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Latest News:
April 2, 2008
Wow, another winter of eventing drama, both good and bad. Ten of my twelve weeks in Ocala are behind me, and what a winter it has been. My client horses and my own horses have pushed me to cover the entire range of human emotion, and the sport has done the same. I know that this is life to the fullest, but it can sure be tough!
I’ll start with my own guys, as they are the easiest to tell you about. With Ping Pong’s foot issues solved, I started the winter with great hope for him. He ran one event, at Rocking Horse farm in February. His first start since last March, and only his second start since October 2005. He loved every minute of it and finished 4th, only to be unsound again on Monday morning. I had known that I might face trouble with an old tendon sheath injury once I sorted out his foot, but I was disappointed that it happened so quickly! He went in to Ocala Equine Hospital that week and had the tendon sheath cleaned up in arthroscopic surgery. The vets said it looked great and to expect him back in work by June, so that was good news.
Billy, who shows as Bimini Twist, had a slow start to the season, needing more time to cool out the splint he popped back in December. His first and only outing was at Poplar Place Farm last week, where I did not cover myself with glory. He got uncharacteristically tense in the dressage and I just sat there, doing nothing to help him, and finished way down the list. Then on cross country I stampeded down the hill into the first water jump and executed a dramatic inverted belly flop into the drink. Billy made a great effort and stayed on his feet despite our rate of speed, but he did grab his left elbow with his hind foot. Back to the barn we went, in search of dry clothes. The fall was sheer rider error – Billy was jumping incredibly, unbelievably beautifully. He was relaxed, confident, obedient, and soaring over everything. I was having my own little Badminton fantasy. He came back to me softly on the way to the water, but I heard my coach Buck’s voice in my head saying “make sure you come to this with your leg on” and sent the horse when he didn’t need sending. Perhaps my sense of “in front of my leg” was warped by adrenaline. That gives me pause when I think about the accidents and safety issues the sport is facing, but more about that later. Bill is entered for his CCI* in two weeks. Keep your fingers crossed that the splint is really set and that I manage to keep my head on this continent while riding!
I have, thankfully, done a better job with the client horses than with my own. David’s one-star horse, Rush, has had a great season, jumping well and even posting some clear and four-fault show jumping rounds, which is a great accomplishment for David, who is riding like a real young professional. His goal is to qualify for the North American Young Riders Championships and to impress the selectors at the Florida CCI* next week. He’s also intense enough to call and correct me when he reads this on line – I am sure he intends to win next week, and if he can synthesize the winter’s progress into the dressage test he is capable of he has a real chance.
David’s sister, Amanda, has also had a good winter getting to know her new schoolmaster, Sly. She has learned volumes in dressage as she came off a pony, but the jumping is still in that difficult “the more I learn the more I realize I don’t know” stage. Sly has done a four star, but is very strong and a bit tricky over show jumps. He loves the ride Amanda gives him and I think they will sort it out and go on to great things, but in the meantime it’s a challenge.
The family’s other horse has also gone well, placing in her Training level events and getting ready to go preliminary this spring. That has been fun.
I also have two young horses this winter, a neat Connemara cross mare and a thoroughbred I bought off the track to re-sell. Both horses are rising four year olds, just starting to jump and do a bit of proper dressage. They have both been fun and progressed easily. What a pleasure!
So on to the client horses at the other end of the emotional range. Ugh. Pearl and Danny both also had surgery this winter. Pearl developed a suspensory branch lesion behind and has stem cells put in it, and poor Danny landed from a jump and fractured his long pastern bone. It was freaky and sad – no warning, no bad fence, just snap. Happily the vets at Peterson and Smith were able to do surgery on it and he is expected to recover, but what bad luck! All three of my surgery horses are doing well and will travel home with us at the end of the month, but what a disappointment for the horses and their owners.
So on to the sport itself. Most eventers around the world have probably heard about the two horse fatalities and Darren Chiachia’s accident at Red Hills Horse Trials in March. I was not at the event – my own horses were not fit to run, and my clients’ by chance did not get in – so I will not comment on the weekend itself. What I will tell you is that the weekend spurred American eventers at all levels, including within the sport’s governing bodies, to a new and urgent level of discourse about how to steer the future of the sport. We have stepped up to a greater extent than we knew we were capable of. The USEA President, Kevin Baumgardner, issued an open call to all eventers to get involved, and he showed us a way to do so. Thousands of riders, trainers, and officials have contributed their ideas and opinions, new task forces have been formed and put to work, and everyone is talking about what to do. I have found myself in serious discourse all over town – with other riders in the pub, with a judge in line at the Post Office, and with trainers in warm up rings. All of us have also been in written and telephone contact with Mr. Baumgardner, all of us have refocused on our roles as members of the community, and all of us are looking for ways to contribute more. I am concerned about the sport, sad for the injured and deceased, and angry that what we thought was a good community effort last year was not sufficient. But I am also hopeful that we will do better this time, and I am very interested to see what new heights our sport can rise to with this new level of motivation. After the spring three-days, most event professionals feel a sense of beginning a new eventing season in which we focus on our students. Now more than ever we will be doing our best to make this year better than last.
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