January 8th - Cavaletti and Gymnastics Clinic at Morven Park

Ring in the new year with a fun clini to get you and your horse kickstarted for the 2011 season. The clinic will combine the use of ground poles, cavaletti, grids and single fences. Lessons will last one hour for groups of three riders, starting from Green horses and going up through the Eventing levels. Paul will also offer a “Dressage Over Poles” group for those non-jumping riders looking for something different for mid-winter training. This lesson will focus on rhythm, power and articulation of joints, in all three gaits.

Riders are encouraged to form their own groups (horses should be close to the same level) in order to make the clinic a fun and lively day! Friends and family should come with warm clothes, and warm drinks!! The peanut gallery is always welcome!

To enter, please Email Pat Palmer with rider’s name, horse’s name, horse/rider experience and telephone number.

See attached flyer for more information.

Rubicon XC Schooling (November 13th)

Madi and Big Love were jumping BIG over at the Rubicon schooling day and having fun doing it!

Rubicon Horse Trails (November 6th & 7th)

A great end to the 2010 season with 11 riders and 12 horses representing CWF all levels at the Rubicon Horse Trials. Everyone rode great and had fun too! Some highlights: Lindsay and Ben finished their season with a clear Preliminary cross country round.Erin and Marco finished in 4th in the Novice. DeAnna and Marilyn finished 3rd in the Beg. Novice. Pat completed her first recognized event on her new horse Baysil. To see everyone's results go to the Results 2010 page.

After the event was over the CWF crew gathered for a end of season tailgate party. There was lots of good cheer and talk of 2011 goals. Now we all have to polish our dressage movements and work on our show jumping form and agility through grid work and exercises this winter so that in 2011 we are stronger than ever!

Maryland Horse Trails (October 9-10)

Pat and Ian are really on a roll and doing great at the Preliminary level. They were 4th after dressage, had one rail in the Show Jump, and had a beautiful round cross country (minus Pat getting a bit lost that resulted in time faults). Overall they finished in 9th place in an open division. Colleen and Rocky also competed in the Junior Training and finished in 8th place adding only 4 jumping faults from Show Jumping to their dressage score.

Morven Park Horse Trails (October 2-3)

What an beautiful weekend to be out riding around cross country at Morven Park. Pat and Ian had a fabulous weekend, jumping clean around a very difficult preliminary course. The only downside is that she missed the last fence in show jumping so got eliminated. Bummer! But Ian is looking and jumping great and that is what counts. Martha moved Raymond up to Training and jumped clean, well done! Colleen and Rocky had a good dressage score and good show jumping, but unfortunately 20 points at the water moved them down from 3rd to 15th place. Erin Durst also had a good weekend improving on their show jumping performance to finish in 9th place. Erin Miller and San Marco competed in their first event together in the Novice Rider division and finished an impressive 3rd place. Congratulations to everyone.

IRONMAN Louisville

Congratulations to Paul for finishing his third IRONMAN event. Brian Jarvis also completed the event with a personal best time! They swam 2.4 miles, biked 112 miles, and ran the 26.2 marathon! The heat and humidity was brutal, but survived and we are glad they are both back one piece.

Farewell to Leslie

As many of you already know, Leslie has decided to move back to Wisconsin. Leslie was a tremendous asset to CWF and she will be greatly missed. We look forward to seeing her and Celie at some of the big upcoming events and wish her the best of luck in her future endeavors.

Difficult Run Horse Trials (August 21-22, 2010)

A fun weekend for everyone at the Difficult Run Pony Club horse trials. Lindsay Fox, Pat Palmer, and Paul all moved their horses up to preliminary successfully. Molly Curtiss also had a good weekend in the prelim. Molly finished 6th on Savannah, Paul finished 8th on Rocky, Lindsay finished 11th on Ben, and Pat finished in 13th on Ian. Cameron Rouse and Ladybug finished in 4th place in the Beginner Novice Championships. At the Novice level Paul took Porter to his first recognized event and placed 6th, Leslie rode Happy in her first novice event and placed 11th, and Martha placed 8th on Raymond. In the Novice Rider division Allie finished in 1st place on Casper in his first novice event, well done! Suji rode Rudy in his first novice and was having a great round until she just popped off after a jump and therefore could not finish. Bummer, she was going so well. Thank you to Lee Rouse for taking some great pictures!

