Page 3 - March

March 1	Today I spent a good portion of the day watching the Grand Prix for the CDI at the horse show. There were so many rides that the class went from 8 in the morning till after 4 in the afternoon. Some of the best rides went late in the day and included George, Tami Crawford, Jane Hannigan, Jackie Brooks, Cathy Morelli, Courtney King and Ashley Holzer to name just a few. Wendy Padgett and I were wathcing these rides together which was really fun since she had not seen most of these horses or riders in person before. Ashley Holzer won with a 74 on a great ride and Courtney was second with an equally lovely performance. The people watching and the shopping were also truly amazing at this show and I was very proud of myself for staying well clear of the vendor area thus avoiding the temptation to purchase any more riding jackets (I clearly have a little addiction to trendy little riding jackets but I really do use them especially at home!)
March 2	Today was the final day of the show and the Grand Prix riders performed either the GP Special or the Freestyle. There were of course many great rides including a demonstration freestyle by George and Rocher to their Madonna music. After his ride the crowd went crazy and so did Rocher as she bucked and leaped on her way out to celebrate a good time. Jackie Brooks won the Special with her horse Gran Gesto on a score that was the last she needed to attend the Canadian selections trials for the Olympics (she was so excited that she took a couple of extra laps on her victory gallop riding one tempis with one hand while waving at the crowd). Jane Hannigan won the freestyle and a spot on the US World Cup Team with her mount Maximillian. I missed many of the freestyles but Wendy told me that they were all beautiful and inspiring. So much great dressage in one weekend!
March 3	The return of Officer Wink....Wellington is filled with strange characters. There is, for example, The Wizard, an elderly woman who dresses in a black velvet unitard and cape (yes, in 95 degree heat with 80 percent humidity) and accessorizes with a pointy wizard hat and platform shoes. The Wizard appears occasionally walking ever so slowly along the sidewalk as traffic grinds to a halt and everyone stares and takes pictures on their camera phones (spotting The Wizard is a big deal and if you see her you then immediately call everyone you know to tell them that you have made a sighting). There is also the old toothless man who rides his bike around Little Ranches in the blazing hot sun talking to himself and every so often leaving his bike in the middle of the street while he picks weeds in a roadside ditch. To add to this menagerie of characters we now have Officer Wink of the Wellington Sheriff's Office. Officer Wink appeared a couple of weeks ago after Lauren had some items stolen from the bed of her pick-up while she was out to dinner at a local restaurant and called to report the theft. The dispatcher sent Officer Wink to the farm to do the report. Oh yes, his name is really John Wink and he pulled in, at about 900 miles per hour, in his cruiser with his police issue mountain bike on the back, popped out of the car in his snazzy uniform of shorts (Reno 911 style) and little black ankle socks with SHERIFF printed in bold, should we have any doubts as to his occupation, to take a report. Officer Wink also appeared to be fully waxed making him appear more like an exotic dancer and less like an officer of the law. After completing the paper work he inquired as to when Lauren might "get off work" and it quickly became apparent that he might like to do a little follow up work on this investigation. A couple of days ago Lauren received a "follow up call" from the Sheriff's office from a Detective Dink Dink (really you just can't make this stuff up) who inquired about any developments in her case to which she explained that the items were still missing (something he should have known since nobody from his office had found them). Today Officer Wink returned, ostensibly in search of some bulls who were loose several miles away, and tried again to hit on Lauren. I think that we will be seeing a lot of Officer Wink and possibly his mysterious friend Detective Dink Dink until they meet Lauren's husband.
