Once again I am so far behind it will have to be just a highlight! Well another great competition season has come and gone. Renkum Redhill (Riley) jumped out of the field at the beginning of the season and injured himself so he got a nice long vacation. At only seven years old he has already done alot so a season off is probably what he needed anyway. Moet also got some well deserved rest - he hit his leg schooling before the very first event of the year. He was only slightly bruised but I also decided to go ahead and give him the season to rest. At only seven years old he also has already had three years of competition under his belt and can still head to a CCI* this fall. With such talented horses I think the temptation is to keep pushing them along but I feel better allowing them some down time early in their careers when they have been performing well. Both Riley and Moet will be back this season to head to the Ocala CCI*. I still had plenty of horses to compete. Sportsfield Supersonic placed in his first two events in the US before being sold to Vanessa Fenwick. He is an immensely talented horse and I look forward to seeing them compete in the future. Emilys Fancy started out the season with good placings at Preliminary before we had a minor setback that affected her confidence. I let Drew Palmer catch ride her in the Half Star for fun and she finished third. He had never ridden her before the event and they did a great job and she appeared to be back on form. She then finished third in the Area Training Championships and will be headed back out to Preliminary next season and another CCI*. My new acquisition - Safdie - went very well considering the very short time we had to get to know each other before the CCI*. She is very talented but still fairly green. She was well placed in all the Preliminaries I ran her in and got her qualifying score at the CCI*. She has gotten increasingly bold and was too strong at my last event of the season. I will spend some time this summer working on our balance and depending on how that fares she will either do another CCI* or a CCI** in the fall. She is also young at seven and I will take my time to make sure she is confident and rideable at every level before she moves up. I had some great sales horses to ride this season as well. Tommy Two won at both Training and Preliminary before jumping clear at the CCI. He was sold right after the CCI to Haley Hughes and they have won their first combined test together. I am looking forward to seeing this partnership continue to grow. Gisborne is my little pocket rocket. He has been a superstar all season with top placings in three out of four events. He is now qualified for the AEC's at two levels and we are moving up again to Preliminary this summer. There is a lucky person out there who will get tis fabulous, young, talented horse. I would love to keep the ride! I also had Ringwood O'Dea - a well bred Irish horse - that we had originally sold from overseas that has been successful at the CCI* level. He was well on his way back to Preliminary with fabulous jumping rounds at his first few training events before he knocked an ankle in his stall causing him to miss the last few events of the season. He is being prepared for his next event at Preliminary and will stay for sale while he is campaigned this fall. The working students did very well also. Ammanda Allain had a great season with many placings on Charm before her fast, clean, and super round at the CCI*. She was doing super at the Area 3 Championships before she missed up the bank out of the water two from home and got popped out of the tack as he scrambled up. Under the new rules a fall of the rider is elimination but at least it was a short walk home! They will be working hard this summer on their move up to Intermediate this fall. Our other working student Nobie Cannon managed to get through the Ocala Half Star with a very good eighth place despite much bad luck along the way. Nobie is now with us for the summer before she is off to the University of Florida this fall. We have quite a few horses for sale at this time. I am looking at spending the summer here so we can actively market and sell the horses both here and in our area. Andrew and Ralph are doing clinics all summer so we have decided to spend this summer at home. We will head to some schooling shows to work on our basics but overall the plan is to gear up for a good fall season. If you need us you know where to find us - we will be in Florida - at the farm or fishing! ~ Ruthie and Andrew ~