Recap of the Past Year

     Hello blog, it has been a while. A lot has happened in the last year and a half. I kept happily working for the O’Connor’s, and then last year I had the opportunity to move into OCET rider, Lauren Kieffer’s barn. Lauren has everything from 3 and 4 year old babies, to experienced four-star horses. But then I had to take some time off from riding/competing last fall and winter when I took a fall that left me with a couple broken ribs and a liver contusion. But as soon as I was healed I was back to working with Lauren. I have gotten to broaden my riding skills with Lauren by riding babies, to mid-level eventers, to top international quality horses, and it has been an educational whirlwind. Lauren is one of the very few riders who just ‘has it;’ that natural ability and talent that makes any rider cringe with jealousy. She has such a quiet way of communicating with the horses on a level that most find it impossible to do. The way horses respond to her is so amazing to watch. But Lauren works harder than anyone I know at this sport, and she deserves all the successes she has recently accomplished. Everyone needs to look for this girl in many future Olympics and prestigious competitions to come, because she is a world-beater.

     Another trainer that has come into my life recently is two-time Olympian grand prix dressage rider, Jacqueline Brooks.  I began taking lessons with her in Florida when my friend Steph Rhodes-Bosch organized bi-monthly clinics with her. I took my first lesson with Jackie on Little Phil this past winter. That’s right, Little Phil recovered fully from his injury, and Steph helped me bring him back to full health and put him back into his eventing career. Jackie instantly fixed many problems that I previously had with Phil, so then I decided to start taking lessons on Calvin with her. In a mere few months, Jackie turned my green horse into a dressage horse, and then I couldn't stop taking lessons with her. She now flies to Virginia to train those of us at OCET on a bi-monthly basis, and we could not be more lucky. Watch out dressage world, because here come Calvin and I.

    
I finally sold Phil this past spring to a jumper rider named Kelly Ford. She absolutely loves him, and I am excited to see what his future holds with his new jumper career! I am so happy we found such a great home for Phil. I needed to get him sold, as I needed the money and I needed the change of pace while I start to down-size my bundle of horses. I am still keeping Calvin to ride on my own time, but now I am leaving my barn job to go look for a business or marketing job in the ‘real world’. I have had my fun and had amazing opportunities working with Lauren, Karen, and the rest of OCET, but now it is my time to go make enough money that I can actually afford and support my own horses that I do keep. I am absolutely going to keep riding and training, just as an extracurricular instead of a full time profession. I have realized that there are too many other things in this world that I want to see and do, and riding horses as a full time occupation does not allow much time or space (or budget!!) for those other things. Consider this change as a forward step in balancing my life between the many things that I love, and seeking to be able to afford it all.

     I have also had a couple exciting trips around the world this past year and a half to share with everyone. Anyone who knows me, knows that I have a severe case of wanderlust. The desire to explore new places and experience new cultures is a feeling that overcomes me on a regular basis. Travel is something that I cherish, and I am going to start taking advantage of this blog as a place to share my adventures with my friends and family. I am going to turn this blog into not only my equestrian update center, but also a place to share my world travels and general adventures with everybody. So stay tuned for some more types of recaps on what I’ve been doing!

my adorable black lab, Na'vi

 

The Holiday Season

Dear Family and Friends, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!! Now on to the updates:
As I started my new journey with the new guy, Calvin, there was only enough time to squeeze in a few competitions before the eventing season in our area was over in November. We ended up WINNING two events, and the third one we would have won if Calvin had not decided to have too much fun in our first line in the stadium jumping phase (zealous squealing and a little bucking caused us to get distracted and have a rail down). But everything else was perfect! We scored a 29 in dressage at each three of our events in a row, which I am exceptionally happy about, but hopefully we can go out next season and lower that score by a few points.

Kelly and I on brothers, Nalu and Calvin

Most of the OCET team has already moved to Florida to train and compete in the warmer weather, but a few of us ended up staying in Virginia a little while longer. I plan on moving myself and my horses down right after the holidays. To me, Thanksgiving and Christmas are just not the same in 80 degree weather. I am a traditionalist, and like my Christmas lights with some snow and hot cocoa. Also, after having jumped right into work at the O’Connors’ immediately after graduation, I never got to fully recover from final exams, so having this bit of quieter time has been nice, and rather rewarding. I have gotten to ponder my life plans a bit more, and came up with a few more long term goals for myself. But more on that later.

