Joanna Jodko photo.

HUGE congrats to our friend Kaitlynn for adding our beloved Helio HI to her string. We sourced and developed Helio from a young horse to Grand Prix, and we’re thrilled to see him take Kaitlynn to the big ring AND stay in the family. Congrats to everyone involved in this wonderful partnership!

A week or so ago I wrote a little bloglet for my own website theorizing one of the reasons why there seem to be so few schoolmasters available for purchase right now. It sparked a conversation in the comments section on Facebook that was quite remarkable: in addition to being entirely civil (shocking!), it also led to some really interesting conversations about schoolmasters in general, and the adventures in purchasing them.

There are some common statements people make about purchasing schoolmasters. I thought I’d respond to some of them, with my thoughts.

Read the rest at The Chronicle of the Horse!

Congratulations to the lucky, lucky, lucky owners of the inimitable Con Air V! Aero is one of the more wonderful animals in the history of the universe, and we’re so honored to have had him in our lives! Heather Richards photo.

Keep making progress this winter! Between a southern training opportunity and our winter arena rentals, we’ve got lots of ways to keep you moving towards your 2022 goals. Click to read more, and sign up to receive our monthly-or-so newsletter directly in your inbox!

A rider biomechanics clinic, Winter Adult Camp weekends and all the news that’s fit to print is in our September e-newsletter. Read all about it here, and sign up to receive it directly in your inbox!

It’s been a minute (or three months, oops) since our latest newsletter, but we haven’t been bored! We’ve been up to our winning ways, including some high score awards, some medal scores, and sending two homemade Grand Prix horses to the USEF National Championships. Read on to learn all about it, and sign up to receive our monthly (or, you know, whenever we have time) newsletters directly in your inbox!

It’s T-minus two weeks until we’re back up and running in full swing at our Virginia facility, and we couldn’t be more excited about what’s on our event horizon! Our Florida contingent has had an incredible winter, and our Virginia team made the most of our fabulous facilities to be ready for the Spring competition season and beyond. Read all about it in our April e-newsletter, and sign up to receive it directly in your inbox!

There’s a kid I see pop up on my social media from time to time. She starts young horses and then sells them, which is why I see her posts. The horses are always well groomed and ridden and presented tactfully. The videos are well put together. The text on her ads is articulate and correct. And that’s all well and good, but the part that stands out is that this kid can RIDE. She’s clearly bold. She sits. She puts her leg on. She’s the kind of rider I want a million of for my own barn, and she’s young and driven and, according to her website, hungry for excellence at the international level one day.

She’s also in a part of the country without good access to coaching. She’s ridden a lot of sketchy stuff. She’s got her own business, where I’m sure she also has to ride a lot of scary things, including some stuff that more established trainers could pass on. Kids like her are often the trainer of last resort, or (because they’re cheap) the trainer that owners of rank horses send their scary stuff to.

And I wish that someone would take this kid aside, and tell her this: you have so, so much going for you. Your potential is tremendous. And under no circumstances will it be fulfilled being a trainer of rogue wingnuts, or a teacher of inexpensive lessons. Get out now, and get into the barn of a solid professional, while you are still young and relatively unrestrained by spouses and children and mortgages.

Read the rest at NoelleFloyd.com!