As promised, though very late in delivery, above is from the Aspen Farms Costume Christmas Party! I think this may become an annual thing, it was fun to dress up and certainly made the party feel festive!

Happy New Years! This will be a short post, mostly to remind you to get our derby dates on your 2012 calendar. The derbies are an excellent way to get some show practice in before the season gets underway, please join us!

FEB 25 DERBY, FEB 26 CLINIC

MARCH 24 DERBY, MARCH 25 CLINIC

APRIL 28 DERBY, APRIL 29 CLINIC

Ask and you shall recieve.....well, sometimes. I just happen to have a few spare moments on my hands so I am using them to grant Laramie's wish of a blog post to distract her from school and the fact that she is way to far away from her beloved Wally, who is fat and happy to be back in work after his post season vacation. Life on the farm is good, we had our first day of rain for December today which is shocking....2 weeks of sunshine in December in Washington? Unheard of. Every day another massive advanced jump appears on the driveway...I know your heart rate just sped up thinking about jumping them Lar:) I had a super fun ride on Lee today (3 year old off the track); he jumped a mini course with his first oxer like a pro and was relaxed and happy to do it, love him and love my job. It's incredibly rewarding to give a OTTB a new career and have them make the transition to it with ease and happiness. Cindi, Laurie, and Char were super in their lessons with me today and Jessica, Allie and Carly looked great with Jon. Secret has been back in work for a little over 2 weeks  and has been mostly hacking but with the warmer weather today I couldn't resist having a little trot and canter out on the xc track, I think he enjoyed it as much as I did! All in all, a great day in the barn. Yesterday we said goodbye to Herc and Rachel. While Rachel goes to school, Herc will be teaching people to ride and enjoying a little more laid back life. Rachel won't be too far away so hopefully she'll pop back in to say hello from time to time. Tomorrow is a big day at AF....the annual Christmas Party with the addition this year of  .....costumes!!!!! Photos WILL be taken, don't worry. Everyone in the house has a costume ready, including Rudy. Hmm, what else is new. Jon and I went for a 3 day holiday to Cannon Beach last weekend; it has become an annual trip for us that we look forward to and love. It's so relaxing to have nothing to do but walk the dogs on the beach and eat delicious food. This time we made our to the Tillamook factory on the way out since we were going south to look at a horse anyways. We came home with A LOT of cheese, yum, some of which will be available for sampling at the party tomorrow:) Ok, that's all for now, I'll leaving you in eager anticipation of the Christmas Party report!

