BLOG

Tremaine Cooper

3/16/2021

I think I’m still in shock that I won’t see Tremaine Cooper again. As I walked across the field here at Surefire this morning, I was crying and smiling at the same time, remembering all the time he spent here working on our cross-country courses.

I first met Tremaine at Chesterland Farm when he was riding with Bruce. I also met his future wife, Marion, who was working for Bruce as his secretary, doing everything that job entailed. Tremaine was my friend, my student, the Surefire Horse Trial’s course designer, and someone to share laughs and argue with. In my mind, Tremaine also changed the sport of Eventing in Area 2 in a lot of ways as the mastermind behind the course at Morven Park.

One of my best memories of Tremaine is from last January. I needed to empty my manure cart at the barn and I couldn’t get ahold of Tom to help me. Anyone who knows Tom and me and our tractor, well, there’s some issues with me driving it… I can’t find the key, and if I do, I can't drive it because I normally can’t open door, and in the rare circumstance I can, I might sneak on it to move a jump or something, but it’s definitely Tom’s tractor. This particular day, I couldn’t finish the barn without emptying the manure, so I called Tremaine. He came over and kindly walked me through how to start the tractor, what the A, B, and C gears are, how to work the bucket, throttle the engine, how to go forward, how to back up and so on. Because of Tremaine I was successful and I was able to park the tractor, unhook it, and surprise Tom. As soon as I was done unhooking, my phone was ringing and it was Tremaine, just making sure I’d survived my mission and reminding me to turn the key off and take it out of the ignition. He was the best kind of friend.

I will be forever grateful for all the jumps and all the courses he designed for Surefire, all the people he’s introduced to Tom and me and our families, and all the fun we were able to share. My heart breaks for Marion, James, and Sadie, and his dogs, horses and chickens, and everyone else whose life was touched by Tremaine.

Jinshallah

3/12/2021

I have sad news from Surefire. I had to put down my Mom and Dad and my Jinshallah, who we called Gino, last week. He had always had a funny bump on his flank, and when I asked a vet a year ago what they thought it was, and they told me they thought it was his sternum, and I never thought twice about it. When my regular vet, Dr. Susan Johns, was in Florida in late February, I asked her what she thought it was, and she said if I wanted to know I should have it ultrasounded. I made an appointment with Dr. Carol Clark at Peterson and Smith. Come to find out from the ultrasound and now the necropsy, Gino had a tumor in his abdomen that was almost three feet long, two-and-a-half feet wide, and two feet deep. The biopsy results showed the tumor was cancerous. It was not attached to his intestines at all, so therefore he never had any digestive symptoms, but in hindsight, he was often grumpy about his right side. It’s amazing that he could jump and perform and never say no with that inside him. The last four days you could see where his belly had started to expand out and he was quite uncomfortable and spent a lot of time laying down. I felt like the only choice I had was to put him down.

Gino was one of the most amazing athletes—a great mover and he could jump a house. Of course he was brave as a lion and as clever as a cat, he was the whole package.

Ocala Continued

3/12/2021

This winter, Kaylin Dines has leased my horses Urrem and Volcan de Caverie for four months to do the jumpers. She came to Ocala to show for two week at the World Equestrian Center and did a great job, placing 5th and 8th in her first Classic, and winning a class on Urrem and placing 3rd in the same class with Volcan. It’s been super fun watching both the horses and Kaylin perfecting their skills. She will be back this week for two weeks of showing at HITS.

This last weekend I did Steely in the Preliminary one-day at Rocking Horse and he was great in the dressage, had a rail down behind out of the combination in the show jumping, and was super cross-country to finish 6th. Hopefully he’ll get sold before I leave Florida, he’s such a nice horse! Storm did the Training and was great in the dressage (although I thought they were hard on his score), beautiful in the show jumping and fun and fast on cross-country. He’ll move up to Modified at Ocala 2. Layla, who I just purchased with my Mom and Dad from Marilyn Payne, did her second Novice. She doesn’t quite understand what her job is yet, but she’s getting the hang of it. She is and will be a super nice horse. Marylin came down to ride her horse, Double Entendre, in her first event this winter and had a super nice dressage, one down in the show jumping, and just a little time cross-country. She’s all prepared for Carolina International on her way home. It was really nice to have her two horses with me this winter and to spend some time with Marilyn and her friend Mary Bancroft.