March 6	Oh the rain! This season has been really rainy but this past week it has been torrential. Nancy and Mary Austin are in town this week and Nancy has been getting her rides in on Cupido between thunderstorms. This afternoon we thought that we could wait until the storm passed but after a couple of hours we had to give up because instead of passing the storm stalled over us and gained intensity for hours. If it were not for the computerized footing in the arenas we would have to swim our horses for exercise but with the computer balancing the moisture content the water is continuously drained out and the footing stays perfect (I don't know how the horses will ever go back to regular old sand again). The drawback to this pumping system is that the pump makes a sudden, loud and to the horses clearly alarming noise which means that though you can ride in the arenas after a rain storm your ride is likely to include a great deal of leaping and running (Lauren and I frequently have, what to the untrained eye, must look like rodeo practices while the pumps go on & off on a rainy day). All the dampness has also caused all of the horses to get fungus on their legs and faces and I now go through gallons of micro-tek and various other products to get their skin under control. However, even the rain and fungus is preferably to the ice, snow and freezing temperatures at home so I will not complain!
March 7	Today, George, Christine, Rocher and Marnix left for Germany to ride with Klaus for six weeks and compete in Europe as a preparation for the Olympic Selection Trials this summer in California. The farm has been a-buzz all season with George's preparations for Europe and beyond, so today after he left I think that everyone let out a deep breath. It is unfortunate that his departure cuts short all of our training for the season but it gives us all a unique opportunity to ride with some other trainers and have different feedback on our horses. We all feel as though the season is wrapping up a little early this year as many of the big name competitors including Courtney King and Jane Hanigan are leaving (to compete at the World Cup in the Netherlands) as is Kathy Connelly who will be going to Europe to help George at the shows at the end of March. However, the show goes on and there is a competition this weekend at the Jim Brandon Equestrian Center. This evening the whole barn got together to celebrate Joann Smith's birthday and George's successful departure for Germany. We all had a great time and talked a lot about all the fun we will have for the next few weeks.
March 8	Tonight was the night of the big Challenge of the Americas Breast Cancer benefit. Betsy graciously took me as one of her guests so I was able to watch the show from the comfort of a table in the sponsor's area. Every year three groups, USA, Canada, and the international riders, perform to a sold out audience with all of the proceeds to benefit Breast Cancer research. Each team organizes big name riders in both dressage (6 riders) and show jumping (2 riders) to compete in a quadrille performance and high jump competition respectively. While in the high jump it is pretty cut and dried who has won, the dressage, as usual involves judges (both real and celebrity in this case) and is very subjective. The performances were all great! The jumper riders, including Todd Minikus, really hammed it up and would jump in and out of the adjacent dressage arena after each jumping effort. Team Canada won the high jump at 6 foot 3 and it was on to the quadrille where each of the groups turned in lively performances. There was a little excitement in each, especially in the Canadian group, where Jackie Paxton's horse would not trot but only canter all of the trot movements. And yes, I know that Jackie is from Ohio but these groups are loosely organized. After the performances they served dinner and started the music and suddenly the sponsor's tent at the Jockey club looked the Players Club on a Sunday night. There were people in what looked like prom dresses going crazy on the dance floor with performance riders still in their riding boots. As the night wore on there was a great deal of swinging, and by the time there was a great deal of grinding going on, I left to do night check for the horses.
March 10	Tonight Lauren and I were invited to a "casual" (casual in wellington speak really means a great big production) dinner with jumper rider Eliza Shuford. I arrived before Lauren to find not just Eliza but a whole group of people, one from the Netherlands another from Portugal, a woman with some fabulous plastic surgery and great jewelry and a practically dressed woman who turned out to be an event rider. It was actually a lot of fun to get to talk with other women in the same age group and profession just in a different discipline. Eliza had some great stories about competing on the developing horse tour in Europe and working with all of the big jumper trainers like George Morris. We discussed how each discipline had an eccentric character like Mr. Morris, Bruce Davidson for eventing and Robert Dover for dressage. Bruce tries to kill his students for sport and since he has lost, or never had, a natural sense of self preservation he sees it as a flaw in others. In Robert Dover's arena the show is all about him and his acting aspirations and insulting you is just part of the presentation. George Morris went around the bend so long ago that nobody is quite sure what to do with him, but his eccentricities are paramount; for example he does not use a mounting block but must have a leg up. He of course does not do the one two three jump version of the leg up but just stands with his left leg bent at the knee and waits to be lifted onto the horse. We all agreed to come and watch each other compete and to try to stay in touch. Meeting all of these interesting people is one of the reasons that I love coming to Wellington.
