A Successful Showing for CIET!

The schooling show at FENCE was a great success for the Clemson Eventing Team. Cali (who competed her cute little mare Faith), Elisa and I trailered Faith up on Saturday afternoon to get her settled in and walk the courses. We pulled in, unloaded Faith and bedded her stall, borrowed a water bucket for the weekend (oops!), gave her some hay and went to The Farm House to put my saddle up for sale. While there, I bought a fabulous pair of brown rubber reins (can't live without those!) and saw this adorable coat that I definitely need to get for Teddy:

It's a Moxie coat and would match May's cooler! They would look so cute together!

So after wandering around The Farm House and making a new Christmas wishlist, we went back to the show grounds and walked to cross country and stadium courses and talked about how Faith was going to dominate the Beginner Novice division. Then we ate dinner and went to sleep in the camper trailer.

We woke up bright and early the next morning to get things going. Cali was already out checking on Faith when Elisa and I woke up so we ate breakfast and got dressed. Cali's parents arrived about forty minutes before her dressage test and we were all chatting it up when we realized - oh yeah, Cali's got to get on in like 10 minutes! We rushed around grabbing tack and clothes, tied a not-so-lovely stocktie on Cali and got her up on Faith and in the warm up ring.

Faith was awesome in the warm up and her transitions from trot to canter were especially good. However, in the test, as what usually happens, both Cali and Faith got a little tense. But they got through the test fine. Then on to cross country!

Cali was super happy with Faith in cross country, despite a dirty stop at jump four (which had Halloween-spinny decorations on it, something which I would have stopped at too). She finally got into a good rhythm and easily cantered over everything. Stadium went well too despite a dumb stop at jump three. The rest of the course went really well and Cali rode awesome, especially to jump seven when Faith didn't really want to go over it.

The rest of the eventing team did great as well, although I wasn't able to watch all of their rides. Lauren ended up third in Novice with just one rail in stadium. Morgan catch rode a cute little mare and ended up fourth with no jumping penalties. And Katherine won her Hopeful division! Poor Julie couldn't ride her horse in cross country or stadium because of a stone bruise but his dressage test was very nice.

We put up our Eventing Team banner outside the office along with our t-shirts and while we only sold one t-shirt (bummer!), I think we got a lot of exposure for the team. It was a fun day and all of us came home both happy and tired.

A picture of FENCE's gorgeous cross country course!

The Clemson Eventing Team's first horse trial

So this Sunday the Clemson Intercollegiate Eventing Team (CIET) is competing in our first horse trial as a "team". I say this loosely because the team itself isn't competing against other teams, but it's the first time the team will be up there competing together individually. Our eventual goal is to compete as a team against other teams like in the Adult Challenge or even at the Virginia Horse Trials which hosts college teams.

We chose an unrecognized horse trial to go to because most college students don't have the funds to compete at the recognized level. I've been extremeeeely lucky in that my parents have been behind me 100% by paying for my horse and for me to compete. They've been awesome and I know they love the sport as much as I do. I'm only going up this weekend to watch, support, and walk courses because the levels don't go above Novice but I'm really excited. A lot of the team members are coming up to support those who are riding (we have five members riding) and I think we'll have a lot of fun cheering people on.

We'll also be selling our AWESOME t-shirts!

We're hoping to get a lot of exposure out of this show. Go Clemson!!!

She did it!

Well, my trainer Holly completed the CCI*** at Fairhill which means: SHE CAN GO TO ROLEX!!

Obviously, I'm excited.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to go watch or groom since I'm still in school, but I heard that almost the entire cross country course was turned into soup. Out of 78 entries in the CCI*** only 35 finished. The majority of riders withdrew. It was totally nerve-racking waiting to hear the results because I knew that if Holly didn't ride, she wouldn't have the chance to go to Rolex.

Holly and Stewie (her crazy but extremely talented Thoroughbred), earned a respectable 58 in dressage to put them in the middle of the pack. She rode cross country and went clean with only 19 time penalties and then went double clear in stadium to end up in 15th place.

She said that Stewie was amazing, which he usually is. The horse absolutely lives for cross country. And when I said crazy, I do mean crazy. He's only 8 so he's still young but he definitely knows his job and he loves doing it.

It's really exciting to see them doing so well because Holly is such an amazing person, rider, and horsewoman. She's one of the funniest people I've ever met and she's also one of the most talented riders I've ever seen. And, to top it off, she knows her shit.

I can't wait for Rolex now - I wish it was coming up sooner!

Photos: Holly dominating the Fairhill three star course. Photo credit: useventing.com

Showing Off

The last two horse trials May has been amazing. She's been soft and supple in the dressage, beasted the cross country, and picked those knees up high in the stadium. I'm really looking forward to seeing how she does at the Preliminary at River Glen.

So as a tribute to her (because I do love her), I figured I'd post some of my favorite pictures just to show off.


A dressage picture at Tryon Riding and Hunt Club horse trials. May was awesome, however I screwed up one of the movements of the test. Funny thing is that I rode Prelim test B at the last show and Prelim test A at this show and somehow managed to mess up the trot to canter part on both of them! Guess I should read those tests more carefully.

Up and over one of the coops on the course. These two coops were set at a really steep angle and Don (who walked the course with me) suggested that since it was my first Prelim I should take the long route (circle after the first coop and take the second), which I did. It rode great but I'm positive that next time I'll take the short route.








One of our best stadium rounds to date! May hit every spot and she jumped up and round over the fences. We were one of only four rounds to go clear in our division. The mare is really turning out to be great!

A New Day

So this is my first post on my blog. I'm going to really try to keep up with this thing and what's going on with myself and my horse May (Maybelline Cover Girl). Just a little bit about me, I'm a senior Communication Studies major at Clemson University graduating in December (scary thought there), I'm president of the Clemson Intercollegiate Eventing Team (CIET), and I'm currently eventing May at Preliminary.

A little bit about May: she's a Trakehner/Thoroughbred, 10 years old, 15.3 hands, bay and (obviously) a mare. I bought her from Mary Quarles when she was 6 years old and she really hadn't done much of anything. The past four years have been both wonderful and difficult for the two of us but we've finally reached my goal of Preliminary. I'm hoping to take her to a few CCI*'s and if she's up for it, maybe go Intermediate.

We hauled up to Holly Hepp's (hollyheppeventing.com) this summer and I spent the time there as a working student. It was absolutely the best thing that's happened for us and my riding has just soared. I still go up to Holly's once a month for a tune up (and to hang out with her and all my favorite barn people). May and I are very excited for the rest of the fall season and for the spring season.