Practice walking courses with Craig

I have been planning and organizing the Aiken Eventing Camp for a couple of months now. Craig and Allison and I have carefully composed a great week for our campers, but I have to admit I never imagined it would be this good!

First, we have the best participants ever! So open minded and so eager to learn. It’s a small group as this is our trial run (and our advertising plan didn’t come off as planned, plus the economy…), which is just perfect. They are from Connecticut, North Carolina, Virginia and Georgia.

We started the day with evaluations. Craig and Allison talked with each rider and then watched them flat and jump a couple jumps to get a sense of where they are with their riding. Then they discussed areas of strength and weakness as well as what they would like to focus on during the week. I thought it was fascinating to see Craig and Allison’s different perspectives which meshed together well.

Then we had lunch where we discussed photos the participants had brought with them. Craig had several pictures that illustrated some key points that he wanted to call to people’s attention. One from Fair Hill last fall really demonstrates using the reins to guide, not pull, a horse through a cross-country complex. Another was of him nearly falling off in the water at The Fork CCI*** a couple years ago. As Craig likes to say, he nearly fell off, but didn’t, largely because he kept his eyes looking up to where he wanted to go.

The photos that the camp students brought were great tools, too. In fact, they largely correlated to the things Allison and Craig talked about during the rider evaluations. A picture truly tells a thousand words!
-Sarah

The competition season has now officially started! We went to Pine Top on the weekend with good results. Fernhill Ever Ready was 6th in the Training, only because of my going too fast. Sometimes I think the speeds at the lower levels, combined with too generous course measuring, combine to create an artificially slow speed. None-the-less, he jumped spot on and was very good. Sarah and Rising Spirit continued their successful partnership with a 4th place finish. And Cheryl Sackler, who has been working hard with me all winter to fine tune her riding, enjoyed a 3rd.

Today is the first day of the Aiken Eventing Camp. I will start the day with a demonstration of how to jog a horse in hand. Then Allison and I will begin evaluating each horse/rider pair. This evening Ab Lufkin will arrive to provide the sports psychology component of the camp. I can’t wait to get started!

Ready or not, the 2009 season is here! Hoping to improve on last year’s outings, we convinced Jules Anderson to come to Aiken and teach us in the dressage ring for the last two days. In addition to Sarah and me, Jules helped Mikki Kuchta, Laura VanderVliet, Matt Flynn, Sinead Halpin, Dana King, and my students Mollie Zobel and Jaclyn Burke. Though two days is hardly enough, we all benefited from the help.

I’m a big believer that we have to always be thinking about ways to improve and change our riding. To me that means pressing ourselves to be better to the jumps, to think about how we can more easily put our horses in the position to be successful, and ultimately to either stay one step ahead of the competition, or at least gain ground on them. From my perspective, Jules can help us do just that. Her teaching on the flat is very consistent with how I think about cross-country riding, and consistently produces riders who think about their effect on the horse while also improving their horse’s gaits.

We can’t wait to have her back in February!

We are excited to host a USEA ICP Level III/IV Workshop on February 23-25. ICP Faculty Member Karen O’Connor will be here from Ocala, FL to conduct the workshop.

We need volunteer riders! If you are competing at the Preliminary level or higher and are interested in volunteering, please email Sarah at craigthompsoneventing@gmail.com. We’d love to have you!

Auditors are welcome. Please contact Sarah to reserve a space in advance. The fee is $50/per day

We are very excited to host four clinics with Grand Prix Dressage rider Jules Anderson. Jules and her mother Libby have been helping Craig on the flat since July and the difference has been remarkable. Jules has coached a number of other event riders including Julie Richards, Natalie Bouckaert and Karin Donkers.

Visit www.teamworkdressage.com for more information about Jules.

Clinic Dates:
Saturday and Sunday, January 24-25
Wednesday and Thursday, February 18-19
Monday and Tuesday, March 16-17
Monday and Tuesday, March 30-31

Please email craigthompsoneventing@gmail.com for more information.

What a fun way to end the year! Over the weekend Sarah and I went to the Poplar Place Horse Trials in Georgia. Sarah won the Novice with her new horse and I was second on Brew in the Preliminary. And to top it off, Candace Tribe, whom I’ve just recently started helping, was third in the Prelim.

