United States Eventing Association

We are officially on the road to KY! This week was our Young Rider “training camp”. We had lessons with Mike Huber all week and grooms came in later to get to know the horses and our programs. Our area is so large that some of the grooms and riders live over 10 hours from each other. It was great to get to know all of our team mates even better. Let’s just say that I have plenty of stories from the week about the team’s lunches, dinners, Balderdash, Charades and laser tag outing (2* rider, Jacob Fletcher’s new obsession- the laser tag).

Most of the riders got to Mike Huber’s, Gold Chip Stables, on Monday. The CCI* team had a jump lesson on Tuesday morning, and we were all very pleased with how our horses went. Mike wanted to see how everyone was going over the little fences before he raised them. He seemed quite happy with our “warm-up” rounds and put the fences up a few holes (3’6”). Once again we all stepped up our game and did all of the exercises (both lengthening and shortening) easily at that height. For our last course he put the fences up to the height we would be jumping at Young Riders, and all of the horses appeared to be very brave and careful! That’s just what we all wanted, knowing that NAJYRC was only a week away.

Wednesday was dressage day, and Tripp Edwards had the first lesson. Hershel, his horse, looked great! Rowdie Adams had the lesson before me and it was great to see how well Boxer was going for her. I had not seen them do dressage since our last CIC* and the pair seemed even more in tune with each other! My lesson on Crystal went very well. We warmed up as usual - shoulder in, haunches in, and leg yields before running through our test for Mike. We were all very happy about our first day of dressage, but couldn’t wait for our grooms to arrive and for the cross country schooling the next day.

On Thursday, we rode in a group together again, warming up with a few Show Jump courses before heading out into Mike’s cross country field. Everyone jumped very well in the ring, making the exercises from Tuesday look even easier. After feeling strong about our show jumping, Mike took us out into the field. We schooled several bank, ditch, and water questions where all of our horses had no problems. Lucky for us, our team is pretty solid out on XC (knock on wood). Our last lesson was on Friday. We had another flat school to check on all of the parts of the test we worked on earlier in the week and do one last run through. All of the horses just kept performing to the best of their abilities!

As I mentioned earlier, grooms arrived mid-week and began learning our routines. My groom, Lindsay Westerfield, a great friend and an HA in Pony Club, drove in from Louisiana on Wednesday night. She was a BIG help with taking care of all of the horses. Riding my three horses in lessons with Mike, packing, and trying to manage the barn would not have been easy at all without her! The rest of the grooms arrived Friday and began sorting through all of the Area V gear, cleaning and polishing it, and loading it into the trailer we are bringing for the team. Most of the trailer was packed by Friday night. They sure do take good care of us riders!

Saturday was an early morning, as we all met at seven in the morning on Normandy Farm’s wonderful gallop track just 15 minutes away. Also, a big thank you to Normandy farms for the great jackets they donated to the riders this year! After a discussion on what to do with Mike, Tripp and I galloped together. Karen Shull and Jacob Fletcher, our CCI** riders galloped together as well. Rowdie galloped at the track at her house in order to get Boxer prepared for our long trip to KY. After finishing our gallops and icing/wrapping all of the horses Lindsay and I finished our packing. It only took us a short six hours! As Lindsay says, “You can’t ever pack too much!”

Sunday at 7:45 a.m. we hauled Crystal over to Mike’s for our last jog before we left. Dr.Willard came out to watch the team horses and everyone looked super sound! We came home to pack a few final things in our horse trailer before leaving with Lindsay and another good friend of ours, Brindley House, who is Tripp’s groom. We are stopping half way in Tennessee for the night where we will meet up with Rowdie’s family. We will finish the last leg of the trip on Monday with a 6 hour drive to Kentucky. Mike is leaving tonight with the rest of the horses, riders and grooms. We are ready to be there! Don’t get me wrong, five people in the truck is fun and all, but the excitement of Young Riders is just hours away!