine being so exuberant about being scratched by hay, and I introduced my self saying "Hi juan, I am Sarah" to which he responded my name is Diego but she calls me Juan. Well, I could have spent all day getting to the bottom of that conundrum but I figured I did not need to add any confusion to my already muddled brain so I just said OK and Juan/Diego turned out to be a big help. In the afternoon I hooked up my trailer and Lauren and I headed over to the show grounds. We wanted to watch Mary Austin show, and then take her horse and Tami Crawford's horse back to Robert Dover's barn so Mary Austin and Tami could then get on the road to Tennessee. I actually insisted that Lauren go with me for this seemingly simple errand and not just because I was concerned about trailering Mary Austin's new horse and Tami's priceless Grand Prix horse. No, the real stress was the prospect of running into Robert while returning the horses. He is rather quick to correct riders and I can't imagine what he might have had to say about my trailer backing skills, though my toes are always pointed forward now even when I am driving. Lauren and I threw the horses in the trailer and headed out of the show grounds with a single goal in mind - get the horses off the trailer and get ourselves out of the barn before Robert or anyone from his entourage might see us. We were in luck and we got their horses unloaded, I had the trailer turned around and we were out the gate without seeing a soul. We felt like reverse horse thieves desperately trying to put two horses into a barn without leaving a trace of our presence and most importantly not being yelled at for a turned out toes or some equally egregious infraction. Thelma and Louise lived to return horses another day!
January 14	Finally, a lesson! This morning Lauren and I went over to George's barn to look at the bible and see if our names came up. The Bible is simply George's schedule for the day written out in a big book which you must consult daily to determine whether or not it is your lucky day. Though there is generally a pattern to the lessons, say Monday, Wednesday, Friday in the late afternoon, the schedule is very changeable and your name could easily appear on a Tuesday morning or not appear at all on a Wednesday. Therefore, it is necessary to make a daily pilgrimage to the great book. This morning our names did not appear but as we were leaving George rode up and said that we were welcome to ride "at the end of the day" which meant after four o'clock so we decided that Lauren would ride at four and I would ride after. Unfortunately, by the "end of the day" George is always a little behind so my lesson was more in twilight than daylight but beggars can't be choosers. Having a lessons really makes all the difference. I always feel that when I go too long between structured rides like this I start to get a little sloppy. In a lesson you remember to ride your corners, make the half halt before it is too late and, as we all know, turn your toes forward. As my muscles were burning a little at the end of my ride I would say that this lesson was long overdue.
January 17	This morning Kathy Connley came to work with George and Marnix. I knew from watching these lessons last year that I would not actually be able to hear what Kathy was saying because she speaks extremely softly and uses the Listen radio/ear piece system. However, I must say that Marnix really looked great. He seemed stronger and more confident in his transitions from piaffe to passage and more confident in general with the work. You can tell just watching them work that George really enjoys working with Kathy. When I checked the bible this morning I saw that I had a lesson scheduled in the late afternoon and I decided that I would do this one on Felina. So, after I rode the other horses I ran over to ride Dali at Robert Dover's barn in Palm Beach Point. I have been going to take Care of Dali, Mary Austin's horse, for the past several days while both and her Trainer Tami Crawford are away. When they asked me to ride him this week they told me that I should go anytime after two as that was when Robert was finished teaching so I have been getting there around 3 every day. I arrived a little earlier that usual as I was trying to get back to my barn in time for my lesson but I still thought that I was in the safe zone as it was after two thirty. However, when I pulled up to the gate I noticed that there were cars everywhere, mostly expensive imported types, and two big horse trailers were parked out on the road. As soon as I pulled through the gate I could see that Robert was still sitting in his pavilion (he has a special swivel chair in this pavilion that gets covered each evening with a customized cover, the honor of covering his chair falls to the winner of the Dressage Idol competition, what a perk) teaching and I just as quickly heard this loud booming voice which could only belong to Michael Barrisone. Sure enough it turned out to be Michael taking a lesson from Robert on a large gray who I did not recognize. An enormous entourage was watching this lesson which explained all of the fancy cars in the parking lot. I realized at this point that I was in a bind. If I didn't ride Dali was not going to get out today but if I did ride I was going to have to ride next to the ring in which Robert was teaching which I was fairly sure was a bad idea. I ran the scenario through in my head and knew that it would go something like this: I would start riding and Robert would be teaching Michael and saying "super!! those changes are great!!! I want you to do another line exactly like that!!!!" and then there would suddenly be a silence then Robert would scream "What the hell is that in that ring back there?!?! (he would gesture wildly in my direction) What is that woman doing?? Is she trying to ride?? How can I be expected to teach while having to look at that!" at which point I would have to throw myself into the alligator infested canal which would clearly be the less risky path than letting Robert get a hold of me. Fortunately while I was slowly tacking up and contemplating my impending humiliation and demise Michael's lesson ended and I was able to ride sans Robert or onlookers in general, and Dali and I had a lovely time.