March 13	The hunt for a horse. Ali Schueler flew in on Tuesday night and we have spent the past couple of days looking at horses. Yesterday was quiet and uneventful but today we had a couple of adventures. Our second stop was to see two horses out by Lion Country Safari in Loxahatchee. Marcel, the man who was selling the horses, gave me directions and told me that when I got to the gate of the community to use the call box to dial 1135 a code which was to alert him via his cell phone that he had visitors and allow him to open the gate remotely. We arrived and pressed 1135 and the box made a strange beeping noise and nothing happened. I called Marcel and he said, in his Dutch accent, ya you need to dial 1135 and he repeated this himself again firmly. As 1135 did not work and Marcel did not open the gate with his phone we sat and waited. After about five minutes there were about 10 cars, trucks, trailers and construction vans lined up and nobody could open the gate. The call box did not work nor did the garage-door-opener-style thing that the residents had. Finally, we all lined up on the exit side and when somebody came out we shot through as the gate was closing behind them. When we finally got to the farm Marcel was on the first horse who was pretty nice except that he had a "green" flying change that involved a sitting and leaping maneuver that seemed a bit extreme. Marcel brought out the second horse who did not seem quite as nice as promised either (big shock) and showed us all of his tricks. We decided that Ali would try him because you just never know when you might click with a horse. However, after just a few minutes of riding, this well schooled PSG horse thought that it would be a good idea to start leaping and bucking until his rider flew through the air and then take off for the road. There were three very asleep dogs resting by the arena, one mystery breed and two Chihuahuas, who then leapt up and chased the horse, turned him around and drove him back towards the barn. The whole production had the appearance of a well rehearsed play and I rather suspected that these dogs had many opportunities to chase this horse sans rider. Fortunately Ali was not hurt and the horse was safe in the barn. The rest of our stops seemed calm by comparison. WEBMASTER'S NOTE - LMAO!!!!
March 17	Happy St. Patrick's Day!   Basically the Irish holiday down here boils down to everyone wearing the same green polo shirt to the barn. This year we all have Aberchrombie and Fitch polo shirts that are clearly sized for leprechauns because even a large is a little snug on me (seriously, who can wear one of their smalls) and of course no matter how many times you wash them they still smell slightly of that cologne that they spray on everything in that store. So, there we were the few of us who actually remain (about six riders and 11 horses) on this lovely two arena farm. We tried to eat St. Patrick's day doughnuts and convince ourselves to ride while we watched the tumble weeds float down the driveway. Eventually we got on with it and much to the horses chagrin did a little dressage training. It gets increasingly hard to get inspired to ride without George here to set his example of days of riding from sun up to sun down. Suddenly trail riding looks very appealing and sitting by that pool that you just looked at all season seems like the right plan. We have started to plan our trip home but each time I check the weather up there I am tempted to delay. Snow seems like a far away reality when you are being baked at 80 degrees in the Florida sun.