While sitting on the couch sipping my coffee and contemplating how cold it will be outside with the fresh blanket of snow, it occurred to me that updating the blog would be a great way to put off having to find out just how cold it is! That and the friendly nudges I had from friends last night to update the website;) I have mixed feelings about Galway; I'm happy that I went, proud of how Secret handled everything, frustrated with my riding, grateful to be home with a sound, healthy horse and my back none worse for the wear, and filled with a renewed determination to be better the next time. We were lucky to do dressage on thursday in perfect weather and dry footing. Our test was good, but had one major mistake and could have been better ( of course, it can always be better!). Our score of 52.8 put us in 14th place out of 41 starters after dressage with the leader on a 47.5. Friday brought rain, and a lot of it. I was sure it would clear off, we were in CA after all, but no, it persisted ALL day. I finally gave up and bought a rain coat and rubber boots because of course I didn't pack any rain gear. There were plenty of concerns about how the footing on XC would be the next day but considering the course building team is usually up all night watering the track the night before XC to make it right, I wasn't too terribly concerned. Of course along with not packing rain gear, I also made the decision while at home not to have Secrets shoes drilled and tapped because who uses studs in CA? Well, probably 90% of the riders used studs this time. There was a line of horses waiting to get drilled and tapped the morning of XC. I did look into joining that line but ran out of time with my early ride time. The footing felt great aside from where we ran through the show jump ring and I just took it easy there. Secret was great XC, he felt super in his gallop, never felt tired and handled all the technical questions well. Our stop was at the first water; a large cabin set in the shadows at the edge of the water. It caused several problems early on which I was not aware of as I went out. I didn't give him enough time to see and understand the question and I also should have given him a little encouragement off the ground to make sure he left the ground. How many times have a replayed that 10 seconds in my head?....too many to count. It seems like I have enough experience to not be making silly mistakes like that but I guess that's the thing with this sport, you let your guard down for a second and you learn a lesson in humility. I need to improve my focus and concentration on course so I can ride more effectively. On the positive side, Secret finished confidently, jogged up great that night and the next morning, and felt fresh when I got on to SJ. Our show jumping was not our prettiest round, he got better as he went but had 2 early rails before we found a rhythm and got focused. So, lots to work on over the winter! Right now Secret is enjoying a holiday playing in the field with his 3 buddies. I was also glad to be at Galway to watch the 3* run, it was amazing to have 40 horses in the 3* the second year it has run. Some great horse and rider pairs came from the east coast and seemed impressed by the venue and by Ian Starks XC course. It was very challenging track with plenty of places that a lapse in concentration could get you in trouble. For some it rode beautifully, but there were a large number of problems spread through out the course. Riding forward in a balance was rewarded while being under paced or overly aggressive got you into trouble. I have to comment on how impressive James Alliston was throughout the weekend, all four FEI horses had double clear XC and while they were all different types of horses, he gave each one just the right ride that he needed. Congrats to him and his team on an amazing weekend.

That's all for now, time to go teach. We are having a ladies fun clinic here this weekend with myself teaching a group of ladies that want to learn while spending time with friends on horseback and over drinks and good food!

After much consideration, I made the decision to make the trek to CA for Galway in November. Although there is a CCI* in the spring at Twin Rivers, it makes more sense to me to do it at the end of the season when Secret is fit from running all year. He is healthy, so am I, and we're feeling great together, so, time to take a shot at it. I decided to leave Gogo behind; he's had a great season and finished with winning the training championships at NW.  He's only 5 and did three trainings this year, finishing on his dressage score at all three and was 1st, 2nd (behind Rimsky), and 1st, so I think he's earned a break! I will now spend the next few weeks obsessing over Secrets legs, fitness program, and wondering what details I've forgotten to organize, or what fences I've forgotten to educate him about. Let the three day stress begin!

We are now accepting applications for a working student position to begin December.1. Please visit the working student page of the website for more information or email me for details, suzypettman@hotmail.com.

As most of you have heard, Jon's mother, Gail, passed away September 24, after a two year battle with cancer. She was at home and surrounded by family. Gail was a huge supporter of Aspen Farms, always present at the horse trials and ready to pitch in and help with whatever needed to be done. Even as her health failed, she continued to organize volunteers from her computer and came out to the September event to see the new water jump and make sure all the volunteers were well looked after. Hopefully some of you were lucky enough to get a smile and thank you from her as she watched from her golf cart. In healthier times, Gail loved to come out to the farm to ride her horse Linus, and would spend hours here letting her dogs roam while she planted us some flowers that she brought from her garden or watered plants that I had neglected! She loved getting to know the working students; she gave them advice on colleges, invited them over for fourth of July or whatever holiday was approaching, and made them feel welcome and appreciated. I know she applied the same warmth and commitment to all areas of her life, and so will be missed by many. We love and miss you Gail.