January 18	I had a lesson last night on Felina and another one this afternoon on Cupido and I am starting to get back in the groove of riding with a little more structure. I think that when we ride alone for too long we all start "getting by", a fairly good transition starts to seem good enough and a moderately balanced corner feels pretty nice. But then you have a lesson and you realize just how much better it all can and should be (this seems to come as an unwelcome surprise to the horses). Poor Felina had to make the trot halt transition right now and Cupido had to keep his shoulder elevated through ALL of the canter work. In each lesson we did a lot of very basic exercises like coming to the halt and moving laterally off the leg before trotting or cantering on again and for both horses this small movement really helped to lighten the forehand and engage the hindquarter. I hope that this refresher course will help to keep my expectations for the work a little higher even after I go home and am once again on my own. Speaking of home I saw fellow Clevelander Laura Hutlock this afternoon while we were both sitting at a traffic light and we had a brief conversation while we waited for our turning arrow. She is doing well and we hope to get together for dinner at some point this season. This evening I had dinner with Lisa Goretta, Lauren and Charlotte Bailey who is in town for the Trainers conference which starts tomorrow. We all feel very lucky to be enjoying such nice weather here while there is a deep freeze at home.
January 19	This morning I started my annual tradition of the Saturday morning trail ride. The first year I came down here Hesse and I made a habit of going for a hack instead of doing ring work on Saturday and, barring a horse show or bad weather, I have kept it up since. It was more fun that usual today because Lauren also planned to hack her horses so we were able to take them in pairs. First Bree and Cupido went out and survived the crazy scene in Little Ranches with cars that drive too fast, dogs barking behind chain link fences and bicyclists who ride right up behind you. The horses really seemed to enjoy themselves and we all came back feeling relaxed if not a bit drowsy. For our second pair we took Rudy and Felina and hacked all over the property at the farm, through the front pasture and around all the barns. They were both exhausted from their first full week of work and were very quiet. Finally, we took Indy and Hesse out into Little Ranches and Indy had to struggle to keep up with Hesse's extra long legs. We met up with a couple of other ladies out for a ride and all four horses raced each other at the walk until Hesse drew ahead by nose and then a couple of horse lengths and left the others behind. It was kind of like a super slow-speed Kentucky derby! This evening a bunch of us including Joanne Smith, Francesca Nicoletti, Lisa Goretta and Lauren Tisdale attended the Jan Brink Lecture at the Trainer's conference. When we got there we also saw Clevelander Betsy Rebar Sells. The lecture was entitled The Happy Athlete and Jan explained how his training philosophy, which has made him one of Sweden's top riders, includes a great deal of riding outside (I felt so virtuous about our morning hacks) and even cross training many of his horses. He stressed that it is important to treat the horses like horses with outdoor work, turn out and a more flexible training approach that caters to the individual animal. He truly appeared to be concerned with the well being of his horses and his enjoyment of all aspects of riding and horse care was obvious. He told some funny stories including an explanation of how he got into horses in the first place as he gave up ice hockey and initially pursued horses because it was such a great way to impress girls. He had an excellent command of English right down to the the swear words and was able to get right to the heart of how we all sometimes feel when he said "So (pronounced zo) sometimes you are in the ring and you think JESUS CHRIST this ride is SHIT!" He discussed the best way to handle the media after a ride and the importance of feeling comfortable riding in front of cameras and knowing that you all over the evening news (not really an issue here but he did not seem to know this). He concluded by showing a video of his beautiful farm in Southern Sweden which appears to be an equine paradise.
