Hi. It’s been a minute.

There’s a million reasons. This summer – this whole year really, but especially this summer – has been one mess after another, some small, some seismic. I’ve been BUSY: putting out fires, coming up with solutions, traveling all over to teach. I’ve been putting my limited spare time into fitness and into trying to be a partner and a friend and a dog mom more than being a writer. And ultimately, social media has presented me with two problems. First, a shrinking attention span means that most people will glance at the photo for this blog and go no further. And second, the comments sections are increasingly horrible places to be, which makes me want to put my life and thoughts out there much, much less.

So let me catch you up. The horses are fine. I own the most horses I’ve ever owned in my life, actually, and half of them are chestnut mares, so that’s something. I’ve come into owning a tremendously wonderful older schoolmistress who’s been in my life for quite a long time, and whose owners are getting out of horses, so I’ll see her leased out within my program to those looking to learn, before letting her enjoy a richly deserved retirement.

My four year old, Gogo (Total Gold, US-bred, Total Hope-Zack) arrived from her breeders in Oregon this Spring, promptly tried to die of shipping fever, mercifully didn’t try very hard to do so but did get problematically thin in the process, and took several months to decompress and gain condition enough to begin her employment as a dressage horse. She’s being backed thoughtfully and beautifully by my wonderful friend Jessica Fay, and we’ll take her to Florida and start the process of becoming a useful citizen.

Five year old Vera (Le Fer, Iron-Don Schufro) spent the winter in Virginia, got going again in the Spring, went to a horse show, and mostly comported herself with dignity. I took over the ride and was just starting to have a proper load of fun when she sprouted a massive sarcoid, and I took the time to have it removed, resulting in a few weeks’ setback. Since she’s already, air quotes, “behind” (because it’s not like there’s an actual schedule for these creatures), the loss of time really means nothing, and I’ll take her to some shows in Florida and dither around at First Level and keep plugging away.

Seven year old OJ (Orijinal JP, US-bred, Hennessy-Wynton) took a minute to transition the flying changes from more flying to more changing, and I feel like I really started to own them just in time for our show season to largely end in July. So we spent our summer starting to think about putting those changes in weirder places and in increasing frequency, and learning to piaffe, and generally being a Very Good Boy who isn’t really any particular level, which is great because I got to keep the thousands of dollars I would otherwise spend showing him in my pocket.

Which brings me to the big boys. Clearwater Farm Partners’ 8-year-old Beaker (Tjornelys Solution, Revolution-Rubin) had a banging winter where he showed Fourth Level and PSG and got all sorts of nice scores, and it left me with a conundrum: to try for the Developing Prix St. Georges Championships at Festival, or to park him at home and train and save money? I went to the Virginia CDI to try him in a non-qualifying version of that test, in front of the big mean international panel, and they all said he was very nice, but then I looked at gas prices and decided that it wasn’t worth it to schlep all the way to Illinois and take a week of my life to probably place 5th. Unfortunately for me, it seems like the overwhelming majority of people on horses that age made the same decision, so the class was super small, and now I have regrets. But that’s baseball, so on we trodge towards the Regional Championships and hopefully USDF Finals and whatever happens, happens. He also spent his summer working on the piaffe and passage to great success, and wins the award for Biggest Gains of the summer, so our time was very well-spent.

Last but certainly not least, the one everyone asks me about: The Elvis Syndicate’s 10-year-old Cadeau (St. Schufro-Richman), who was Reserve National Small Tour Champion last year, and won the Carol Lavell Development Prize. As these things tend to go, when one wins too many things in a year, one has to karmically pay the piper the following year and suffer a little bit. And suffer we have, mercifully on stupid things. The tummy problem. The shoe hiccup. Losing so much time (and, therefore, muscle) dithering around with those things that the saddle stopped fitting. The trailer problem, where in spite of dropping huge dollars on a new rig basically just for him, and taking a ton of time and outside expertise, we’ve concluded he really hates traveling alone, which makes getting lessons kind of a logistical nightmare. The reality of the cavern between the Small Tour and Large Tour in which every hole you thought you’d filled needs a repatching. And an ongoing conversation about how hard one-tempis are. Finally our $h*t came together in July, and we’ve been on a good roll since then.