Gail Williams Elliott

 This New England-native (b. New Haven, CT, 1939) moved to the Northwest after her marriage to Neal M. Elliott (1940-1998), whom she met at International House at Columbia University, over a bowl of chocolate ice cream. Prior to her master's degree at Columbia, Gail studied at Middlebury College and the University of Edinburgh. She brought her love of history, travel and classical music with her to Washington, where she discovered horses and boisterous board games with her children. In 2002 she fell in love again with another intrepid traveler, Bill Boris, and the pair have spent the last nine years traveling the world. Gail is survived by sister Gene Hoyt, her brother Harold Munson, her husband Bill Boris, her three children--Ingrid, Eva and Jonathan Elliott--four grandsons--Avi, Micah, Isaac and Jasper--one horse--Linus--and seven dogs and granddogs--Bruno, Monti, Lucy, Scooter, Kirin, Rudy and Odie. A memorial service will be held at the Chapel on Echo Bay ( 400 6th Avenue, Fox Island, WA 98333), 2:30pm, Tuesday September 27th. The family welcomes donations in Gail's memory to the Second City Chamber Music Series: P.O. Box 967, Tacoma, WA 98401. This is an arts organization which performs professional chamber music, as well as provides ensemble opportunities for high school musicians. Gail introduced her children to classical music though their concerts in the seventies and eighties, sat on their board for years, and found great joy in their music for decades.

......the haul in crew! I love hosting events, believe it or not it's actually fun to have the farm invaded by 300 horses and who knows how many people. BUT, my biggest complaint is the garbage left behind. I know this is a common problem for organizers and I also know from the competitor side of things there is often not enough trash cans around to accomodate the amount of trash we produce in a weekend. So hence the tidy award! What is the prize for the tidy award? Pride in the fact that I didn't have to pick up a single piece of trash from the haul in field!! While I love the fact that everyone had a good time camping, I didn't love picking up the trash left behind and climbing in the dumpster to jump up and down on it to make it all fit in, nice image I know! Around the barns? Duct tape, water bottles, twine, ice bags, shaving bags. I know most of you are great and pick up after yourselves, thank you, and I'm also sure I'm guilty of leaving the odd piece of trash behind at an event, but, I can promise you from now on I will be extra diligent to pick up after myself and my group and if not enough trash cans are provided I will pratice the pack in, pack out policy of parks. I'm hoping everyone that reads this will also make that effort, not only at Aspen Farms but at all the wonderful events we get to go to in the NW.

Ok that's my rant for the day done. On the more postive side, we had another fabulous event. Thank you to all the competitors that came and supported the event and rode so well. Thank you to the officials that were friendly and aproachable while ensuring everyone had a safe weekend and preserving the welfare of the horse. Thank you to our amazing sponsors that help make this event one that so many riders look forward to in part because of the great prizes. Thank you to our awesome course builing and designing crew that make the courses we get to jump around with big smiles on our faces. Thank you to the office crew that make it possible for me to be one of those riders! And of course, the volunteers. What would we do without the volunteers? It's my worst nightmare really, doing this without the truly dedicated group of volunteers we have here. There are so many people that play a role in making an event run as smoothly as this one did, and I'm grateful to each one of them, whether the role played was large or small.

I personally had my worst show to date on Secret (Ferngully) and so broke my winning streak! Ah well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I was still very pleased with him overall, he and I suffered a bit from the distractions of being at home but excuses aside, I just could have ridden better. Next time...I hope. Both he and Patagonia are entered in the Championships divisions at their levels at NW in a couple weeks so hopefully we can put it all together there. In the meantime I have been having a great time introducing Lee to Eventing 101. Lee has been keeping the senior citizens of the farm company in the field for the last 6 months while putting on weight and letting down from the race track. He has now been in work for a week and I think he is very happy to have a job. He is a quick learner and seems to have a super brain. I have had high hopes for him since the first photo I saw of him and so far he is not disappointing me!!

This month brings about many changes in the faces at Aspen Farms. We said goodbye to Jane and Laramie and hello to Allie. Allie has a lovely mare she has competed training level and so far seems to fit right in. Jane and Laramie have headed back to school,  though we will see Laramie back in January to prepare for the spring season. Trav has headed out east to do some building and catch up with family, and Joe leaves soon to do some travelling. They will both be back later in the fall to continue building the Advanced track. The biggest change of all will be saying goodbye to Chelsey at the end of the month when she moves to South Carolina with her fabulous boyfriend, Mike. I'm very excited for her to begin the next phase of her life but it will be a sad day for all of us here when she leaves. She has been an incredible asset to us over the years and has done everything we ask and beyond with a smile on her face. I know her amazing work ethic will serve her well as she moves forward and we truly wish her the best. She will be taking her super young horse, Nick, to show off to the east coast! We have a few weeks left to enjoy her company before she heads home to prepare for the big move.

