Fall at Aspen Farms

Well, here I go entering the world of blogging. Let's see if this makes it easier for me to keep everyone updated on what's going on at AF. Since it has been a while as usual I'll jsut have to go over the highlights of the last few months. Aspen Farms first FEI competition was cetainly one of those highlights. We had perfect weather for once, fantastic volunteers as usual, fantastic sponsors, great riding, great courses, and no major complications with all the additional rules of FEI. All in all, a super weekend. Thank you to everyone who played a part in making it happen. Congratulations to Aspen Farms working students Laramie Maxwell and Rachel Magnuson for competing their first CIC* in 5th and 6th place. Congratulation to Aspen Farms super stabling steward, Alisa Sprouffske on winning her Am Novice division and receiving a Point 2 airvest for her win!!

Next on my things-to-do checklist is getting a bunch of new pictures put on the website so watch out for them!

Probably the ultimate highlight of the weekend was Trav's XC debut on Linus. I'm sure most of you have heard about it or seen the youtube video, if not I will give the condensed version and you can see for yourself from the video! Trav made a cocky statement that even he could get a horse around a novice course. Trav can count the number of times he has ridden a horse on one hand, so this was a very bold statement that we decided to hold him to. With the help of Gail Elliotts fantastic horse, Linus, at 6pm on the Sunday of the event, it was showtime. The crowd gathered on various motorized vehicles to witness what was sure to be a spectacle. I will let photos and video tell the rest of the story but I can tell you I have not laughed that hard in a really long time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp4_vzITZ7I

 Next up was EIHT at NWEC. We took all the young horses and had a great weekend despite the pouring rain. Todd Trewin made some great changes to the course that really gave the event a different feel. Sunday afternoon was a race to get unpacked, wash the mud off the equipement and repack to leave for CA the next morning. Meika Decher and I each took one horse and headed to Twin Rivers for a week of sunshine and to focus our undivided attention to our upperlevel horses. Ogopogo was doing his first advanced while Meika and Taco were doing Tacos second OI. In between our dedicated dressage practices, we managed to sneak off for a bit of shopping, lunch out, and a fantastic massage! The weekend was a success, with Uno placing 6th in his first advanced! He was fabulous in all three phases and added only xc time faults to his dressage score. He obviously knew this was important and that he had done well, he was very proud of himself after XC and SJ, and even arrived home still a bit puffed up! He is now enjoying a liile vacation time before we prep for the 2011 season. Mieka and Taco also had a great weekend with a confident clear XC round. The whirlwind continued when I arrived home to find Jon had gotten us tickets to the World Equestrian Games at the last minute! So after a couple days to reorganized, we were off to Kentucky. It was a pretty inspiring weekend with some truly amazing riding, and exceptional horses. It was amazing to witness Canada emerge as a dominant force on the eventing scene with their silver medal performance. They all rode brilliantly, with 6 out of 6 clean xc rides. I'm so glad I was able to be there to see it, and celebrate with them! I truly enjoyed watching Michael Jung ride, he absolutely deserved his gold medal. Next up was Woodside, and while I was origionally planning to go, since I had barely been home in the last 3 weeks I decided to skip it. Cindi and Chelsey made the trek on their own with Chelsey competing Cindi's 2 horses. Clearly I was not needed as Chelsey came home with 2 blue ribbons! Congratualtions to Chels and Cindi, very exciting!! Ok, I think that's it for now....time to move on to uploading pictures.