The Dressage Canada clinic for Developing Combinations as well as members of our WEG Team went super today again.  Besides running through the Grand Prix with Bonny and Belinda, both of whom were awesome, I had a great time working with Vickie again with Proton and they did fantastic stuff!  Nancy, Jacquie and Whitney rounded out the day and each rode great and showed wonderful potential as future Grand Prix combinations with their horses as well as medal winning possibilities for the Pan Am’s on the way.

I’m now at my motel near the show grounds for the Ontario Championships where both Bonny and Belinda will start in the Grand Prix and the Special the next two early mornings. Lisa Hossack-Scott, the show’s organizer, has gone out of her way to make this final warm-up show for our WEG Team members as perfect as possible by allowing them to repare their horses in Ring 2 before competing in Ring 1. This way they have optimum footing at all times and I thank her for scheduling their class so as to make this possible!  I can’t wait for tomorrow morning to come and am very excited to see the two of them show again for the first time since our European Tour.

I will fly home on Saturday but be back a week from Sunday for the “Send-Off To Kentucky” benefit and hope to see many of you there.  Don’t forget that the team will be auctioned off as will I and you can even bid on any of us from your cell phone. We’ll be publishng the times for the auction items to be bid on and I will personally, along with Robyn Eames, be taking long-distance bids that afternoon.  Watch the next days for more information including the call-in numbers to reach me or Robyn.  It’s going to be a blast and raise a lot of money we desperately need for our team and future programs for Juniors through the International ranks!  So don’t forget to click the banner at the top of my site and buy your tickets before we sell out as we can only take 300 and we’re getting very close to that number now!  See you at the event.

Cheers!

RD

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Hi, Twister buffs. Here is one for September. I hope you enjoy it. I have a great new picture of Robert as a gift to the winner. Good luck.
Robert’s Mom

1…What sport was featured in the 1992 motion picture The mighty Ducks

2…What sport was featured in the 1940 motion picture Knute Rockne All American starring pat O’brien?

3… What state was the 1989 baseball Field Of Dreams filmed in?

4…What was the title of the 1942 motion picture which Gary Cooper played the legendary baseball player Lou “Iron Horse” Gehrig?

5… What was the song the baseball team warmed up to in the 1951 motion picture Harlem Globetrotter?

6…What ballpark provided backdrop to  the 1942 Lou Gehrig film Biography The Pride of the Yankees?

Day 2 of my clinic at Belinda’s was super. 3 of the 4 WEG Team members rode: Belinda looked wonderful with Anton, Bonny’s Pikardi did great work and Victoria and Proton have made terrific progress since I last saw them!  There were also 4 other excellent up and coming combinations which I will speak more about tomorrow.

Now, I have a conference call with our “Take The Podium” fundraising commitee for our final meeting before the upcoming “Send-Off To Kentucky” benefit.  I hope you’ve bought your tickets!

Cheers!

RD

Today was day 1 of my 3-day clinic for , Young Riders, Developing combinations and members of our WEG Team going to Kentucky later this month.  Everyone did a great job and I was generally impressed with the riders and their horses.  Tony and Robyn Eames, along with their daughter, team rider, Belinda Trussell, generously donated he use of their fabulous facility and Wendy Hoehne graciously assured everything ran smoothly and all attending were fed and happy.

I’m also staying in the amazing home of Robyn and Tony as well as their beautiful golden labs, one of which you can see enjoying herself in the stream which runs if front of the home.  This evening we celebrated Belinda’s 39th birthday with family and friends. Hard to believe we’re both 39! :)      

Cheers!

RD

Judge, Joan McCartney stands for finalsalute from Esmee Ingham

Wendy Christoff, reserve rider for this years WEG Team has been very busy managing and putting on a wonderful competition for Canadian Junior riders. The show took place on August 27-29 and was a huge success again.  Below is Wendy’s report and tomorrow I’ll add some great pictures taken during the weekend.  I want to congratulate all the riders and commend Wendy and her fantastic volunteer group which has done so much for Canada’s youth!

The show is about kids with horses…all ages and all levels. Our mission statement is “To provide young riders, 21 years and under, the opportunity to participate in a dressage competition that is exclusively their own, in an environment that provides a fair playing field for junior riders of different age groups wherein each will compete against his/her peer group at all levels of skill, from beginners to advanced” .

In 2004 when our committee put on our first show we were told it would never fly as there are not enough youth riders to make a show pay for itself. We hoped we would get 50 riders and we had over 70 entries with over 70% of them riding in the Bronze show and the rest in the Gold show. Now – seven years later we are maxed out at 115 riders with more than 70% of them competing in the gold show and the rest in the bronze. We have a very large FEI youth division and this year with both the Nationals and the gold show we had 20 FEI competitors.  Competitors came from all over BC, Alberta, and Washington state.

