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http://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-CEO-Eventing/335976913086953?sk=wall
2011 concludes with a fond farewell to our beloved Lovesweetlove January 1, 2012
To wrap up 2011, today we sold by beloved pet, Lovesweetlove, on to a wonderful eventing home to a wonderful family. Thanks to The Stobbes Family for the opportunity to own such a special horse. What a bittersweet way to end a stellar year. Buddy, you will be greatly missed—-you were loved by SO MANY! What a GREAT horse!!! He was the star of beginner lessons, pony camp, Champion 3′ jumper with Emma, winner of 4 horse trials in 2011 alone, won dressage on numerous outings, scored in the 20′s consistently, loped around SJ and XC on a looped rein… What a special horse to teach a beginner rider one minute and jump 3’6″ the next. You don’t find that very often… Thank you Buddy for all the amazing memories. Cheers to all who have loved him. He truly has his very own fan club—he has taught SO much to SO many at Team CEO! 
The Jumping Bean: SOLD December 6, 2011
Our schoolmaster The Jumping Bean is off to be a little girl’s Christmas present! We love him dearly, but he’s going to have a great new home for Christmas. What a bittersweet week! We love them both and wish them the very best in their new homes! We will miss him very much—he has been a great addition to our farmily!
A Weekend of Jumper Shows December 5, 2011
DAY 1: SATURDAY
We all had a terrific time today in the indoor jumpers! Annette had the best courses of her life today—so proud! Emma did her first show with Ski, and they competed through 3’3″…. I’m very excited, as they are going to be a great partnership! 14yo event rider Sloane catch rode Buddy through 3′ and did a terrific job—they had some GORGEOUS rounds and not a single rail all day! Kathryn rode her 4yo today… He progressed from being terrified of a coop to going confidently and beautifully around his courses like a pro! Nikki rode her youngster today, who simply got better and better and by the end of the day was super confident at 3′. Team CEO’s 5yo app/TB Jerry (Aka Wapentake) showed for the first time at 3’3″ today, winning Champion for the Schooling Jumpers. So proud of everyone today! Good job guys!
DAY 2: SUNDAY
Today was ALL ABOUT Emma & Buddy! Despite Emma being 14yo and catch riding Buddy at the last minute, they DOMINATED the jumper show today. They won EVERY jumper class they entered in the Beginner Jumper and Hopeful Jumper divisions, four straight wins and eight straight double clear rounds. They were named champion in BOTH divisions. They beat 32 horses today—huge divisions with very good horses and riders. VERY proud of them! They had gorgeous hunter rounds the first round each time, then in their jump offs made turns that another trainer commented on, “I didn’t even think that line was possible!” Amazing!
Annette and DD continued their hot streak with all double clear rounds, as well as moving up to the 2’6″ level very successfully!
Our 5yo appy Jerry was terrific today, with a 1st, 2nd (to Emma!) and 5th. 5/6 clear rounds, with just one rail in a jump off when I got a little lost… Ooops. He was reserve Champion at 3’3″ today.
Very proud of everyone!
So proud of Nemo and Hopper! November 10, 2011
Today I received this in the mail:
Nemo:
- 1st River Glen April OI
- 1st River Glen November OI
- 2nd Otter Creek OI
- 2nd KY Classic OI
Hopper:
- 1st KY Classic OI
- 2nd River Glen OI
- 3rd Otter Creek OI
So proud of the boys for their hard work this year! Special thanks to everyone who makes Hopper and Nemo’s lives better… From their terrific vet and farrier to the working students to my incredibly supportive Dad! You’ve made this great season possible!
And the 2011 season comes to a close… November 7, 2011
Farewell 2011!
We ended the 2011 season at the River Glen HT in Area 3. River Glen is one of my favorite HT for its picturesque mountain setting, friendly staff/organizers/volunteers, and old time eventing feeling.
Can I brag on my beloved chestnut pony for a minute?
This November’s Intermediate division was perhaps the best I’ve ever seen here. I can’t tell you how many horse/rider pairs were in this class whom I really respect & admire! The dressage warmup alone was a sight to behold. Nemo was a good boy for his last test of the year, and scored a 28.0 in Intermediate to sit in second by just 0.8 pts behind Rachel Zoller’s lovely test on Only Kings.
River Glen SJ is notoriously challenging, and this weekend did not disappoint. The course was lovely and a terrific challenge with all the right questions and nothing unfair. There was one double clean SJ, one 4 fault SJ, three 8 faults, and the rest 12-33 faults…. This course took no prisoners!! I was really happy with how Nemo jumped… Very confidently and trying his heart out. I put him just a hair too close to a BIG square black oxer at #9 for one rail down, but with the second fewest penalties of the division he moved from 2nd to 1st overnight.
