Blog Posts

Skiing and Riding

1/15/2019

Jan and Richard

Happy New Year! I love this time of year because I’ve just been with my family, skiing and visiting with my nieces and nephews, and celebrating my Dad’s 80th with the whole family. They always inspire me in conversations about their lives and and jobs. Everyone in my family is a teacher of some sort—three generations--and spending time with them makes me a better teacher.

This year in particular, Tom and I skied a lot with my brother, Richard, who often doesn’t have the time off because he’s an emergency room physician and trauma doctor who has to cover shifts during the holidays. He also teaches residents at the hospital, plus was a ski instructor for five years before going to medical school, so he’s actually an amazing teacher and Tom and I benefitted from his wealth of knowledge. It was actually quite funny because the first day Richard was helping me, he said, “Jan, you look like you’re riding dressage going down the mountain. You need a more athletic jumping stance, and you need to blend your aids and incorporate the steps we’ve been going over: hips down the hill, turn your skis and bend your knees, make sure you go with your skis, and don’t be so rigid! Feel like you’re on a horse cantering a bank—up, one stride, jump off—let yourself go and adapt to the motion of the horse and use your ability to let your body go with the motion. Blend your aids so you look like it all works together." The result was the best skiing I’ve ever had, whether dropping in on double black or cruising on a blue. After that, I was inspired to add that philosophy and feeling of blending my aids in my riding and teaching, and I couldn’t wait to get home.

Sidebar: My brother rode horses until he was twelve, but he hasn’t ridden much since, so it’s amazing he came up with a way to help by relating my skiing to my riding. I’m inspired to be a better teacher and rider and am on my way to Wellington for a while. I’m going to ride some for Katie and Henri Prudent and ride dressage with Sallie Spenard. I’ll be showing during the week at WEF and Global with two of Anita Antucci’s young horses and Sunday through Tuesday will continue to head home to Virginia or to teaching clinics in Alabama and Aiken.

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Fair Hill

10/31/2018

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I’m so happy to have done Fair Hill and so proud of our whole team and my horse, Volcan. I hadn’t done Fair Hill since 2013, the year I won. When you haven’t had an upper level horse for a while you can kind of forget what it’s like to be somewhere like Fair Hill. During our drive home and the Monday after, I realized: I had a blast! The more I do at the level, the more horses I want at the level—I can’t get enough! We’re making up some great horses at Surefire, but I’d like to have five at the upper levels right now. That was my gut feeling after Fair Hill.

My week at Fair Hill was great, especially since my parents came. The Surefire Team—Kelly Wick and her daughter Emma, Lila Brown, Katlyn Dines, and Marlene Lyons all came to support, too, so it was nice to have the whole crew there, especially on Saturday. During my ride the day before my dressage test, with David helping me, Volcan was probably the best he’s been. He helped me again to warm up before my test, and Volcan was so good. He's is getting better all the time. He was such an unbroken six-year-old when I got him, he was like riding a three-year-old. Then he grew almost three inches, which didn’t help with his strength or ability to keep on his feet. He’s always had a great attitude but it’s been a long road to get where we are because until now, he hasn’t had to figure out his jumping style because he’s so big and so scopey. He’s finally figuring out how to conform his body, that’s been his hardest thing. He’s wicked brave and really careful and is finally sorting things out, now that we're at the two-star level. His whole body and way of going has been work in progress. He also suffers a little from nerves in the ring, at the beginning of each phase. Volcan gets anxious about doing the right thing, that’s his personality to a “T”— on the outside he doesn’t seem too sensitive, but inside he doesn’t want to do anything wrong. So I had some baubles in the dressage test, but overall I was happy with him.

On cross-country, there was plenty to do. I ran the CIC 2-star at Fair Hill in the spring and knew how awkward the waters can ride. I had great warmup with Phillip but when I started out of the box, Volcan went but wasn’t really thinking about jumping, so the first four jumps were completely awkward. The first water had a brush in and a cabin out. I saw a good distance to the water but he didn’t jump well and landed on all four feet, giving us an awkward turn to the out. He didn’t give me the best feeling to start! 5 A/B was a rail to a corner that was set a bit against the camber, and it turned out that putting Volcan together for that was the best thing for him because he finally got feet and brain organized. He is one of those horses that needs to think a little more about the jumps in the first part of a course because he gets anxious and just goes. That will be my work in progress for next year—how to travel at speed and keep him relaxed and focused. Isn’t that always the art?

From that point on, other than ditch and brush and the brush before third water, Volcan was amazing, though I also need to work on being able to travel straight to a jump and straight away. He doesn’t hold a line correctly and often goes sideways, which wastes time. He’ll have plenty of gallop to make time; he had plenty of gallop left at the end and didn’t lose form. Fair Hill is such a fitness test and you’re never quite sure what you’re going to have. I had opted not to do a CCI2-star in May because I had wanted to work on Volcan’s style and ride-ability. I spent the summer and fall doing weekly nine-minute gallops with him while practicing over smaller-cross country jumps, to work on fitness and technique.