January 20	This morning when I walked out of the house I was disappointed to find that the temperature had dropped precipitously and it was only in the 50's with gusty winds and rain. There is nothing more discouraging than having crummy weather after driving over 1,000 miles South just to avoid such conditions. I quickly fed and cleaned stalls and then tried to hand walk the horses (I say tried because with the temperature drop and all the wind they were crazy, and I gave up after getting dragged repeatedly). I put on all the clothes I could manage to wear and still be ambulatory and headed off to watch Jan Brink for the demonstration part of the Trainer's conference. Today and tomorrow the conference is held at the beautiful McPhail arena in White Fences. The arena is architecturally stunning with a vaulted ceiling of tongue and groove wood paneling and expansive views of the flat-lands of Loxahatchee. However, with the great views came great unblocked wind which dropped the temperature even more turning my fingers blue within 15 minutes of arriving at the conference. The horse and rider combinations were wonderful but completely unreal in terms of learning training techniques applicable to your average student. For example Olympic hopeful rider Courtney King rode her 8 year old horse Holiday's Wyoming who is world class and easily ready to compete at the I-1. Jan used Courtney to demonstrate an exercise that he likes to use for medium trot which horse and rider mastered with complete ease the first time around. Now, I am not sure how many trainers have such physically capable horses as Wyoming and riders as accomplished as Courtney to work with in their barns but I can not imagine that there are many. Jan was easy going and funny as he had been last night at the lecture. He was very kind to and complimentary of the demonstration riders and their mounts. He made excellent use of profanity constantly punctuating with "SHIT" and "JESUS CHRIST". I am sure that Europeans watch too many American movies and think that this is actually how we speak. The people-watching was fantastic including a celebrity sighting of Ulla Salzgerber (of Rusty and many gold medals Fame) who was there with Chris Hickey. On an interesting fashion note, one participant showed up wearing furry leopard print pants and a large rhinestone studded belt. She, of course, also had on tons of make up and Jewelry. Now, who gets up in the morning to get dressed for a trainers conference on a cold windy day and thinks. . .clearly this calls for skin tight furry animal print pants???
January 21	This morning I rode Felina and Q early and then headed off to the last day of the Trainer's Conference. Though the weather had improved, it was still chilly and extremely windy at the McPhail arena. I had missed the morning session but I got there in time to watch Jan ride Yvonne Barteau's horse Liberty. Liberty is a chestnut stallion who is very pleasant but often a bit short in the neck in his work. Jan had discussed the problem of the short neck in training the day before and today he demonstrated his techniques for making the neck longer while still keeping the connection to the hind quarters. After Jan finished riding him Yvonne had liberty bow to the crowd (I think that Yvonne has kept up the tradition of the Medieval Knights performances that she starred in for years). I watched another round with Courntey King and Holiday's Wyoming who actually presented us with a "training issue" when once he backed up crooked, but of course by the next rein back he was completely straight. I watched the final rider and then headed back to my barn to ride Hesse in a lesson with George. We worked really hard with lots of Piaffe but it was great to have a lesson again and feel as though we were accomplishing something.
January 23	During the past couple of days the temperature and the barometric pressure has made a sea change and now it is in the 80's with very high humidity. The horses have responded by becoming totally lethargic (though no less hungry) and look as though they are just melting in their stalls. A couple of them convinced me today that they were too hot to do much more than a little stretching and a nice long hack. I will of course regret this when the temperature drops again in a couple of days and they are all doing airs above the ground. I had hoped to get a lesson today but when I checked the book this morning my name was not there so I rode all of the horses in the morning (a good thing as it rained liked cats and dogs later in the day) and then was able to watch a couple of rides in the afternoon. The first practice for the annual breast cancer benefit quadrille was at the farm and, though it was just a discussion and an on-foot practice, it was fun to watch. This year George is not riding in the quadrille as he plans to be in Europe at the time of the performance but he is putting his Temple Farms performance experience to good use by helping from the ground. The rest of the cast of characters is the same: Betsy Steiner, Sue Jacoma, Linda Alicki, Bent Jensen, Pam Goodrich and my personal favorite Chirs Hickey (of Pan Am games fame) who arrived late, as usual, and ran from his car to the practice area in his riding boots with his arms flailing, leaving no doubt for which team he bats. Today they went over the choreography and walked through the pattern. Just as they were finishing it started to pour and it rained steadily through George's next lesson and his final ride of the day on Betsy's Cleopatra who handled the drenching admirably. Last year it was very dry here but this year it seems a little like living in a rain forest.