Our show is successful because it is all about kids and we have unique prizes and activities that go on all weekend long. Some of the prizes have been saddles, Konig boots, bridles, tack trunks, bicycles, and complete outfits for main prizes and a huge variety of other prizes such as bridle bags, garment bags, boot bags etc all with our lovely logo.

Activities have  included interactive fire safety skills for the barn ( the kids got to try to hold a fire hose!); Rising Stars fashion show where the teams created outfits made from garbage bags and duct tape; education sessions such as proper helmet fitting; saddle fitting; judges perspectives on riding the levels and critical movements in a test; dressage rules and what they mean. Each year we have new and different activities for the kids and they all attend.

This year we felt we were big enough and had enough sponsors to host the Dressage Canada Youth National Championships. This is an annual show that is bid on by show organizers across the country and this is the first time for it to be in BC. We are proud to boast that we had the most number of competitors with 16 declared and qualified horse/rider combinations. This is the largest entry since the show was started in Ottawa six years ago  with all four categories having entries ( 4  FEI Children ; 2 FEI Pony; 6 FEI Jr; and 4 Young Riders).

For some of the kids it was their first time riding in front of a panel of three FEI judges and is a milestone in their riding careers. Our riders impressed the judges and the scores reflected it. Joan McCartney wrote “I was soooooo impressed by your show; the organization and the number and caliber of your riders, especially the focus of your Jrs. It is little wonder that BC is producing all these talented juniors.” Jayne Ayers wrote” GREAT show! Thank you for inviting me” Rosina Franco said she was so impressed with the horses and caliber of riding, especially in the freestyles and she had to keep reminding herself that she was judging kids.

All in all it was a terrific show. Riders in all three shows, Nationals, Gold and Bronze were recognized in out parade of Champions with the spectator seating overfull from proud parents, grandparents, friends and fellow competitors . We pass the torch on to the next organizing committee for the DCYNC as we turn our Rising Stars energies towards a Can-Am challenge in 2011.

All the Best,

Wendy Christoff & Susan Holtby

Managers

Rising Stars

I’m now up here in Canada and ready to begin teaching Young Riders as well as out WEG Team Riders tomorrow and just found out that we are still over 100 tickets short of our goal for the “Send-Off To Kentucky” benefit on September 12th.  Now, I know that many times people wait until the last minute before buying their tickets to these kind of functions but, my Canadian friends, now you’re really starting to make me nervous!

Coming to this event is about having a great time, meeting and showing your support for our team, and providing incredibly vital funding for future programs for everyone from our Juniors through our Elite International combinations.  So here’s the thing. If we do not produce this much needed funding through events like this, how do you suppose we are to create the long-term, sustainable programs which can rival those of countries such as Holland, Germany, Great Britain and even the United States?  To me, this whole thing is such a “no-brainer” that I am just dumbfounded when I’m told we’re still not sold out!  I feel like I keep jumping up and down to try to get people as excited as I am about Canada’s future in Dressage, but for some reason so many of you don;t want to hop on the band-wagon.  I have to say, if you are all content with the results you’ve had for the past 22 years, there’s not much I can do about it in the end , other than to remind you that then you can’t complain about anything including mediocre results.  But if you are serious about becoming a “World Power” in our sport, all I can say is GET WITH THE PROGRAM!

PLEASE, go to the top of this page and click on the banner for the “Send-Off To Kentucky” benefit today and purchase your tickets and tables so that our Team and all the kids and adults hoping to one day represent Canada have world-class programs in place starting in 2011. In the end, you’ll be proud you helped make a difference and I’ll stop having to go back to my hair colourist so often!  Thank You!!!

Cheers!

RD

Don’t you just love when one of these kids come along like the little girl on America’s Got Talent and just blows you away with a voice that could only be being channelled from a deceased former star through an act of God! Such a gift of genius which springs out so naturally and seemingly without effort literally makes me cry when I experience it every single time. It must be like flying on one’s own if you’re that person.

But that does not in any way mean that even these tiny proteges will not make the same if not bigger sacrifices throughout their lives for their “gift”. I think probably the opposite is more true - the child is so focused on their art or sport that they forego a normal childhood in the pursuit of perfection. Just watching shows like “So You Think You Can Dance” or the documentary, “Every Little Step” and you see the tremendous sacrifices these young people have made for the love of their art. Even those who are totally natural talents show the bruises, both physical and emotional, that come with the territory.