March 20	The reality that things are wrapping up down here could not be more evident. Lauren, Jenny, Betsy and I are are the survivors on a deserted island of manicured shrubs and world class footing. We all had so much enthusiasm at the the beginning of the season and perhaps we should be elated that we outlasted the rest, but frankly it is getting a little lonely. Lauren, Jenny and I have decided that we can not go home with nothing to show for three months in Florida except calloused hands from excessive stall cleaning and sweeping and pale legs that never saw a peep of sun from beneath our riding pants, so today we decided that we were going to the pool!!!! All three of us have pools within a few feet of our bedrooms and yet I have spent no more than one hour all season by mine, this is not acceptable. Therefore, this morning after we finished stalls Jenny revealed her plan: Lauren and I would each ride our respective three horses while she groomed and did barn work and we would then finish and feed lunch at noon allowing a few hours for tanning. Ah the joy of having a groom! I had forgotten the sheer bliss of finding a well groomed and tacked horses each time I appeared back at the barn and the carefree feeling of turning over my tired and sweaty mount to be replaced by a fresh one (kind of like the pony express with half halts and circles). We even went in the pool (the water actually made my legs look more pale, so I got out to continue browning) and by four in the afternoon we had almost forgotten that we had horses. The plan worked and by one we were all sitting in lounge chairs (in bikinis) by Jenny's pool at The Polo Club. At first it was difficult to adjust to being away from the horses and not able to sweep for a few hours but eventually we all relaxed and worked diligently on our tans. The equines were a little angry that we had escaped them for the afternoon but it was really good for all of us. After all, when they go home I will no longer be standing in front of their stalls filling their buckets each time they sip water or fluffing and refluffing their shavings all day, so they should start to toughen up now to minimize the shock.
March 22	Once again this morning we found that Lauren's tack room had been broken into by a very clever racoon. Each day for the past couple of weeks there has been a nocturnal visit by one very crafty animal or perhaps some sort of posse of critters who get into Lauren's feed room and tack room and steal anything that might be determined to be food-like. Lauren has tried sealing everything in plastic containers, putting things on the highest shelves and latching the already heavy wood doors to no avail. The racoon and his buddies have taken whole plastic containers of trail mix, boxes of granola bars, all of the milk bones out of a giant box and removed the lid off a rubbermaid container of sugar cubes leaving not a grain of sugar behind (they must be horribly hyperactive after all of that sugar). But today they went too far. We have all developed an addiction to these gourmet cupcakes from a new bakery down here called What a Cupcake and we had six of the fancy confections hidden in Lauren's tackroom and this morning all that was left was the box they came in. Jenny was the first person to notice the theft and all I heard her yell was "You Bastard" when I went running down there I saw that all that was left was the lovely pink box that the cupcakes came in, the tape on the sides carefully slit and not a morsel of red velvet cupcake left. After careful detective work (Jenny watches CSI religiously) we determined that they must have made a racoon pyramid and opened the latch at the top of the door and then all put their backs into pushing the door open before they had a tea party with our cupcakes.
March 23	Happy Easter!  The Easter Bunny came this morning and left a basket of goodies and a stuffed animal in my feed room. As I was the first person at the barn I was left pondering the identity of the generous rodent and as soon as Lauren arrived I asked her if she was the Easter Bunny. She clearly thought that I was becoming more unhinged by the day and said kindly that she hadn't intended to wear pink and green but just happened to grab that particular shirt. When she opened her tack room door and saw her own basket she understood what I was saying and we decided that Jenny had in fact delivered the baskets. Jenny admitted that she had come in before six in the morning to leave the baskets and I have to say that it made me so happy to get such a gift that I think that I will start handing out gifts of chocolate on Easter myself in the future. It was kind of strange to have a holiday down here but we had a nice day of horse care and in the evening the survivors all got together for Easter dinner which was lovely and felt so much like a family gathering that it was easy to forget that we were all missing the comforts of home on this day. Betsy, who hosted the party, gave a lovely toast and we all sat around talking and laughing until quite late.