January 25	Have I mentioned before how much I hate hay? This morning Lauren told me the good news that we would each be able to buy 50 bales of some very nice hay, which was shipping down from Ohio for the bargain basement price of $17 per bale. Now these bales are very large almost a bale and a half size but still...my horses each eat almost a bale per day so large bales or not 17 dollars is not encouraging. Then there is the worst part of it all, unloading!!!! The hay guy arrived with his son and Lauren and I helped the two of them to unload our 100. So now as I write this I am finding hay in all the wrong places and looking at the thousands of little bumps and scratches all over my arms that come part and parcel with any hay experience. Fortunately I was able to finish with the hay with just enough time to run over to the show grounds and watch Mary Austin ride her Second Level test on Dali. When I arrived I ran into Joanne White and Cindy Sender, Cindy just recently arrived from sunny Cleveland. Mary Austin had a very nice test and I then took a few moments to watch a couple of the last group of rides for the CDI Grand Prix. I watched Ashley Holzer riding Pop Art and Courtney King with Idocus. Both of these rides were lovely and I believe that they each ended up in the top 6 in a field of 30 or so horses so I picked a couple of great ones to watch. The Grand Prix classes at the CDIs will be fun to watch this year as it is an Olympic year and all the contenders from the East Coast and really from around the world are here to give it a shot. On my way back to the barn I made a quick run to the grocery store because I was dangerously low on carrots, sugar cubes and rubbing alcohol (the only things that count down here). Going shopping down here is always such a treat because it is so nice to go to a store where you are out of place if you are not wearing breeches and where almost everyone has a 50 pound bag of carrots in her grocery cart.
January 26	This morning George rode by on Rocher and said that there was time in his schedule at one o'clock if I would like to do a lesson. This year George is very busy and getting lessons with him is not that easy so I of course jumped at the chance for an extra ride. It was Cupido's turn so I rode the other horses first and then spent about an hour trying to get the manure stains off of Q before our lesson. I got most of them off though he still looked a little yellow on one side and when I got on him I realized the he still had manure in his right ear. White horses are just impossible! Despite our lack luster appearance we had a great lesson and worked quite a bit on the some basics like not allowing the corners to become unbalanced but instead making each corner an opportunity to rebalance and prepare for the next movement. After a number of repetitions our corners started to feel more uphill and organized. The nice thing about this lesson is that I can really apply this principle to all of the the horses I ride and all of the people I teach. Of course we all know how our corners should look but it is easy to let the horses go on auto-pilot and this eventually becomes a bad habit. This evening I went to dinner with Nancy and Mary Austin and some of their friends from Tennessee.
January 27	The temperature dropped again this morning and when I walked out to feed this horses I had to turn around and get a second coat. Today the horses had the day off so after finishing barn chores this morning Betsy and I headed over to the show to watch some of the rides from the Grand Prix Freestyle. There were a number of very nice performances including the top three: Courtney King, Lars Peterson and Michael Barrisone. Lars' program was very hard and he did very well with just a few small mistakes. Courtney and Idocus performed to music from Broadway and had a seamless ride. I hope to some day look as lovely as Courtney when I ride, she has such presence and her aids are so subtle. I think that she is a good model for me to follow because she is very close in height and body type so I have something to base my goal on. On a break in the freestyles we watched a couple of rides in the I-II including one by Pan Am Game gold medalist Lauren Sammis. There was a huge buzz about her ride as she is now very well known from her success at the Games and rumor has it that she and her life partner Mel are having a baby so everyone was crowding around Lauren to see if her coat looked too tight. I spent the rest of the afternoon walking and hand grazing the horses.
