United States Eventing Association

Young rider camp 2011…all I can say is wow, we have an awesome group going to Kentucky! I’ve been working everyone pretty hard these past few days, but we are successfully on the road and should be arriving in Kentucky around 1 pm on Monday. Riding in Mike’s trailer is an exciting experience, as we are loaded to the brim. Nine girls, one boy (Jacob), our wonderful coordinator, Diane Pitts, our chauffer and team coach, Mike Huber, four horses, and three of Mike’s famous dachshunds.

Where to begin…Jacob picked me up from DFW on Thursday and after taking two hours to get back to Mike’s we proceeded to let the fun begin! (Remind me I never want to drive in Dallas – it was a terrifying experience!) Mike hosted a pool party for us, and we had a great time swimming in his pool, eating the burgers and steak that Mike grilled, and devouring delicious homemade ice cream Jake Barton, Heather Morris’s boyfriend made. We got a little vicious when we started the chicken fights in the pool, and Jacob’s neck was pretty sore the next morning.

We enjoyed a lovely evening at a Japanese restaurant Friday night. The two moms that took us all to dinner were extremely generous, and we had a great time! Partway through the dinner, the parents decided that we teenagers spent too much time on our cell phones, and all of the sudden Mike was walking around the table, grabbing the Iphones off the table. Since my phone was in my purse on the ground, I got to keep mine, but then I handed it to Jacob, and the adults’ eagle eyes zeroed in on the phone that hadn’t been confiscated! Suddenly, Jacob was getting “strip searched” but we’d managed to pass the phone around the table. Eventually, my phone went with the pile as well, and I found out I’m the only one not cool enough to have an iPhone!

We went to bed very late Friday night, which was a bad plan as we got up at 5 am to head to the track by 6 to do the final team gallop. All the horses galloped and cooled down well. We had eight horses go to the track and just one water hydrant without a hose, so I had the grooms practice vet box techniques with multiple buckets, sponges, and scrapers. After cooling the horses down, we took them back to Gold Chip and spent the rest of the morning icing the horses and packing the rest of the tack and feed.

We then took two cars to Dallas to watch an arena football game, compliments of Mike and Cherye. It was very fun to just hang out as a group, and most of us had never seen arena football. By the time we got back to Gold Chip, it was almost midnight, so here came another late night for us, since we’d been up at 5 am!

Sunday morning we trotted the horses up for Mike at 9 am. They all looked great, which made us quite excited! After packing a few last minute things, and clipping some of the horses, we all split up to go take naps. As a funny side note, I had left my clippers out in the barn for some of the girls to use, and I foolishly left some white spray paint next to the clippers so that I wouldn’t forget to pack it. After Avery used my clippers, she thought she was helping me out by spraying them with “cooling spray.” She didn’t look at the bottle, and I guess didn’t realize it when the clipper blades were suddenly white. She felt so bad when she found out, but luckily, it’s a special type of spray paint that washes out with water. She vigorously cleaned them and they look perfectly fine now. No harm, no foul!

A second story that must be shared would be Jacob and my opossum adventure. When we were all leaving our wonderful host home, Lynne and Andy Partridge’s, their dogs would not leave the truck alone. Being from Arkansas, I guess Jacob deals with animals stuck up inside vehicles on a regular basis. He quickly looked under the truck bed, and we found a lovely opossum stuck up above the spare tire. At first we thought it was dead, but after Jacob started poking it with a broom, we realized it was still alive. We thought we could just lower the spare tire, but the tools weren’t in the truck so we just drove around with the opossum stuck under the truck for a while. After contemplating taking the truck to Walmart, and just telling them we needed to get the spare tire out, we ended up going back to Gold Chip, as a couple kids on the team have Ford trucks. We were working on locating the tools to release the spare tire, when I decided to check on the opossum situation. Luckily, he had decided that the spare tire was a bad place to hang out, and he got himself out! Who knows where that rodent is lurking, possibly the Walmart parking lot, but at least we didn’t have to deal with him!

(See the fur and legs sticking through the tire holes?)

Well, there are the tales of Young Rider training camp 2011. We’re having a good time hanging out in Mike’s rig, but we’re (mostly me) ready to kill Jacob, and we’ve only been in the truck two hours! It’s going to be a long night!

Talk to y’all once we are set up in Kentucky!

Elizabeth