We don’t have a lot of time left in Florida but the girls and I have really enjoyed being at Mike and Cherye Huber’s Gold Chip Stables, which we have dubbed Goldfire Stables. I’ve been super lucky to have Kelsey Smith, who started with me last July, helping me all winter. Kelsey’s from Michigan and came to Surefire after a stint in the Peace Corp. Unfortunately for me, she’d always planned to leave at the beginning of April, so will be saying good-bye once we return to Virginia. She’s been an amazing help—super organized, has a great eye for detail, and she does everything with a smile on her face. I’m lucky, though, to have Jessie Biggs helping as well. Jessie came south with me to learn a little bit more about eventing and I’ve decided to hire her and am super excited to have her join the Surefire team.

Kelsey and Jessie

Ocala

2/15/2021

Happy New Year a couple months late! It seems like its been the longest year ever and I'm not sure we stopped 2020 before we moved on to 2021...

In the horse world we’re actually super lucky because we’re outside and still have the ability to ride and train horses and teach people every day. I've come down to Ocala again this winter because I really enjoy the area and the fact that there’s so much to do with every type of horse, and the weather is great. Last year, I decided not to compete while in Florida, I just wanted to train. This year I decided to do a bit of both. I was lucky enough to go to Wellington for two weeks in January to help Abigail McArdle flat some of her jumpers. Abby rides for Henri and Katie Prudent and Plain Bay Farm, and they allowed me to bring some of my horses so I could show on Wednesday and Thursday both weeks. It’s always great to be able to go to Wellington to just practice the finer points of show jumping. It was super fun, and I was so proud of Abby and Boogie Woogie for winning the Grand Prix on Friday in Venice Beach—I felt like I might have played a small part.

I came back to Mike Huber’s farm Ocala, where I keep my horses, and he was kind enough to help me school cross-country and show jumping, and put a little pressure on me for my upcoming horse trials. The first horse trials I went to I was asked to catch ride Double Entendre (Pun) for Marylin Payne. Marilyn had decided to keep her two horses with me this year, to do something other than going to Aiken. The horses arrived on January 20th and I was able to help her cross-country school her horse twice and watch her on the flat, and also get some help with my horses before she left to go home. Unfortunately, she couldn’t make it back to Ocala for her events, so I got the ride on Pun at Three Lakes in the Training, which was quite fun. I had a video taken of me practicing my dressage test before the competition and sent it to Marylin for input. She gave me five things to do to improve, and I succeeded in improving all five things during my test at the competition, hence why I got such a good score. I’ve never practiced my dressage test and then sent it to a judge—it was super helpful and I highly recommend it! I had one down behind in the show jumping on Pun but the horse was super fun and we finished second.

Our second event was the Ocala Horse Trials and I just have to say that with all the rain we got, I thought they did a great job managing the riders, ground and competition for everyone. I don’t think it was easy! Luckily we’re in Florida and the cross-country course held all the water and the footing was great. (Though maybe not the dressage ring, which was under water!) All my horses were good and although I didn’t win anything, they all got better and it was nice to see how much stronger both Beautiful Storm (Storm) and Unbridled Numbers (Steely) have gotten. My two Novice horses were babies but they certainly grew up around the course. It’s nice when your baby horses finish better than they started.

End of Recognized Surefire Horse Trials

11/26/2020

After much deliberation, I have decided that Surefire has run its final sanctioned horse trials. This has been a really hard decision, but the time has come. I’m super glad, though, that we decided to run this past June, even as the pandemic was creating new challenges to putting on our event. I feel grateful that we ended on a really good note.