January 28	Lisa Noble called me this morning with very sad news that Louie (Lustig 9) died on Sunday night. I realize that Louie lived a long and wonderful life and I am so grateful that even at almost 35 years old he was very healthy until the week before he died but it is still so very hard to lose him. Louie did so much more in his life and in his Dressage career than most of us ever have the chance to do. He was trained in Germany by the famous George Theoderescue and after competing in Europe he was the alternate for the 1984 Olympics for the Canadians. I also believe that somewhere along the line he competed in the Pan American Games. When I first met Louie he was showing with his owner Joanne White. I still remember watching them do a Grand Prix Freestyle at Chagrin Valley Farms and having the performance bring tears to my eyes. I feel extremely fortunate that when Joanne had accomplished her goals with Louie she allowed me, along with Lisa, to lease him for several years. Though Louie was shockingly hard to ride (the trot was like a washing machine on spin cycle and he simply did not bend to the left) I knew that every time I worked with him he taught me a valuable lesson about dressage. With Joanne's help I was able to compete Louie from Fourth Level through the Grand Prix and I realize that without this experience I might not be able today to make my living working with horses. Louie had so much talent but he was also such a great individual. He was confident without ever being arrogant and all of his training never made him nervous or caused him to become unbearably high maintenance. One week, while I was leasing him, I competed him at the I-II one weekend and he was in a lead-line class with a then 6 year old Hillary the next. He loved just being outside and the last 8 years of his life he enjoyed a wonderful retirement at a lovely farm where he was able to have as much turnout as he liked and to have a number of companions to enjoy it with. Lisa, whom he loved dearly, was with him in the end and that gives me a great deal of comfort. When Louie turned 30 we had a big party for him and more people came than have ever come to a party of mine so I know that today many people will be missing Louie as I am now.
January 30	This morning I rode a couple of the horses quickly while I was waiting to hear from the shipper who was taking Mary Austin's horse Dali back to Tennessee. Dali has been staying at IDA Farms which is across the street from Havensafe where I have my horses and I have been going over there to look after him since Sunday night. Dali was suppose to leave first thing on Monday morning but when first thing had come and gone I called the dispatcher who said that he would get back to me and finally called to say that there had been an "oops" and the driver had left Wellington hours ago without the horse (these things just always seem to happen when you try to ship a horse anywhere). After much scrambling we found another ride for Dali on a transport leaving this morning. The good part was that this gave me a chance to ride Dali for a couple of days which was fun. And it also allowed me to be at IDA last night during the first International Quadrille Team practice which includes riders Marco Bernal, Patrick Bursons and Silke Rhumba. Though they were almost finished by the time I started watching it was still fun to see a couple of minutes now so that when they do the final performance in March I will have something to compare it with. I came back to my barn and finished with horses amid much buzz about Klaus Balkenhol coming tomorrow. From what I understand Klaus will be coming for the next several days to work with George on Rocher and Marnix.
January 31	Well, Klaus did actually come to teach George on both horses this morning. The farm looked great for his arrival. Betsy had arranged for beautiful flowers to be planted in the letter boxes around the arenas which helped to really polish the look. Klaus arrived with his wife Judith and his handler Gil Merrick (a former Cleveland resident) and quickly commented on how wonderful the footing in the arenas was. I am sure that this was a relief to Betsy, there is nothing like hearing that you have the perfect footing from a German legend and our team coach. Though it was a real challenge to hear Klaus, as he was using the Listen ear piece and microphone, I managed to sit next to him and catch a few words. With Rocher they mostly looked at a little bit of all of the work and I could only hear a bunch of "Good George" and "So" (Pronounced like Jan Brink as szoooo and used as a filler or to mean yes, like this). After they worked with Rocher Marnix came out and I moved a bit closer to Klaus so that I could hear all of his little exclamations like "yes, szooo, this work it is good for him he need the gymnastic, szooo" the lesson had a "push it to the limit" German feel to it and I quickly began to regret that I was on the book for a lesson this afternoon. When your trainer gets a German lesson you know that you are in for one too. Sure enough my lesson included a lot of "do it again" orders when the work was not quite right and I was just exhausted when it was all over. Klaus will be coming daily through Monday so I will be taking my vitamins for the next several days.