The whole week before our horse trials was quite hot, but we had a beautiful weekend for the event, the best weather that we’ve ever had. For once, people could really appreciate the footing, the weather, how amazing everything looked. Normally, everyone’s just sweating and they don’t really care if things look good or not! We had really nice courses and as always I’d like to give big shout out to Tom, Christy Stauffer, Mary Coldren, my parents, the whole Surefire crew plus all our amazing volunteers—we absolutely couldn’t do it without you! As always, Tremaine did a great job with the courses, and thanks to Levi and Tyson for stepping in for Trav‘s crew this year as course builders. I’m really excited for our new fall event and can’t wait to see what kind of changes we’ll have with James Atkinson designing. 

Surefire Horse Trials is pleased to welcome James Atkinson to the Surefire Team as course designer for their inaugural Fall Event September 27-28. James has ridden for the Canadian team and has just received his FEI license for course design. He’s been working for the last several years with Tremaine Cooper at various sites around the country, including his own Copper Meadows in San Diego. James has already been to Surefire Farm, putting a fresh set of eyes on the courses, and promises some exciting ideas for the September horse trials. Surefire looks forward to having Tremaine and James working together to create the best courses possible for this year and beyond.

From James
“It’s exciting to work with Jan and Tom. I like that they have big plans for the event and want to keep improving. It’s a great project and an exciting time for the event as they expand and really build on what’s there, with more land becoming available in the future. My first year designing the horse trials I won’t get too carried away—I’ve got a feel for the terrain and land and I’ll give the courses my own stamp but I won’t throw everything out from the past. Tremaine has done a good job taking full advantage of the property and has designed some permanent features that are great, so I’ll build on what he’s done. Every property has lines that work best with the terrain, and the best stuff’s already been found. I’ll just build on that.”

I feel like I haven’t slowed down since Kentucky! All the rain we’ve had in May and June has added to the work on the farm and with the horses. I can literally watch the grass growing outside my window, and if we get behind it turns into a jungle. Sometimes you feel like you get stuck in your own rat-race! 

On the horse side, Maya and I went to Virginia to help some students in the one-star and for Maya to compete before Bromont. I rode Inmidair (JR) in the A/I as a combined test and Duke of Diamond (Dyson) and Why Not in the Preliminary. JR had two weeks off after Kentucky; I walked him for ten days, had a small flat school and a small jump school and thought Virginia would be something fun to do. With all the horses we had a weekend of ups and downs. Maya ended up going first with her horse Doesn’t Play Fair (Cody). They had a fair dressage, but show jumping and cross-country, which we had been working on, really went to plan. 

I got my times wrong for my dressage with JR and didn’t have enough warm-up, only about ten minutes of cantering and trotting on a long rein. I didn’t have much of a test, so it wasn’t the best practice, but my main reason for going with him was to work on my show jumping and he jumped beautifully. 

I also had my old partner, Why Not, and my own Duke of Diamonds, who ran around in the time—up to that point I’d always had about 18 time faults with him! I’d had a great lesson on Dyson with Phillip before Virginia. I had told him that I didn’t know if Dyson’s balance was ready for the speed to make the time at Preliminary. He told me to make sure keep the balance up, with my leg on, and keep going to the jumps and it would be alright. It’s always easier to pull on the reins than kick the balance up, but after riding two jumps and making myself keep the same gallop it worked to my advantage because I had something to kick up. I tried to do that at Virginia, too, and Dyson jumped even better than he had at Phillip's. I think when you watch Phillip’s round at the Fork and then his round at Kentucky on Trading Aces, you’ll see that the horse got so much better with Phillip riding him the way he taught me to ride Dyson. I’ve been in this sport a long time and I’m always trying to get better, but sometimes you just need someone on the ground telling you what to do and supporting you, just as I do with my students. 

Maya won the A/I at Virginia, which was a nice note for her to go to Bromont on. I was so excited for Maya to head to Canada for her first 3-star. She’d tried to get to one six years before, but due to soundness and other reasons it didn’t work out, and several horses later I couldn’t wait for her to actually be there. Maya drove up and I flew up to help her starting on Friday. 

She had a nice dressage test and the things we’ve really worked on, like her changes, half-pass and the quality of canter and counter-canter were much improved. With that being said, I felt like the pizazz she normally has in her trot work wasn’t quite there. Her little horse, Cody, is quite competitive on the flat, and anyone who knows Maya Black knows she is, too. We were very pleased with her being in second place after the dressage and thought that Derek’s course suited both Maya and Cody. As always, Derek did a beautiful job and there were some great questions. Maya jumped around with class and was really smart when her horse got tired at the end of course, knowing when to push and when to support, and he jumped really well all the way around. We  knew he was a little shy on fitness and they had 12 time, but the run will add a lot to his base. 

Cody was quite an easy horse throughout the whole weekend and jogged well Sunday morning, put in a class show jump and ended fifth. I think this horse and Maya will be competitive and win at this level and the next, and if things go right be part of U.S. team, even as soon as Rio. 

Sometimes we get caught up in the rat race of trying to compare ourselves to other people, but not everyone gets to three-star at the same time in their career. Remember, if you’re going to be in horses, be sure to enjoy every day, the ins and outs and their development. Try not to compare yourself to others, it’s often hard on your confidence and things don’t work out the same for each person. Not having done a 4-star myself until I was 36, and Maya having to wait six years from her first attempt to do a 3-star, puts into perspective that you keep striving for things you want to do, but also enjoy the process. I realize that taking satisfaction in the everyday aspects of our sport is especially important in times like this with the passing of both Benjamin Winter and Jordan McDonald. We’re are such a tight-knit group of people in the Eventing world that these kinds of tragedy affect all of us. I’m so saddened by their loss and my heart and condolences go out to their families and loved ones.