I want to say thank you to every single rider, volunteer, official, supplier, sponsor, and course builder who over the years helped, supported and created our amazing event. There would have been no Surefire Horse Trials without Tom Finnen, Dick and Jo Byyny, and Christy Stauffer, and the list of others who were critical to our success is quite long. I appreciate everyone who pitched in, year after year, as part of our Surefire family. It is the memories of all who helped that stand out most for me.

Don’t worry, I will still be training horses and riders as well as teaching clinics and doing anything and everything I can to make our sport better. This is the end of the Surefire Horse Trials but not the end of Surefire! We’ll be open for schooling for anyone that wants to come by, just contact me to make an appointment. We’re working on plans to run derby crosses, schooling horse trials and some other fun shows. I look forward to welcoming you back to Surefire Farm.

With gratitude,

Jan

End of Season

11/9/2020

I’ve had a busy couple of weeks since the Maryland Horse Trials. I went back to Maryland the following weekend to help some students, but also to take Storm and see if I could qualify him for the YEH Championships that were taking place at Virginia. I kind of left it to the last minute because I wasn’t sure he was ready. Storm’s a really nice Thoroughbred but he’s quite immature physically. He’s built more like four-year-old than a five-year-old. But having him go to a bunch of horse shows this summer and fall, he actually really came into his own in the last month. My plan worked and he did get qualified. Storm was super, though I could have been have been in more in a cross-country rhythm and not show jumped my whole cross-country course… Whoopsie! Things to work on for the championships, right?

The following week we went to the Virginia Horse Center to do the the jumper show Thursday and Friday. I took Storm with me because I thought it would be good for him to be overnight again. He was great each day in the TAKE2 meter jumper class. He had a rail down in both jump offs but was super to ride. I also took Rem and Volcan. Volcan won the meter-25 on Thursday. Both horses did the Welcome Stake on Friday and both had a rail in the jump off; Volcan had two rails and Rem had one rail behind. I still got some money and was super pleased with them. I would have stayed for the Grand Prix on Sunday but had no time, and needed to get home and teach and ride the other horses.

Because Storm was qualified for the YEH, I went down to Virginia on Wednesday morning for the five-year-old championships. I was super proud of Storm—he had a nice dressage test, a nice confirmation score, and then on Thursday for the jumping it was raining and crazy wet. I was the last to go before they cancelled the jumping phases. Storm threw a shoe galloping in the warmup, but I went and jumped anyway. It was raining so hard and almost sideways, I could hardly see. It’s amazing how great that horse was and how he handled the whole situation, though. We won the T.I.P. Award from the Jockey Club, and also The American Bred Thoroughbred Award for the highest-scoring horse that's bred in the U.S. Storm ended 7th out of the 29 that were able to jump, the only American Thoroughbred in all the five-year-olds.

I taught a clinic in Colorado this past weekend, now headed back to Virginia to the horses, dogs and Tom.

Fall Training and Competitions

10/15/2020

Because of the way the season has gone, I’ve been doing more horse shows than eventing. I was fortunate to do the Piedmont Jumpers at the Upperville show grounds. I showed Gino and Storm in the young classes—Storm was reserve champion in the TAKE2 Thoroughbreds (https://www.take2tbreds.com) and Gino did the meter and meter-10s. They were both great. REM didn’t have best meter-20 but did the $10,000 Classic with just one rail down. Volcan was also good, a little amped though, so I spent my time going back and forth through the levels between meter-10 and 20.

I did the finals on Sunday with Storm and then Monday, Laila and I went down to Tryon to jump on Wednesday through Friday. It was nice to have a little road trip because haven’t traveled much this year. Tryon was super educational for all the horses and for me. I took all four again—Storm did the TAKE2 Thoroughbreds each day, never had a rail and was super in the jump-offs and in his turning. Gino was a little gob-smacked in the international ring, or maybe I was! He went back and forth between meter and m-10. in his last class on Friday, Gino was 4th in a big meter-10 class. I started with meter-10 and m-15 with Volcan and finished the last two days meter-20. While he had a few mistakes at the beginning, both final trips were super. Rem was great, too—4th in meter-20, and in the meter-20 speed class she was third. On the third day, Rem had two down in the stakes class, I think she just stood too long at the gate before going. Live and learn. It’s amazing how much education I got and the horses got in those two weeks. It wasn’t always an easy education, but very helpful at the end of the day.