I think that's all for now, goodnight:)

As most people know, I love getting horses from the track and bringing them up through the levels. My main focus while doing this is always the keeping the horses confident while teaching them the skills required at each level. Ribbons have never been the priority so I find myself in a rather unusual situation of being on a complete winning streak!! Somehow I have been able to merge keeping their confidence up and being competitive, even after upgrading. How? I'm not exactly sure! Perhaps limiting the number of horses I ride in a day due to my back has allowed me to focus more completely on each horses needs? Secret has won 4 out of 5 of his shows this year, including a win at his 2nd prelim this past weekend at YR benefit HT. Gogo won his last novice, his first training and was 2nd behind his stablemate last weekend. I also had the pleasure of running Rimsky around 2 trainings for his new owner, Jordan Beckingham, and he won them both. I am very proud of my horses and very excited to see what the future holds for them. Jordan will be taking over the reins with Rimsky and I can't wait to see the grin on her face when she comes through the finish flags for the first time on him! My two will take the weekend off over Caber since I will be in Canada visiting family the week before, then will compete at Aspen in September. I had so much fun competing here in June I don't think I can resist doing it again:) The rest of the horses in the barn have had a successful summer as well; Laramie and Wally have been making Intermediate look easy and finished their first CIC** in 2nd place at Rebecca Farm! Chelsey and Cindi Carrels Stormont won their division at Rebecca Farm. Jane has been doing a great job of bringing her young mare, as well as Jons young horse, along, and will do Caber Novice with both horses before returning to school. Both horses show a lot of potential and seem to love their jobs as they figure out what is expected. Rachel has skipped a few shows to do lots of homework  to get Herc stronger and more rideable and it paid off with a clear SJ round at YR benefit.  Lauren moved AJ up to training at Rebecca and has now had two great shows with improved dressage, AJs usual exuberant and brilliant xc and slightly more controlled SJ! Hmm I am out of time, might have to continue this post but will leave you with a few pics taken by Joe Stylos to look at in the meantime!

This was by far the easiest event yet, it was a little spooky to feel so organized so far out from the show. I kept wondering what disaster was awaiting us but nothing came and even the weather decided to cooperate for once! I know that the reason things are getting easier is that we have the most amazing group of volunteers that do an incredible amout for us. I really can't imagine the amout of work this would be without them so a huge THANK YOU to each of you, your hours of bark mulching, staining, painting, stall labeling, wrestling stinging nettle to find speaker wires.....the list goes on and on.....is truly appreciated.

 This event had a much different feel to it for me since for the first time, I got to be on the competitive side of things. I can't tell you how excited I was to compete since this was my first show since back surgery, I enjoyed every second of it! Secret showed that he has grown up a bit over the winter and managed to remain calm and rideable even with the invasion on the farm. He did catch me off guard coming out of the start box like a madman, I had taken him to NWEC the week before to school since he hadn't done xc since Sept and he was perfectly quiet, so his enthusiasm suprised me. I must admit I had a grin on my face as I was telling him "whoa" with tears streaming from my eyes from the wind rushing into them;) Aspen Farms students had very mixed results this weekend, those that stayed in the tack and finished did fabulously but we had a spill in the water, a spill in the liverpool and one on the beautiful new AF showjump built by Becky Mathews. Luckily all were fine aside from some scrapes and bruises, and have each now conquered their trouble spots. Congratulations to Laramie Maxwell on a 4th place finish in her first Intermediate, she had the nicest SJ round I watched. Alisa Sprouffske also had a 4th place finish in her second training, finishing on her dressage score. Lauren Benge gave her young star AJ a great ride around his second novice to make a big jump up the standings to 8th. Chelsey had a great weekend on all three of her horses, Rachel knocked the rust off from the winter with a 5th in the prelim, Lexy and her super pony had their personal best (so far) dressage score, and our new working student Jane got to ride her young mare in all the madness to prep her for her first outing at Whidbey.