Some other good news is that the little off the track race horse that I got is back in action! Johnny got kicked while turned out in his field and had to have a few months off, but he is back, and ready to start getting in the groove of things again.

And the best news yet: Little Phil’s leg is healing beautifully!! Dr. Ober re-scanned him recently, and gave me the clear to start turning him out in average sized fields for a few hours a day! Hooray! He has been enjoying getting to move around freely in his paddock and occasionally likes to show off his special talent: a dance that involves rearing and bucking in circles, and sometimes in-place. He’s special. But I am in such high spirits knowing that he is progressing this well.
More updates to come when we migrate to Florida! Again, Happy Holidays everyone!!!!

Some Good News, And Some Bad....

I have been putting off writing my next post for months because of the bad news. Many of my family and friends already know, but for those of you that do not, I'll throw the bad news out there first to get it over with. We did not know this at first, but it turned out that Phil somehow came out of his cyst-removal surgery with a second injury. When we went to rescan him to monitor his healing progress, we found a tear in a tendon in that same area. This was quite devastating news, but fortunately I have a great team of people around me that helped set up a procedure that would give Phil the best possible prognosis. Dr. Ober arranged for Phil to go in earlier this summer to have stem cells taken out of the bone marrow from his sternum. Weeks later, after the cells 'cooked' in the lab, he went in and had them injected into his problem area to help speed the healing process. He is still currently in stall rest, but getting 15-20 minutes of hand walking per day, plus some grazing time! He seems quite happy, and we are hoping that he can start getting turned out fairly soon.
On to the good news.
First, I graduated college!!!! It is such a weight lifted off my shoulders to be done with classes, homework, studying, and test taking! But I must say that now school season is back in session, I actually do miss it a little. More than anything, I miss my close friends I made over the last four years there. But luckily, many of them are attending grad school, or landing jobs fairly close in the DC area, so I still get to see some of them reasonably often. But I am happy to say that the only tests I will be studying for this year are my dressage tests. :)

Oh, and I almost forgot, for graduation, my parent's present to me was a new english black lab puppy! My roommate Miriam and I named her Na'vi (it's from Avatar, in case you were wondering!)

Second, I just found a new horse! Karen told me about a brother of Phil's from the same farm in Louisiana, so I went down to look at him, and the rest was history. He has been in Virginia with me for over 2 weeks now, and I am irrevocably falling in love with this horse. His name is Calvin, and he is a chestnut, not a bay like Phil and Nalu (Phil's other brother that Kelly owns/rides at the farm). Calvin is quite green in the jumping phases, so we will have to start at the bottom levels until he gains enough experience to start moving up, but I am exceedingly excited about his future!

Calvin-left, Phil-right..brothers!!

That's all for now! :)

The Migration

It has been a while since I have posted, and I have been emphatically busy finishing up school and taking my last Florida trips of the season. I was able to go down and see Phil and pack up all my things a few weeks ago to prepare for the migration toward Virginia. Phil was happier than ever, and was even letting everyone pet him in the stall!!! Anyone who has ever met Little Phil knows this is strangely out of character, as he is a grumpy little devil in his stall, and will not let anyone come into his box without being greeted with a vigorous head shaking with pinned-back ears. But I guess he likes being on stall rest, because he is exceedingly cheerful these days-- such a weird horse!

After that trip down to pack up my things, I came back to school to study, write papers, prepare presentations, and finish up taking my final exams, for the last time ever! I think it all went well, but what was really on my mind was getting down to Rolex Kentucky to watch Karen, Hannah, and Liv all compete in the prestigious 4* competition. I drove down the morning after my last final, and had an amazing time being a spectator, cheerleader, shopper, and most of all, being a great eater (or not so great eater with all the fried food and funnel cakes!) All of OCET placed in the ribbons and received prize money!! It was so emotional getting to be connected with people who had done so well at that level of the sport, and who were literally living the dream.