It was super watching Doug Payne do his horse Quincy (Quintessence) in the bigger classes at Tryon, and I got to visit with him and his wife, Jessica. I was also super fortunate to get help from Katie and Henri Prudent and their assistant, Paula Randall. I stayed with Penny and Don Nault, who live right on the cross-country course. It was like staying at 5-star hotel—beautiful house and company. Between Don’s ribs and Penny’s dinners, it was delicious and amazing!

We got home on Saturday morning at around 2:00 AM and then had a pretty low-key weekend getting the horses at home back going again. On Wednesday, we went cross-country schooling at Stephen Bradley’s so I could get Storm and Gino ready for the Maryland Horse Trials. Gino ended 2nd and Storm was 3rd in their Training divisions. Unfortunately, Storm didn’t have the most beautiful test because he was a little disconnected at the canter, but he didn’t put a foot wrong and ended on his dressage score. It’s been super fun to develop these two horses this year, to see how far they’ve come and how much jumper shows educate your horses. It’s also fun to put the pressure on yourself and be competitive in every class you go to.

Gino on left, Storm on right. Photos by Janet Gallay.

Eventing and Horse Showing

9/21/2020

It’s so nice that the weather has started to change, fall is my favorite time of year. Knowing that winter is looming makes me a little sad, but I love the changing temperatures and turning leaves. Fall makes me appreciate what I do every day because I get to be outside hacking and training and enjoying nature. I’m lucky!

The horses have been good and fun to work with, and I’ve continued to horse show. I’m changing the way I do things with my young horses because I’ve found doing two weeks of horse shows educates the horses, and myself, more than one horse trials. It’s not that I didn’t know this, but sometimes I think we forget how things influence horses and our riding until we revisit different training methods and disciplines. Horse shows provide multiple classes per day for multiple days. I’ve found the young horses realize a show is just another day and not something to get excited about. Also, shows give them great tools without much risk of them getting hurt.

I also got to take my young horses to two horse trials. At Seneca, Gino (Jinshallah) and Storm (Beautiful Storm) did Novice and Training and were super. I was going to do Lilly (Helloway) in the Preliminary—she’s been doing the hunters as well schooling cross-country—but her fitness wasn’t quite where it needed to be to be fair to her, so I decided to just do the Training. Lilly’s quick because you don’t have to set her up and she ended second, tied for first.

Thanks to Janet Gallay for the photos!

Lilly

Gino

Storm

The next weekend I went to CDCTA with Storm and Gino. Gino was a little bit of a home boy going by the trailers parked along fences two through five, he wanted to go back to his trailer! Otherwise he was great, though I never trotted in my lengthening in dressage. Storm moved up to Training and gave me everything he could. His score showed he had a rail (I disagreed), and I even provided a video of our round, though you couldn’t really see the jump in question. It’s not the easiest warm-up there because it’s so small, but Storm handled the new level easily. I decided not to do Lilly at CDCTA because she was doing the Middleburg Classic in the hunters. It’s nice to have horse that’s so versatile.

I’m spending last week and this with Volcan, Rem, Storm and Gino in Upperville at the Piedmont Horse Show and then at Tryon. Hopefully, I’ll finish the year at the Maryland Horse Trials.

Things on the farm are great, and I’m so lucky to have Tom making sure everything is mowed and beautiful and of course to have Kelsey and Marlene being the great team they are in the barn.

