I’d like to share a moment that I witnessed last Tuesday.  One of our little girls named Claire, whose pony is Rocky; got to play with him in the turn out for the first time.  She and I watched him roll in the dirt and get all dirty like he always does.  He is a white and black pony but always walks out of the ring brown. Well on that day, Rocky only rolled once or twice and chose to play with Claire rather than being a silly pony who runs around playing by himself.  Claire walked over to him and started interacting with him.  He shadowed her every move in our small ring.  If she walked in a circle, he did.  Rocky stayed right by her side.  When Claire walked over a little jump, he followed.  Claire was thrilled to see how much her little pony loved her.  She was truly overwhelmed with joy to think that he would follow her everywhere like a little puppy.  It made me very happy to have witnessed this special moment.

Hi everyone! I just wanted you all to know that I am looking forward to writing about all the breaking news at Concord Equestrian Center. If you want to see something written up on the blog let me know!!!

Thank you!

Maribeth

Hey there everyone,

Visit  http://www.flickr.com/photos/36678493@N08/ to view our photos on Flickr.  Eventually I will get a photostream up on this blog but I am having difficulties with that at the moment.

In the meantime, if you want to upload photos to our Flickr photostream feel free to contact me and I will make that happen!

Patty

Both our first time showers and our seasoned show team had a great show this past weekend of March 21-22!

In Walk/Trot Equitation:

• Claire got 2nd on Saturday morning!
• Giana got a 6th on Saturday and a 1st place on Sunday morning!
• Aydin broke even with 5th place ribbons on both days!

In Walk/Trot Under Saddle:

• You Rock Sir-Roc-Alot (Rocky) got 8th and an honorable mention
• Feym and Glory (Fey) got 7th and 3rd
• With an improved ride from Aydin Scout (Moo) landed a 6th on Sunday

These were competitive classes of between 15-17 competitors so we are awfully proud of our riders in their first show.

The seasoned competitors also did great..

Tyler Lee

• 7th of 14 in Equitation Over Fences
• 2nd and 4th in Modified Junior/Amateur Hunters
• Chase landed 2nd in the Modified Junior/Amateur Hunter Under Saddle
• 7th in the Golden Horse Medal

Emily Mandel

• 7th in the Maiden Equitation Over Fences
• 4th, 3rd and 4th in the Green Rider Hunters
• Skylar landed 6th in the Green Hunter Riders Under Sadd

Joy Kim

• 6th in the Maiden Equitation Over Fences
• 3rd in the Long Stirrup Equitation
• 6th, 4th and 5th in the Long Stirrup Hunters
• Yanos landed 3rd in the Long Stirrup Hunters Under Saddle.

CONGRATULATIONS EVERYONE!!

**Riders listed in no particular order… no even alphabetical..  it’s too early for me to think that hard!  -Patty

After a long and careful search Madeleine has decided on a new partner in her equestrian education.  His name is Oscar.  The coolest thing about Oscar is that his daddy is a GRAND PRIX show horse.  Nice!  Sky now has a little bother in the barn!

Oscar is presented to Madeleine with ribbons in his mane

But don’t be worried!  Madeleine will still be loving Buddy and Matthew MIGHT even compete in a little walk trot this year on Buddy.  Right Matthew? Additionally some our other riders are going to have the opportunity to ride Buddy as well.  Did you know he is 16, nearly 17 now?  Talk about ‘been there done that’ !  For those that can learn to ride his bouncy trot they will find a forgiving teacher over fences.  Be careful what you point him at, he ALWAYS jumps the fence, even sometimes if the student doesn’t quite mean to, right Karina?  LOL  Here’s a picture of the Oscar and Buddy competing for that apple!

Buddy and Oscar

Congratulations!!!!

On  March 7th we had a “Show Prep” clinic followed by a dinner at Chevy’s.

For the first time all those new to showing along with some that have shown before were able to come together with their parent to take a look at what goes into a show day. Yikes!  It is not a small task is it folks?

We were able to set an expectation as to the turn out of both the kids and the horses as well as develop a strategy for a low-stress, well prepped show morning.  Aydin, Emma, Erika, Clare and Karina all turned out in full show attire.  SHARP!! We were all able to learn from their example!

I am thrilled at everyone’s participation.  It was an awesome opprotunity to offer tips and guidelines that often get overlooking until an ‘oops’ happens.

After a long afternoon of fun and games 25 Riders, friends and family then gathered at Chevy’s that night.  I will make photos available soon!  We had a great time.  Don’t forget to ask the girls about Mark’s “Birthday” celebration! 

Karen Hollis, Emma Dickson’s mother is having one of her articles published!

I googled the magazine and found a link here — http://www.homeedmag.com/  (Karen please correct me if I am wrong!)

Please read a little about Karen’s article below!  How exciting!

Patty,
The magazine is called “Home Education,” for homeschoolers.  My article is called “The Unprofessional Kid,” and I use the riding in it to talk about what I think is so great in what you do with the kids: instead of being confined to the routine of just lessons and shows, the kids get a chance to see the whole world of horses and their care, to have a voice in their own training (setting goals, judging each other, deciding what to practice on occasion), and to mix play with disciplined practice in a way that is just not common anywhere else.  I talk about the way that most kids’ activities are professionalized to the point that kids who take a while to warm up and get comfortable, or who have physical or social differences, get left out because so much is geared toward high-level competition or performance and requires many children to specialize in a sport or activity at a young age.  I see what you do as a wonderful, wonderful exception to this.  Although there are shows of course, they are not the main end point or the main experience; they’re one out of many aspects of what the kids learn and do.  And the kids get a chance to work alongside adults who are doing something they love.  That’s also very rare.

My whole point is to link this to the homeschooling philosophy in which “work” and “play,” or “school” and “everything other” are not separated, but overlap all the time as homeschoolers allow their children to follow their own interests and passions, to find mentors, to apprentice themselves at young ages, things like that. You can become a skater or an actor or a soccer player but be confined to practices and competitions, and there’s nothing like the added relationship with the horses and the responsibility that comes with taking care of them.

Thanks once again,
Karen

I’ve gotta say that this is just plain really awesome and it really inspires us to keep up our hard work and efforts in bringing these experiences to the kids.  Thank you for your appreciation~!

The Staff at CEC

A very special lady had her introductory lesson today and I want to tell you about her.  She grew up in England riding ponies big and small.  In her day the helmets did not have chin straps but guess what?  She remembers they still stressed posture and that straight line that should drop vertically from your head to your shoulders to your hips to your heels. Not to give away her age but that was, based on her story, probably early in the 1950’s.  Margaret has owned a few businesses from restaurant to real estate since then and is now in semi retirement and thought that now would be a great time to get back to riding.  Her other hobbies include yoga which I credit for her strength and agility. 

She told me that I should treat her as a beginner.  No way!  She was so comfortable in the saddle that she was trotting away on BellaDonna five minutes into her lesson without a blink of her eye or a bead of sweat on her brow!  She was SO much fun! At the end of her lesson I asked her how it felt to be back in the saddle.  She responded with “great!” and gave BellaDonna a big hug/pat on the shoulder.

It was so amazing to be able to share this experience with her and I am so happy to see her get back onto a horse.  Congratulations Margaret!  That is great!

Thank you to visiting the Concord Equestrian Center Blog. We seek to help both our clients and the larger San Diego community become more knowledgeable about the sport of hunter/jumper riding and about horsemanship and horse showing in general. Periodically we will be posting both educational as well as just plain old fun notes about riding and horsemanship. Have fun!