Sunday dawned absolutely beautiful, a perfect day for XC. Nemo and I have been together for 7 years (since he was 3yo) and we are like an old married couple. I really wanted to go after the XC and have a good, forward round. I asked him to gallop everywhere and he did not disappoint… He was efficient, forward, and trying his heart out. Coming to the 2nd water the rider in front of me had fallen (thankfully she’s okay) and people were standing around her near the fence in… I looked to see if the TD or judge wanted to pull me up, but no one did, and thankfully Nemo kept his gameface on in the commotion and still jumped nicely in. I was so happy with him everywhere… He galloped on everywhere and came across the finish line full of running, and 15 seconds under time. HE WAS AMAZING!
When all was said and done, Nemo won the Intermediate on final score 32.0, a total of 16 points over the next place. It was the lowest winning OI score at River Glen in the last 12 horse trials they’ve hosted… I’m so happy for this horse… He’s worked so hard, this was all about him, and he deserves it! LOVE him!!!
Buddy and I did his first novice this weekend, winning the dressage on 27. He had a couple of learning rails around a very big SJ, and finished 4th. He came away a much better horse for the future, and man that horse can jump!
Andrea and Vie ran their second training… They finished 6th in the Open Training (despite being an STR) in good company. I’m so proud– Andrea had her lifetime best XC ride! It was gorgeous!
Jeri and Mouse improved by leaps and bounds this weekend in Mouse’s second novice… They scored 30 in dressage with a gorgeous test and finished in 2nd!!! Big things to come in the future!
So proud of everyone this weekend… It was a great way to wrapup the season, and great to see old friends and new! Can’t wait for 2012 already!
(Photo is actually of Nemo at River Glen in April 2011—no photos from this weekend available yet! Photo credit Nikki Burgio. Video clips are are this weekend’s event, taken by my fabulous dad, Howard Moore. Thanks guys!)
Three Cheers for Hayden November 2, 2011
Congratulations to our 11yo student Hayden and her pinto pony Ravioli…. They competed together at their very first off-the-farm horse trial this weekend at Octoberfest Horse Trials, held at the Kentucky Horse Park.
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Hayden and her sister Sloane spent the summer diligently coming out to the barn every day to be working students. They worked incredibly hard, and Hayden schooled all the lesson ponies for us every day. This photo shows Hayden last weekend at Team Challenge, where she voluntarily groomed for all of our riders… She epitomizes Team spirit!
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This weekend was her weekend. In her first HT, she led the dressage on 27.1 and never looked back… Jumping double clean in all phases, she finished on her dressage score to WIN!!! All of her hard work all summer really paid off… We are all SO PROUD of her!!!
Video of Nemo at Third level October 20, 2011
Just wanted to share the video of Nemo’s third level debut! It’s a cell phone video so it’s a bit small. Thanks to my awesome working student Andrea for videoing!
Go Nemo!
A great end to a challenging week! October 17, 2011
So for six months, I’ve been tracking a side goal with Grasshopper… My dressage coach Reese Koffler-Stanfield and I have been working the Third Level Dressage tests on Hopper, aiming towards his debut this weekend. He has been amazing… What was one of the hardest horses I’ve ever taught a flying change to is now a flying change machine! The 3rd lvl tests are so much fun on him—I couldn’t wait to show him off!
Then this week happened… Hop colicked for no apparent reason (still working on that one) and the world stood still. Thursday night he was allowed to come home from the hospital, having avoided surgery, and the focus became on tending to his every whim… Not competitions.
On Thursday, when I knew he would be coming home and I had the chance to end my bedside vigil at the vet hospital, I started thinking about the dressage show. I showed up for my lesson at Reese’s with my other horse, Nemo. Surprise! “Okay, a little perspective this week Reese… Hopper’s home, everything’s going to be okay, so maybe Nemo will go do dressage and try to fill one hoofprint of his very big shoes…”
So thus began our 24 hour turn around for what was to become Nemo’s third level debut. Now, before you think I’m crazy or totally unprepared, I’ve been riding dressage on Nemo for 7 years, and have shown him through Advanced and CIC***, so it’s not like I took a novice horse and threw him into it…. It’s just that, as of Thursday, we hadn’t done those tests ever… And hadn’t been schooling changes on Nemo all year, as he’s just showing Intermediate this year.