A Different Spring and Summer

8/12/2020

It’s such an interesting time in our lives with COVID. I feel like I’ve lost track of things—time, the days—everything seems to blend together and maybe that’s why I haven’t done an update in so long. With that being said, it’s also been a super nice time personally. Though I wasn’t able to teach for a while, I just rode all my horse and really worked on the basics. It’s amazing how, when you have the time, it’s easy it is to actually make your horses better and a little more true in the way they go.

I was able to get some help from Katie and Henri Prudent starting the first of May. I also took some cross-country clinics with Phillip, who had really good exercises for my horses. Basically, we worked on serpentine lines and angles, focusing on riding inside leg to outside rein to make the distance work. Funny enough, I had some days with Katie working on the same idea but she had me ride one-handed on flat, inside leg to outside, shoulder in then out, haunches in then out in the trot and canter, both directions. What a great exercise to remind me to ride off my leg and not my hand. The one-handed exercise really allows you to put the bit in the corners of the horse’s mouth and ride from the leg through the hands to corners of the mouth so horse comes over their back, up in the shoulders and down to the bit.

I got to put into practice what I’d learned for first time showing at Culpepper for two weeks in July. Rem, Gino and Storm had been practicing being able to canter into that balance I's been working on, and I even got to win the meter-20 class on Rem. That set me up for the second Maryland Horse Trials with Gino and Storm in Novice. They were both great! Gino was second, and Storm was awesome but unfortunately I never showed him fourth jump off a turn and missed it. Always remember to show your horse the jumps! I’m hoping we’ll show this week at Culpepper and event again in September.

Back in June we did run our horse trials. It was a bit different than normal but ended up to be a nice thing to do for Area 2 and all the competitors got in and out safely. Trav and Graham Schick and Tom made sure all the courses were set and tracks and fields mowed, and Christy made sure everything was organized. It was a bit quiet because normally we’re a family-run show but my parents stayed home and so the feeling was a little different. They love to see everyone, cook dinner and help out and it just wasn’t the same without them. Because of all the rules and regulations necessary due to COVID, we had to be super careful running the horse trials but we’re so lucky in a lot of ways because we’re pretty isolated here at Surefire. Make sure you’re careful because the pandemic’s a real thing!

Storm and Gino at Maryland, Janet Gallay photos

Ocala!

2/3/2020

Happy New Year (a little late)! I had a great holiday in Colorado with my family and Tom—it’s always nice to do something different than my normal routine. I love being with my family and love skiing and got to combine both of those once again this year. I always try to get away long enough that I’m ready to go back to work at the end. That’s important to me, so I feel like I’m recharged and ready to go resume my real life. This year, I got home on January third and the next day Tom and I drove with the horses down to Ocala and Marnick Farm, home of the Merle-Smith’s. I was ready to do something different and I’ve been lucky enough that Barton and Susan invited me to come this year. I brought six horses down and two horses met me in Ocala to train for month of January, a nice number for myself and Gabbi Rogers, who came with me to help and ride.

Once I got settled into the amazing farm, the first thing I did was a cross-country clinic with Joseph Murphy on Kaylin Dines’ horse Unbridled Numbers, known as Steely in the barn. Going to the clinic so quickly actually made me put a little pressure on myself to get back into gear with my horses. It was quite fun because Joseph’s approach to cross-country is a lot like my own—allow the horse to balance on the jump, and hold the line at a pace that’s appropriate for them. Then, the exercises make sense to the horse and you can build in difficulty as the horse is able to have more pace and still answer the question. The clinic was at Horsepower, a super facility because there are so many different exercises for the horses and riders. It was not for the faint of heart but in Joseph’s words, "It’s good to make yourself a little bit uncomfortable, that’s how you get better." My philosophy for 2020 is to try, within reason, make myself a little bit uncomfortable in order to get better.

With that in mind, I went to Rocking Horse I with one horse and put my new tools I’d worked on into practice and I was lucky enough to win on Kaylin’s beautiful Steely. I would have to say it was a great win for Surefire Eventing but also for Marnick Farm, because everyone pitched in to make sure everything got done that day. As we know, it takes a village!