Blog Archives

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

0 Comments

End of Season

11/9/2020

0 Comments

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.

0 Comments