Unfortunately, Volcan had lost a shoe on the Monday before Fair Hill and I think that played a bit of a part at the first jog and a little more at the second. We had pore-in pads put in for Sunday, to try and make him more comfortable. By the time I went to jog he was terrible and was held. He was only sore on that one foot. I asked Dr. Johns if we should pull out the packing and when we did, it made him comfortable enough to jog out.

I couldn’t have been more proud of Volcan in the show jumping. Sue Lyman came to help and support me; we’ve been friends for 20 years and she’s the reason I started to ride with Katie and Henri Prudent. In the warm-up, Sue put a landing pole after the vertical for my last two jumps and that really seemed to help Volcan in the ring. Other than the first jump—when he didn’t quite pick up on the jump and got there with a gap—and the last jump, the rest was probably the best he’s been. The horse really came into himself, got better about every phase and really grew up through the weekend. It’s so nice when that happens!

Jan and Kelly Wick, waiting for results.

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Keeping It Local

10/18/2018

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We’ve have had such a funny year, especially summer and fall. I think Virginia has never seen so much rain! I ran one horse trials at Maryland in July and the ground was hard as a rock, and everything else has been soaking wet or cancelled because of rain. We did go to Loudoun at the end of August the footing was unheard of good, though, and it was so fun with Kortina, Jolie and Volcan.

I decided to keep quite local this year, so next thing on the docket was going to be Seneca. I did run Volcan, who was good in spite of the rain and deep footing, and then went to walk the next day’s move-up courses with Emma and by the third jump we decided there was no way were going to our horses. It was literally standing water on top of the ground and they called the event an hour and half later.

So we came home and decided to enter Marlboro with all the babies and the girls at the barn because they were accepting entries. I ran Volcan in the preliminary so he could have a not overwhelming experience and I could work on his ridability and on myself. Kortina moved up to training and won and Volcan won as well. It was a great day for everyone competing at Surefire; everyone was in the top 10! The only bummer was Jolie had shifted her shoe and was dead lame so she couldn’t compete and move up to Novice.

Then we went to Morven and had great weather. Jolie was still recovering, but I was able to run Kortina and Volcan. Kortina was great but it was the training Olympics and she had two green rails in show jumping. She handled the cross-country course like a champ, though maybe not the with the most confidence because it was such a huge ask. Volcan had a nice dressage test, an unlucky rail down behind in the triple in show jumping and was a bit of a madman in the cross-country but finished third in the 2-star.

Up next was Loch Moy with Kortina in training and Jolie in the novice and now Volcan is in the 2-star at Fair Hill. My parents are here, which is great—this is always one of our favorite events.

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Maryland Horse Trials I & II

8/1/2018

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I gave Volcan a little bit of down time after Jersey and did some jumpers and a combined test at Morningside, just to practice the finer points of competing and to work on his ridability. I entered the babies in both Maryland Horse Trials and the girls were all great. The first weekend had Nora (Dashwood) back out competing and she won! I was so proud of her, she did a beautiful job. She won from the dressage on—she put everything together and was so fun. Congratulations to Joni Jones for buying her; Nora has now arrived in Utah at Lynnleigh Farm.

I also had two of Anita Antenucci's mares—Kortina, out for the first time this year, and her new mare, Joli (Dreaming of Repent), who was a little tight in the dressage but handled the whole event thing great considering it was the first time she ever went to a show. We call Jolie baby genius because she figures things out so quickly!

The second week I had Volcan in the 2-star and Kortina in the Novice again. Kortina was third only because I misread the test and got two low marks on my canter departs. SHE was awesome! Volcan was probably not through his back enough on the flat, he needs more connection to score better, but I was very proud of him in the show jumping. The cross-country was hard for him for two reasons: 1. the footing was quite firm, although I know the organizers tried their hardest to do a great job with it, and 2. there were so many downhill jumps or jumps off of drops that even though Volcan jumped around, I think it was a hard course for him and he started to feel it in his feet and his body. He got better and better at the end, and I had to ride better. I’ve decided that I’m not going to take Volcan to Bromont, but rather stay local and work on rideability and making sure he still likes the sport.

Finally, what a crazy summer weather-wise! We went for a month without any rain after our horse trials were rained out, and then had a week of flooding and rain. Thank goodness we got it, at least the ground is softer again.

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The Horse Trials That Wasn't

7/28/2018

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As most of you know, our June event was cancelled. We did run the YEH classes on Friday, and while that was going on our pond went over the edges and flooded the water jump, the ditches and the whole bottom of our course. It was, to be honest, devastating for me and all those involved to actually make the decision to cancel the event. I don’t think people realize how much goes into the preparation of an event, especially at that point. You’ve done all the work—all the judges and officials, tents, rings, flagging and brush—every single part of the event was ready except for having the competitors there. It was especially heartbreaking because Tom works so hard on the footing at our farm and so much time and money goes into that.

