A Successful Start to Summer Season by Lauren Lambert

Honour Mission at May Daze- finishing 2nd

As the temperature and humidity begin to rise here in Louisville, the season has picked up as well.  While we have been going at it all year in the Florida circuit, many of our clients have just begun.  There is a group here at Lands End Farm which remind me this is one of the greatest careers in the world.  These people went to college to get a good paying job, then work all day in an office or hospital so they can support their ‘horse habit’; they work hard and our farm is their sanctuary.  Coming out after work is their therapy.  They are the roots of the amazing eventing community and they inspire me to never take a day around horses for granted.  It is really a blessing to have a job helping people do something they love.   

The season has started off well in Kentucky.  Our first outing was May Daze at theKentucky Horse Park.  Honour Mission skipped around our first preliminary, he put in 110% effort and felt like a true eventer.  This horse has been a challenge, but we really bonded over that weekend and our partnership is flourishing.  He finished the weekend on his dressage score, good enough for second place.  It was a great weekend for this horse and his owner.  Sally is my first real ‘owner’ and I couldn’t ask for a better one.  I am so thrilled she is giving me the oportunity to take this horse along, her support means the world.  Lil’ Birnie did his first novice and was very full of run on his big novice xc debut. He finished with some speeding faults for 5^th place.  I am very much a purest and do not like to put on more than a snaffle at this level, but we will be doing some bit experimenting to get his racetrack training days re-trained, then hopefully he can go back to a snaffle once he understands and can relax into an easy gallop.  Hickory Smoke is a horse I trained up and competed at May Daze for Callie Linden.  Callie had a very rocky training level season last year not getting him around xc clean, so it was a real education for both her and her horse to learn how to get through the stopping issue.  Hickorystormed around the xc like a professional and finished 4^th on his dressage score.  Callie took back over the ride for Spring Run Horse Trials two weeks later, and not only dominated a course she didn’t get around last year, but she won!  She is riding with confidence and poise and I couldn’t be more proud.  My Aunt Margie took back the reins on Fine With Me after a very successful season with me in Florida at the Preliminary level.  She ran training at May Daze and won her division from start to finish- I always expect this pair to finish on their dressage score, but a winning dressage score is a big accomplishment for Margie, who is a little bit rough and ready.  She will be tackling her first prelim the end of this month at the age of 53.  Last but not least, big congratulations to Dieke, who has been working very hard all spring to prepare for the Training level three day in Indiana, where she won!

My little barn at Greenhill Farm is bustling with horses as Ghost has returned home from his stay in Lexington and a new horse, Rock, came along for some adventures as a eventing hopeful!  Rock is a big and beautiful TB and eventing will be his third career after some time as a racehorse, then steeplechaser.  Big thanks are in order to some great people- Alex Gerding, Ann Banks, Sally Abell, Drew, Mom and Dad, and the great team of riders and horses at Lands End who make my job so amazing.

 

 

Photo credit: XPRESS FOTO