We thought we’d give it a try, just for fun. After all, scores don’t matter after all that’s happened this week! Long story short, he had two very good tests and one where he was spooking at flapping papers in the 45 degree wind. But all three scores were over 60%, and he finished 1st, 2nd, and 2nd! Amazingly, he stepped up to the plate so much that he helped me earn the final two scores I needed for my bronze medal! Something I thought I’d be doing on Hop, not Nemo… Just goes to show you that there are no plans when it comes to horses!
So today, to finish off the most stressful week ever, I earned my Bronze Medal in Dressage competition, riding a combination of my two OTTB’s that we’ve trained from the very beginning here. What a sweet, sweet way to end the week!
(And for the icing on the cake, I took the WS out to masterson park for some dressage, and a great hack in the sunshine afterwards!)
Grasshoppers have Nine Lives October 14, 2011
You’ve all heard the old adage that cats have nine lives… Well I learned this week that Grasshoppers do too. (And forgive me here, because I haven’t actually slept, at all, since Monday. )
Life #1—Hopper escapes the glue factory. In 2006, I was recovering from the big accident in my life, when a young horse turned over on me and had reconstructive surgery with cadaver parts. I wasn’t yet back to riding young horses, but I asked a killer truck driver about a pony who was on the truck as a potential project horse for our barn manager. The ponies weren’t of interest once off the truck, but at the front of the truck was a hairy, scruffy, rough looking TB with the most kind eye I’ve ever seen on a horse. I inquired about the TB, and the dealer told me, “You know those horses who shouldn’t be on slaughter trucks? This isn’t one of them.” Despite his warnings that the horse was agressive and difficult, I fell in love. He was covered head to toe in mud, with a 3″ long winter coat that made him look like a pony. But in that moment, I fell hopelessly in love with Grasshopper.
Life #2, Hopper as a pasture ornament... I started training my young TB, and loved him immediately. But soon after, he had a freak accident where a splinter of wood ended up through his coronet band and towards his coffin joint. The diagnosis? We hoped he would be sound as a pasture ornament. I owed that to my beloved young horse. So after buying him off the truck for a couple of hundred dollars, I invested $10,000 of our hard earned money into vet bills to try to save him… Long story short, we used numerous experimental procedures done, and then 8 months of turnout… On re-exam, he was 100% sound and passed a revetting with flying colors! The wonderful vets at Rood & Riddle had bought him a new life. (He’s the most incredibly sound horse today, and the x-rays are nearly perfect from that foot!)
So the years have drawn on, and my beloved horse is the love of my life. He has won numerous preliminary horse trials, jumped around Fair Hill clean twice, and won the Area 8 championships. He has done several years at Intermediate, and is solidly at third level dressage. He just had his first Intermediate win at KY Classic!
Life #3—This week… But Tuesday 11am, I knew something wasn’t right–in his own odd way, he was showing me that he was colicking. I called Dr. Newton, who is the most amazing vet on the planet, and he came right away. That day, he worked on Hop three separate times, but we weren’t winning the battle. At 5pm, he was admitted to the hospital. I sat vigil at his bedside all evening, and at 8pm he took a turn for the worse. His vet, Dr. Hopper (fate?) was called back from the office, as it was time to make a call on colic surgery…. Amazingly, as Dr Hopper walked in, Hop stopped panicing and became calm. He bought himself more time.
I’m a pretty calm person in an emergency, and I’ve been through a lot the last two years… But sitting up Tuesday night waiting for the call that Hop might go into surgery, I was a mess. I threw up all night nonstop, and spent the night on the bathroom floor. I love this horse more than anything in the world… He is my best friend. He may not be a fifty thousand dollar imported warmblood, but that $500 killer truck TB is the love of my life.
But true to Hop, he pushed through. Twice that night, they thought he’d need surgery, but he toughed through it… By morning, he was slightly better. Then the next morning, he was better still. I spent so much of the last three days sitting in the corner of his stall at the clinic that I think the staff was so tired of me! But they were all so incredibly wonderful. They nursed Hop through, and tonight I got to bring my boy home.
He may not be out of the woods yet, but just bringing him home was so incredible. He is so funny—we love each other so much, but he pretty much hates every other person on the planet. He is so happy to be home, he was being a brat to some of the vet clinic staff today… As my dad said, that means our boy is back!
I’ve cleared his schedule for the rest of the year. Everything in life seems so much more trivial… Every day that he’s with me, so much more sweet. I am so incredibly lucky to have such an incredible horse in my life. And I will appreciate every moment.
My horse is home. Thank goodness he has nine lives. (Written from the barn—Who knows if I’ll leave his stall tonight.)