We had a few new sponsors this year that added some excitement to the show. Thank you to Cavalor for the wonderful champagne and chocolate social on Friday, I think it's safe to say that we all enjoyed it! Thank you to Zeit Capitol for sponsoring our Challenge divisions, the possibility of being handed a check at the end of the weekend is a strange concept for us as event riders! Natural Migrations will be sponsoring the OI Challenge coming this September. I hope everyone had a chance to check out the Kerrits corners on the Intermediate track, they really turned out well. Thank you to Gallops and Toklat for your support of AFHT and for always being there for our "emergency" shopping needs. Please check out our sponsor page to see all the wonderful sponsors that make the event possible and provide the fabulous prizes we are able to give out.

We are looking forward to Inavale next weekend and busy getting all the horses that were slightly ignored over the weekend tuned up. I had a fabulous XC school yesterday on a horse that just came into the barn to be sold, he has done OI with a YR and he and I will be getting to know each other in the prelim at Inavale. Sadly, I don't think I will get to ride him long, he is way to much fun for someone not to snatch up!

Happy Fathers Day weekend to all those amazing horse show Dads out there and especially of course, to Iceman :)

It's hard to believe it's been almost 8 weeks since surgery and I get to jump in 36ish hours! My last post was 3 days after surgery and the 6 weeks ahead seemed like a very long road, but I have to say, it really hasn't been bad at all. I was up and moving around very quickly, which meant I could spend time in the barn and teach which kept me from getting too bored. I have now been riding on the flat for almost 3 weeks and it feels great. Of course a few little logs may or may not have gotten in my way while cantering around the ring... shh, don't tell my surgeon;) This probably sounds corny but I have been reminded over these 8 weeks that I really do love horses; whether I can ride them or not, it makes me happy just being around them. I guess that's not such a bad reminder to have had.

While I am now healthy and ready to go, unfortunately Uno is just beginning his much longer road to recovery. After extensive diagnostics including scoping, we discovered an injury to his stifle that will require the rest of the year to heal. He has been a super patient and is handling stall rest as well as can be expected. He stall is cluttered with various attempts to keep him amused including a hanging jolly ball, a traffic cone, a hanging salt lick and an Uncle Jimmys Hanging Ball (which the birds are more interested in that he is!). I hate having to coop him up, stall rest is so unnatural for horses, but hopefully he understands that it's what he needs right now. Uno had his scoping done at OSU and while there I received a phone call that there was a horse on the track that I would love and should look at. Was I looking for a horse? No. Did I buy him? Yes!  I picked him up on the way home and have since enjoyed getting to know him in the field while brushing, feeding and admiring him as he squeals and plays in circles around his two senior pasture pals, Aspen and Linus! He is only three so will enjoy several months in the field before starting his new eventing career, though he got an education on Satuday with front row viewing of the derby rounds!

We were very sad to say goodbye to Claire on Saturday. Claire has been at Aspen Farms since last June and is now off to travel around Europe for 6 weeks before heading to Quebec for college. While I'm very sad not to have her with us, I am equally excited for her future! My next blog post is going to be a list of "canadianisms" in her honor. Whenever I said something that received strange looks from surrounding americans, I would look to Claire for back up that I wasn't making it up, that really is what we call it in Canada! Claires confidence in her riding ability came a long way in her time here, especially in the last few months. We miss you Claire!!!