Maryland Horse Trials II (July 17-18, 2010)

Congratulations to Pat Palmer riding Ian to a 4th place finish in the Open Training E division. She had a beautiful clean SJ and XC to finish on her dressage score. Colleen and Connor also finish in 4th place, but in the Young Rider Preliminary division. They too had a fantastic SJ with one rail down and a clean XC! Way to go girls. Colleen is now headed to Young Riders training camp in preparation for the North American Young Rider Championships. Also a big congratulations to Sharon Miller for moving Mickey up to his first preliminary event and jumping around XC clean. Way to go!

Paul is now ICP Level III certified (May 30, 2010)

Congratulations to Paul for passing the Level III Instructors Certification Program (ICP) down at Southern Pines, North Carolina on May 10th. The ICP ensures that instructors are knowledgeable and accomplished in the training of riders and their horses for humane, safe, and skilled participation in the sport of eventing.

Fair Hill International Horse Trials (May 16, 2010)

Christie and Teco jumped clear around their second intermediate cross country to finish 10th in an Open division, Congratulations!! Colleen and Connor had a glance off at a corner and elected to retire, but I know they will be back in form at their next show. Moving up to Intermediate is a big step and even a small mistake can cost you 20 jump penalties. Paul and Rocky jumped around the Open Training course with ease and finished in 4th place.

Middleburg Pony Club Combined Test (May 8, 2010)

A fun day a Glenwood Park for the young horses and young riders. Suji rode Calvin in the Beginner Novice and did a fantastic job to finish in 3rd place, great job for his first show out of the season. Andrew rode Rudy in the Open Novice and also placed 3rd and Cameron and Ladybug placed 4th in the same division. Pat and Ian placed 4th in the open training and Sharon and Mickey were 2nd in the Open Preliminary. Great job! Paul also took the 4 year olds, Happy and Porter, out for their first time ever and they were both very good in the dressage and show jumped fantastic (but Paul missed the finish flags, doh!) They are both super horses and will certainly be fun to watch them progress.

Fair Hill International Horse Trials (April 18, 2010)

Both Leslie and Sharon headed up to Elkton, Maryland to compete at Fair Hill. Leslie and Celie needed a CIC two star to qualify for Bromont CCI**. Not only did they qualify, but they finished in 8th place out of 24 starters. Congratulations Leslie and we are all excited for Bromont!! Sharon and Mickey also had a good clear cross country round and finished in 13th place in the Open Training division.

Southern Pines Horse Trials I (March 13-14, 2010)

The CWF crew escaped the pouring rain of Northern Virginia for a sunny and pleasant weekend down in Southern Pines, North Carolina. Both Colleen and Christie competed in the Preliminary division and had an almost identical weekend. Both had very nice dressage tests, both had fabulous cross country rounds but came too fast to the corner and had a run out, and both had beautiful clear show jump rounds. Overall a great weekend and they are both looking to fix their one minor hiccup from this weekend at Morven Park in two weeks. Paul rode Rocky around the Open Novice and had three great phases. Rocky is doing fabulous and is planning to move up to Training level soon. I rode Marilyn in her first event ever. She was very green in the dressage, but was a star in both Show Jump and XC. She jumped around the Beginner Novice XC like she had been doing it all her life, not bad for just turning 4 years old.

We have to take the good with the bad (February 2010)

On our way down to the Ark Horse Trails at the end of February we got about 3.5 hours down the road to find ourselves with a truck that didn't want to play anymore. Thankfully, our good friend Brian saved the day by driving down near Blacksburg to load us his truck for the weekend while our truck was repaired.

We did make it down to Monroe, North Carolina eventually and rode Dressage the next morning. All the horses were very good, but we opted not to run cross country because the horses were not in very good shape after the harsh winter. The great news is that the Ark allowed us to XC school both Sat and Sun for no additional fee and we all got our horses going again.