A week has gone by since Fair Hill and I am just now starting to feel the exhaustion lifting. To date I have been away from home 139 nights this year, so it was especially fun for me to teach a clinic right here at the farm over the weekend. Laurens Bissell brought ten of her students from the Charleston area for two days of lessons. It was a true delight for me to teach riders who were so well mounted and well started!

Kudos as well to Marie Treiber, who has spent the last several months getting her own horse Echo back on the right track. Marie and Echo finished second in the Prelim at Waredaca — well done! Congratulations also to Cashell Jaquish on a great showing at Waredaca. After an unplanned break from competing this summer, they competed in the Novice Championships, finishing on their dressage score of 35!

Last March, Craig was interviewed for Sidelines Magazine. I’ve been checking the magazine for the issue that includes, “Five Questions with Craig Thompson.” In September, we were introduced to the Editor of Sidelines and she assured us that it would be in an issue later this fall. A couple of days ago Lisa Malek left a message to tell us she read about Craig in Sidelines (and also to remind him that “he is the best!”). Here is a link to the article: http://www.sidelinesnews.com/new/2011/5q-eventing.html.

On another note, though we haven’t mentioned it on the blog, Lisa finished her year with Craig Thompson Eventing in late August. Anyone who knows Lisa realizes her absence has not gone unnoticed. We can’t thank her enough for all her hard work and good cheer. We wish her the best in all her endeavors, horse related and otherwise, and look forward to seeing Lisa and Finn back in Aiken this winter!

Hope to see you soon!
Sarah

It’s not hard to write about competing and training when things go right. Flush with the success of Plantation, Richland or Millbrook, reflection comes easily. It’s much harder when things go wrong. At Fair Hill things went wrong.

A career best dressage test, a near perfect trip cross-country, came to naught when Orion was not accepted at the Final Horse Inspection Sunday morning. He looked stiff but good Saturday night and jogged up well early Sunday morning after I rode him for a bit. But when we got him back out he had stiffened further. In consultation with the vets, who felt that he had a mildly strained muscle in his haunches, I presented him to the Ground Jury knowing that our chances of getting through were 50/50. I was confident in the vets’ opinion that Orion’s native stoicism and desire to compete would see us through the show jumping without exacerbating any underlying injury. It was not to be.

Having returned to South Carolina and further investigated Orion’s unsoundness, his return to upper level eventing is clouded; competing again is a minimum of 6 to 12 months away at best, competing at the highest levels of eventing again uncertain. Further veterinary evaluation in the coming days will provide a clearer picture. For myself and everyone who has done so much to help with Orion throughout his career, I am heartbroken. There will be no trip to Kentucky in the Spring.

Orion, Orion, Orion - what a great horse! At Millbrook and Richland Park, I purposefully kept him under wraps. At those two events I focused on practicing in the dressage arena, going a bit slowly around the cross-country, and show jumping carefully yet quickly. The result was that at Plantation I had a relaxed horse in the dressage, a nearly spot on horse in the show jumping and a perfect horse cross-country. And it’s not very often we get to say that about a cross-country round. It was good enough for 3rd in the Advanced and a win in the Area 2 Championships.

With help from Jules and Libby Anderson my dressage with Orion continues to improve. Their efforts showed in the ring on Friday in the form of a better quality trot and canter, though the medium and extended gaits aren’t there yet. In reality, the entire picture won’t be in place by the time Fair Hill rolls around, but hopefully I’ll still be able to have the same relaxation in what is sure to be a more electric atmosphere. Going into the show jumping I knew that not only were poles coming down, but that the time was hard to make. With that in mind I made the inside turn to the triple, which let me make the time, though did contribute to one rail down at the fence after the triple. And to be honest, on the cross-country Orion set the agenda. He made it clear from the first that he wasn’t interested in practicing, he wanted to gallop and jump. I didn’t argue and let him do just that, putting in the fastest time of the day.

And what about young Duelling Creeks Brew? He also showed the benefits of going to Millbrook and Richland Park. At those two outings Brew was a bit overwhelmed by everything around him — the tents, the crowds, and everything that goes along with a big event. But at Plantation he was right on his game, putting together his best three phases yet and finishing 6th. The coffin surprised him a little bit on cross-country, but everywhere else he was a perfect pleasure. And boy can he jump!

Hats off to Denis Glaccum for making the effort to raise the Plantation Field Horse Trials to a new level of success. Let’s hope he gets the support necessary to continue the trend. And a special congratulations to our summer working student Jody Romeo on her win at King Oak last week!