Also on Saturday was our last derby for the spring. The weather actually cooperated and we had a somewhat dry, nice day! Thank you to everyone who came out and rode, we had a great turn out and a safe, fun day. Hopefully everyone is feeling a bit more ready for the first event of the season at NW this weekend. Thank you to our great set up and volunteer crew: Jay, Lauralie, Lauren, Cindi, Rick, Gail, Marney, Chelsey, Mike, Laramie, Claire, Lindsey, Vidal, Roz. Thank you to Joanna for judging and Jon for designing great courses. 

We are sending a small group of horses to NW this weekend, normally I feel like a horse taxi running horses back and forth each day but this time it will be one trip with four horses! Jon has been riding Patagonia for me while I recover so he will compete him Novice this weekend. They have been having fun together and I have enjoyed watching Gogo progress with Jon. It's different for me to be the one on the ground while Jon is in the saddle but we make a good team either way I think! Laramie and Wally are competing  preliminary to get a nice smooth, confident start of the season so they will be ready to upgrade at our event if all goes well. Chelsey is competing Cindi Carrells two lovely girls, Stormont and Israels Surprise. I will be proudly coaching two of my students in their first trainings; good luck Alisa and Jess!

What else? That might be it for now! Though I must say that in the time that it took me to write this, it's now thursday which means I can say........ I get to jump tomorrow, yay!!!!!!

Good luck to everyone this weekend!

Suzy

I have come to the conclusion that the next 6 weeks are going to crawl by. It has been three days since my back surgery and I am already BORED!! I am looking forward to the pain decreasing so I can start going for walks, petting my ponies and get back to teaching which should help pass the time. In typical bad timing, my surgery was scheduled for the Friday before our derby and the Adult Rider derby, both of which were held here with Jon designing the courses. Jon managed to get everything organized ahead of time so he could be with me at the hospital but we could not have pulled it off without Laramie, Claire, Chelsey and Lindsey putting in a few very long days! Thank you to  Char, Rick, Cindi and the Benge family for all your help as well, also to the Adult Riders for running the office for us on Saturday. I hope everyone had a great time, I was sorry not to be able to come down and watch, especially since a few of my students had fantastic rides by all reports. Jessica Bryant did her first round at prelim level on Saturday and made it look easy! Lauren had 2 days of excellent and exuberant novice jump rounds with AJ, Laurie and Lindsey had good rides at training level and Alisa was the only clear training round on Sunday so won her division!! What a great way to start the season, I am excited to watch them continue to gain confidence and ability.  I'm sure I'm forgetting to thank someone or congratulate someone so I'll just apologize and blame it on the pain meds!

 I am finding that I am doing more teaching these days, and happy to say that I am enjoying it and finding it very rewarding, especially when I can't ride. It's satisfying to watch the light bulb come on for someone after struggling for weeks, or to watch a trusting relationship form between rider and horse with careful training. So with this realization plus 6 weeks of no riding, I have decided to do something that I have been procrastinating because it scares me......become ICP certified. I think it's a great program and one that I would like to support but the idea of having my teaching critiqued is very intimidating to me. However, this is the profession I have chosen so I have a responsibility to educate myself within it. So...let the studying begin! I don't have a clue where the next workshops or testings will be but I will find out. I do have the advantage of having been a guinea pig rider several times for the workshops and testings so at least I have some idea of what I am getting into.

 Now I must backtrack a little to the Leslie Law clinic which was fabulous as always. I rode Uno in the Intermediate group and Uno's nephew Gogo in the training group. Uno was perfect as usual and jumped great, Gogo had not jumped for a while, so was very enthusiastic! I am excited for his future though, he just turned 5 and has all the makings of a great event horse. I am going to try to post a video of each of them jumping that Laramie took if I can figure out how. Gogos second round was much better than the one I will post but by that time Laramie had joined the chase for the loose horse that left our lesson and toured the property for an hour before being caught! These were my last jump schools before my back took a turn for the worse so I enjoy re watching them again as well. Another huge thank you to Claire, Laramie, Chelsey, Lindsey and Jon for keeping the barn running smoothly and my horses in work while I am out of commission. Thank you to everyone for all the kind thoughts and gestures I have received.