I quickly drove back up to VA from Kentucky, but only to catch a flight back down to Florida, to drive Phil and one other horse named Ron up to Virginia! That's a lot of traveling in 2 days! Unfortunately, I had to miss my senior year beach week with all my friends to drive the horses up, but I've learned that you have to choose and learn to make sacrifices in order to prioritize your life correctly.

So for now, Phil is under the care of OCET in VA, and I am in Fredericksburg, VA preparing for my graduation this weekend!!! So exciting! Phil should be started back under saddle in the next few days when all of OCET and Karen are there, and I will be moving up to Middleburg in the next two weeks to work and ride there! As the horses continue to migrate up to Viriginia, I will be walking toward my diploma!

Setback....

     It seems like setbacks always come right when everything starts to feel like its going well. After winning my first event of the season with Phil, then Karen doing well with him at Red Hills, and then planning on moving him up to intermediate at Poplar (this weekend), of course something needs to bring us back down to Earth. Phil has just had surgery last Friday. :(
     He had a funky little growth (almost like a cyst) of scar tissue in his right front leg that had been there for about 5 weeks. It was not affecting his soundness at all, and we had even ultrasounded and x-rayed it, and decided to let it go down on it's own since it was not effecting any ligaments, tendons, or his soundness. We continued working and competing him, but then after the one star at Red Hills, it got a bit larger, and Dr. Ober decided it was time for it to come out before it did any damage to his tendons or ligaments. Phil was still completely sound, which is why it was so hard to make the decision to make him undergo the surgery, but I am so thankful to have Phil around such great professionals like OCET, and Dr. Christiana Ober to make the initiative decision to take it out before any harm was done.
     This has set us back a few months, as Phil is currently in stall rest, but Dr. Ober has been checking up on him, and she is very happy with his status, and says he is doing better than expected! He can be under saddle again in less than 30 days, and slowly get back into full work, so I am very happy about this news of a quick turnaround time! As long as recovery goes well, this is not going to affect his level of performance, and I am so happy that we got all of this taken care of and taken out of his leg before it actually caused a problem that would inhibit his performance in the long run. I'm sure Phil doesn't mind having a bit of time off, as he is a huge fan of taking long naps in the warm Florida weather. The girls have been sending me pictures of him looking quite happy during his grazing time each day too! :)

pray for little phil's speedy, safe and successful recovery! :)

Blog Creation

     Hello everyone! I'm creating this blog site for my family, friends, and colleagues that want to follow my journey as an event rider! I also had an assignment in my visual rhetoric class at UMW to create an e-portfolio, such as a website or blog to claim our online identity..so I thought what better way than to start up a blog about my eventing?!?
     For this first post, I'll give you all a little background on where I am now in my life full of horses. (You can also click on the 'About Kate' tab and the 'My Teachers' tab to learn more). I am finishing up my last semester at the University of Mary Washington, and trying to keep up with my eventing career. After spending many years working for and learning from prestigious event rider, Sharon White, and then spending some time with top rider Emily Beshear, I am now working for and riding under the O'Connor Event Team (OCET). Karen and David O'Connor are very accomplished Olympians in the sport of eventing, and I am so honored to be working there! Their summer/fall home is in Middleburg, VA, which is where I had my horse, Phil last summer and this fall semester of school, but their winter home (or farm) is down in Ocala, Florida. I have been lucky enough to keep Phil in work with Karen O'Connor down in Florida during this spring semester, and I have been flying down just about every other weekend to work and ride (and get sunburned!).
     Karen has been competing him and has been doing great with him, and right now I'm all smiles because I just competed him for the first time of the year this weekend...and we WON!!!! I'm down here in Ocala, FL for my spring break away from school right now, and a few of us from the farm went to a local event this weekend, and Phil was a superstar! We won the first phase (dressage), and jumped clear and under the optimum time in both the stadium and cross country jumping phases, and claimed our blue ribbon! yippeee!!
     Karen, Hannah and Max are over in Wellington for the weekend because KOC and Hannah are on a team for the Derby Cross--which is going to be awesome! I was going to drive down and watch, but have instead decided to go grill out with everyone at the farm and watch the derby live online at 5pm tonight (http://www.iequine.com/events/pro-derbycross).
So that's all for now! :)

Phil (right) and his pasture mate, Danny - in Florida