March 25	One of the really beneficial things about being down here is just that you can always have eyes on the ground. Even though George is gone and lessons are scarce you can still improve so much if you just ask the person sitting next to the ring to watch something you are doing for a minute. Lauren and I have been trying to help each other this way all season but now all of the survivors are in the mix. Lisa watched some changes and helped me with body position today and it was really fun. She referred to it as being a living mirror and sometimes that is all you really need, just someone to tell you literally what they see so that you can correct it. It is so hard when we ride on our own, especially when we ride only the same two or three horses a day for a period of time, to tell when we start with bad habits or get pulled out of position by a crooked horse. Meanwhile, I am also trying to observe and learn from some of the other trainers who are coming in to work with various people at the farm. kathy Connelly has been coming in now and then as has Ryan Yap and Courtney King (before she left for the World Cup). While I have spent a little time watching Kathy work with George it is fun to watch her work with other people though it is a real challenge to hear her as she has the softest voice and usually uses the ear piece system. Ryan Yap has been working with Kathy for a few years, after spending many years with Tom Poulin, and many of his techniques are the same as hers. I have more often seen Ryan riding but I hope to catch a few of the lessons he teaches here. It was also really fun to watch Courtney King, she is such a lovely rider and she manages to have a pleasant expression on her face no matter what the horse is doing, a skill I hope to master!
March 26	While we should be packing to go home, today we packed for the horse show. We were all trying to minimize as not to create too much laundry that would have to be finished on Monday before the horses depart on Tuesday. This plan was generally unsuccessful. We and all of our stuff headed over to the show in the late afternoon and we set up the tack room and all of the stalls complete with filled water buckets so that tomorrow all we have to do is lead the horses off the trailer and into their stalls. This approach makes it so much easier when you arrive with the horses that it makes me think that it is a real shame that there are no shows 20 minutes away from the barn at home! It helps to spread out all of the heavy lifting, which is nice since all of us have been spending a great deal of time with massage therapists this season due to an excess of heavy things that seem to always need moved. Last month Lauren hurt her neck no doubt from moving hay (though she claims that the injury occurred while opening a bottle of Champagne) and was unable to turn her head at all for about a week. We all tried to help her but couldn't help laughing as she walked for days with the rigid spine of a super model and rotated her entire body when she turned to speak to you (finally she had a massage from a foreign man named Nick who fixed the problem with a little massage and a lot of staring at her in her underwear, but that is another story). Anyway, with the stalls and tack room all set up we felt organized and decided to celebrate with an evening of pizza and television at Jenny's apartment. It was fun to sit around like you might at home and I think that we all had to admit that we were a little homesick (though clearly not for the weather).
March 29	I spent the morning at the show watching Lauren and Jenny compete early and then staying to watch a few rides in the high performance classes before heading back to the barn for a couple trail rides. The show is large but the absence of a few key players in noticeable (George, Courtney King and Jane Hannigan, to name a few, are all in Europe either for the World Cup or training). There were a surprising number of scratches for such a beautiful day and I couldn't help but think that many people have lost their drive at the end of the season. Back at the barn, I had a couple of really nice trail rides and tried to enjoy one of my last few days of sunny weather and enough time to appreciate it. This evening I took my parents to Stonewood, a local restaurant, where we could people watch for the hour and a half that it took to get our table. This particular restaurant has a very special clientele that ranges from lots of plastic surgery and questionable attire to blue hair and a foot and a half in the grave. Ah, Florida!
March 31	Packing, packing and more packing! How did all of this stuff get here? Lauren, my parents and I packed from seven in the morning till seven at night today and we both still have a few things to finish for tomorrow morning. Everything that goes along with the horses is heavy and awkward and there is just so darn much of it. We have both been condensing and organizing for weeks now and yet when it came time to pack up the tack room I could not believe that there was so much stuff in there. The process is greatly slowed by the fact that all of us really like to clean and organize things so there was very little just throwing it in the trailer as is and a lot of scrubbing and careful packing. Sometimes obsessive compulsive behavior is a good thing (like when you get home and know where everything is) and sometimes it is not (like when it takes you several minutes to scrub each of about 100 buckets). As the day wound down I had a few minutes to sit on the porch and enjoy the last little bit of warm air that I will feel for some time. It is so hard to believe that when I go home it will essentially still be winter in Cleveland when I have been in what feels like Summer now for three months. The horses are really going to be shocked and I can only imagine how cold-backed they will all be for their first rides at home.
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