Just as I felt the horses were leveling out, more chaos happened in July. My wonderful longtime assistant trainer and dear friend received the opportunity of a lifetime to work in Europe. I suddenly was running the entire business by myself, while also trying to interview and hire for the position, and all as I was entering a 5-consecutive-week period of being on the road teaching clinics. It took me too long to do what I should have done all along and promote-from-within my wonderful working student Stephani to the role, only to have her help a trailer-in client load her horse and get kicked for her trouble, earning her two nights in the ICU with a lacerated liver and 6 weeks off with fractured ribs. And somewhere in the middle, we faced the reality of a very different Florida season, with our numbers considerably off from years past.

It was at this point I saged the barn.

So it’s been a summer of basically abject chaos, all the time, and I’m trying not to bemoan what feels like a lack of progress in my own riding. All the comings and goings and hiccups meant that I really haven’t gotten any coaching since the Spring. I had a few plans for things I wanted to tackle this year, and everything’s gone belly up. There have certainly been moments of great, great frustration. And all of this amid the backdrop of a world and an economy that’s hard to be optimistic about.

Here’s the thing though: through it all, it’s never been hard to find things to keep my chin up.

Because the team I have is UNREAL. There has not been a single second where anyone has looked at me and said, “we can’t handle this.” Every step of the way, clients and friends have leapt in, largely unasked, to help. We’ve had fantastic luck with part-time help who *knocks wood* has not only shown up and done the job, but been a happy, smiling ray of sunshine along the way. We’ve brought some new faces into the barn who fit right in to our phenomenal culture, people who are ambitious and serious about improvement, but also a joy to have around. And whenever I go looking for it, there’s a person or a thing that gives me a glimmer of joy. They’re never, ever hard to find.

This is a long update on a new-ish platform, and if you’ve made it this far, hello, and thanks. You’re a part of that amazing team that lifts me up when I’m feeling fried, and I’m grateful for you. Bear with me as I see if updating here is something I can sustain in my life!

2024, you were a really rough assignment for a lot of people. You brought heartache and chaos to many parts of the world, both horsey and not. You caused pain. You caused angst.

And I feel like a heel, because you were one of the best calendar years of my life.

I’ve been joking-not-joking with people about how this was the year in which I officially Arrived: I was asked to give a lecture to the US Pony Club, I won a National Championship, and I’m now sponsored by Mrs. Pastures Horse Cookies. I have MADE IT, y’all. 

And it wasn’t just those three things. I wrote a little book, and I’m finalizing a contract on a big one. I put together my second syndicate to buy another stellar horse, and between the two syndicate horses and my own, I’m sitting on the best horses of my career. I was given an amazing opportunity to own an incredible senior Grand Prix horse, on whom I was able to make it possible to let some people I love show FEI. I taught more clinics and lessons than I’ve ever taught in a calendar year. My staff is phenomenal. My clients are wonderful.

I’m terrified.

I know there’s nothing holy about January 1, no magic happens at 12:01, but it’s easy to look back and think of the year 20blahblah as good or bad, and I’ve had some bad. The year that everything died. The year(s) that I was broke. The year where what I thought was my path to success was suddenly uprooted. I’ve been in those years. We’ve all had those years. One human constant is failure, whether by our own choices or by the universe slapping us with some calamity.

And I know that there’s always dark within the light, and light within the dark. The worst year of my life, the year that I nearly went bankrupt, which was followed by the year in which everything died, was also the year that my now-husband waltzed in. This year, in which there was so, so very much good, had its ick times: a death of someone I cared for deeply, some staffing challenges, having to get real about horses in my life and what they wanted to be when they grew up. It wasn’t all sunshine and roses, just as the down times can have their moments of joy.

But it just feels like there’s been too much good, and what goes up must inevitably come down. So I’m going to prepare for it. I’m trying hard to do right by my people, setting up a 401k for my employees, and focusing hard on finding them learning opportunities (as I always do). I’m checking off some deferred maintenance, so at least when chaos descends, it’ll hopefully be unpreventable chaos, because that’s less painful, somehow, in my weird little brain. And I’m writing things like this, to remember all the triumph, all the glory, all the bright shining success of this year’s good times, because I can look back and remember what it felt like, when things go inevitably to shit.

I expressed this thought to a friend recently, who said, “that’s not planning ahead. That’s a trauma response.” And maybe it is. But I think, then, that life is inherently traumatic. But for me, the worst days in this horse business, the days when all hell has, truly, broken loose, are still a price worth paying for all the good. So cheers to you, 2024, and onward.