It is the same for riders- or at least it should be. No matter how gifted a young person or adult is who has come to me for training, I have always been determined that they understand and live the life of the “complete horsemaster”, not just be a good or even great rider. They have to love it enough to make the hard sacrifices which I believe 99% of the “Greats” all made to become who they were or are. Sometime, I feel that riders today just don’t feel the need for sacrifice, but honestly, I have little interest in those people when it comes right down to it. I want to feel the passion from my students ansd see their ongoing commitment which makes them push beyond their wildest dreams to achieve what they never believed possible. And I don’t want to hear whining about it. Katherine Bateson, who some very nasty people have written unkind things about since she made her first WEG Team two weeks ago, has sacrificed more than most people could imagine to train with me and I can tell you that she never complained once in 16 years, dispite having probably more than enough reason to do so on countless occasions.

Genius, Talent, Determination, Sacrifice, Work, Focus, Intelligence, Luck and LOVE! All words which relate to the road toward perfecting one’s art.

Cheers!

RD

THE 1990 WORLD EQUESTRIAM GAMES

Stockholm, Sweden

Here is one of many pictures of beautiful Stockholm.

Since the 2010 World Equestrian Games are upon us I thought it would be fun to write about the few that I & Herb attended.

One of the most exciting parts of being Robert’s parents is that we got to see countries we would never have had a chance to visit. As with every Olympics, we were thrilled to be going to Stockholm, Sweden for the 1990 World Equestrian Games. Robert would be riding Waltzertakt owned by Walter and Mary Anne McPhail. The rest of the team was made up of Betsy Steiner on Unanimous, Marie Meyers on Demitrius, and Carol Lavel on Gifted.

When we reached our hotel we had to wait for our room to be ready. We sat down in the lobby and began chatting with a lovely young lady. She said her name was Mary Phelps. She told us she was a sports photographer. Mary became a life long friend, and saw me through many tense moments when Robert rode. Herb invited us into the dining room and we had our first taste of truly great smoked salmon. The difference between what we eat here and what they serve there is amazing. She is still a famous photographer of sporting events. Now we are praying for her speedy recovery from a terrible accident.

Stockholm is a lovely city with its antiquity, fountains, beautiful seaport, with ships in docks.

Here is a picture of an old side street still in cobblestone.

One day we had time to visit the Vasamuseet Nautical Museum. It was very impressive. There was a authentic old sailing ship. The crew you see are carved out of wood.

One more thing Stockholm is noted for is its handsome men and beautiful women. The people are very friendly and they didn’t mind answering questions like “how to get somewhere” or “what does that sign mean?”.

Stockholm, being on the water, fresh fish was abundant. One night Herb & I were strolling from our hotel and we saw a sailing ship that was converted to a restaurant. It was called Eriks Fixk Restaurant & Ostronbar. We went in. It was very nautical and lovely inside. We were seated where we could see the water. Portions aren’t large as they are all over America. I liked that, and our fish was delicious. I don’t drink, but Herb had a Scotch. Our bill was $200 American money!

The most unusual restaurant I have ever been in was called The Shrimp Boat. We walked in to see rows of tables. Between each row and going around the end was a waterway flowing around like the real thing. The waitress came up to take our order and she explained that it would be delivered via sailboat on the water. I thought, wouldn’t it be fun and profitable to have a restaurant like that in Florida. After all, every parent and especially grandparents, would definitely want to take their darlings to eat there. Well it never happened back home. Building a restaurant and running it are very different from visiting one. I am so sorry I didn’t have my camera with me that night.

Here is a picture of Herb buying a hot dog for 20 American dollars. Notice no plate or French fries. I had a 30 dollar hamburger on a bun. During the show I became very thirsty and went to a nearby stand to get a glass of water. I got a funny look, but was handed small cup with warm water in it. 8.00 please! I said “do you have any ice?” She answered “No, it is too warm for ice!)

Robert’s memories of the ride are as follow:

“I believe we placed 6th as a team. I was unable to work my horse for a week before the jog because he had strained a tendon. He was very difficult to get into the arena at all, no less have a good test. But he was good enough to make it to the 2nd round of the Special as I recall. I was after a break and the band was playing and they were watering the green fiber-sand arena with huge fire hoses when I arrived to enter the oval and I could not get him to go in. So I turned him around and backed him in and then swung him around and began cantering forward so he couldn’t stop. I think he had somewhere around 65%.”

Here is a picture of the dressage arena at the games. We were very impressed when Queen Beatrice and her Consort drove by in their carriage.

I always make an album of each event but unfortunately I didn’t write what each building and area was.

Hope you enjoyed my memories of Stockholm. Next will be the 1994 World Equestrian Games in The Hague in Holland.

My good friend, Oded, sent me a link without telling me what it was of. When I clicked it and watched the “cartoon”, I wasn’t sure what to think of it and frankly, I’m still not sure.  Normally, I would simply throw it in the trash bin; however, it does show just how far people and technology will go.  So, for that alone, but most definitely not to agree in any way with the message it is giving, I am enclosing the link for you to view.

 Cheers!

RD