I know a lot of events have struggled with the weather this year, but because we’d decided to not to have our fall event due to the WEG, it was probably even more of a let-down to have to cancel. On Saturday morning, when we were cleaning up, I think the whole crew was feeling completely depressed. Normally we have a Surefire Horse Trials hangover, but this year's was a bad one. In spite of everything, we do all this for the competitors and are proud of our horse trials and will always try to make it the best we can.

I’d like to give a huge shout-out to all the competitors who signed up, all the people who sponsored us, all the volunteers who signed on, and the huge crew of helpers that make everything run smoothly. I can tell you courses were best they’ve ever been. Hopefully you’ll all want to support our event next year as well!

Such beautiful courses that, sadly, were too wet to use.

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Surefire Horse Trials Prep and Upperville

6/10/2018

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The farm is in full swing getting ready for our Surefire Horse Trials. The mount of rain we’ve had in Northern Virginia has been unreal; I don’t ever remember this much. It’s made it hard to keep up with all the mowing and getting the farm ready, so fingers crossed! The upside is we’ll probably be able to have the best footing ever!

As far as the horses go, things are ticking over. I gave Volcan a couple easy weeks and showed in the meter-20s at Upperville. He was double clear both days and jumped the best and most consistent he has yet. I’m finally able to ride him in the snaffle, though he was a bit fresh on Wednesday not having shown for a while. Thursday he settled right in. I cannot tell you how excited I am about this horse! The more he’s figured out his own jumping style the easier it is for me to ride him and it’s a blast. I plan to do a few events with him—Maryland, Jersey, Bromont and possibly Plantation—before Fair Hill in the fall. I would think with the Pan Ams next year at the 2-star level, Volcan would be a contender. I think he’ll be ready for a 3-star next spring.

Rem is hacking and getting ready to start trotting so that’s exciting, and the three young mares—Jolie, Kortina and Nora—are all going well. JR is starting to hack out so he can start into his new job by this fall, whatever that’s going to be. I’m sure he’ll let us know!

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Remembering Waterfront

5/22/2018

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Waterfront, Jan's former three-star event horse, has recently passed on. Owned by veterinarian and amateur eventer Keelin Redmond since he retired from upper level competition, Waterfront was 22 years old.

Always the bridesmaid, rarely the bride, Waterfront was extremely consistent, notably placing second a number of times: at Advanced at Richland and Pinetop, at the Jersey Fresh CCI3* (qualifying him for the 2006 WEG), at the 2007 World Cup CIC3*W at The Fork, at the Fair Hill International CCI3*, and at the Foxhall Cup CCI3* and the Virginia Horse Trials CCI2* (leading to his selection to the U.S. Equestrian Federation's "Talent Tour" team that competed at Luhmuhlen, Germany).

Jan remembers Waterfront as one of her favorites: "He always showed up to work, and though not the biggest mover or bravest horse, anyone could ride him and he was incredibly consistent. He was never really confirmed at the four-star level although he made several attempts with me, with two run-outs at both. Phillip Dutton rode Waterfront at Kentucky for me in 2010 after I was hurt in my fall, where he also had two run-outs and then was held on course. Phillip infamously used the break to borrow a cell phone from a spectator, and called Evie to get her to ask me if I wanted him to continue. My answer was no, and I retired Waterfront from the upper levels and then he found his home with Keelin."

From Keelin: "This is one of my favorite pictures of Waterfront because it so shows who he was: super alert facial expression, mad red hair flying, out to show off and have fun.
Waterfront taught me so much, and took me places I didn’t think I would ever go. Riding him was like taking a riding lesson; he knew what correct was, and he rewarded it, but he tolerated incorrectness with patience and heart.

Even if I had never ridden him I would have loved him. He was a wonderful friend. He had a huge personality. Tukie was ambivalent about other horses, but he loved people. He was so happy in the company of humans; he liked to eat our food (all of it, anything), hang out, go places with just me. He demanded treats and attention loudly and passionately; everyone knew what Tukie was feeling all of the time. He loved to go to horse shows; he had my undivided attention for a weekend and a whole new audience to admire him. He loved to finish up a show jumping round with a bit of “dolphining”; he would drop his head and sort of crow-hop along for a few strides. The more people would gasp, the better he liked it. He was always very, very careful not to unseat me. We always said he was saying: “it’s for the fans, mom! I’ve got to give them a little something!” He did it at home a bit too; whenever he thought he had jumped well. I remember he did it the very first time I ever jumped him. Jan laughed and told me that if I would rub his mane, he would get even happier and do it even more. So I always did!

I miss him terribly. Think of the most funny, brilliant, loyal, fiery friend you have. That’s who he was to me."

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Jersey Fresh

5/21/2018

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I just got done with Jersey Fresh and it was quite a nice event. You can tell they’re really trying to improve the courses and the facility. I rode Volcan in the CIC**, and he got there and couldn’t figure out what he was supposed to be so excited about, maybe cross-country right away? It took a little bit to get him rideable before the dressage! My plan was to do a half-hour pre-ride before my test on Friday morning, but it turned out Volcan was a bit excited so it took an hour. After the pre-ride I got off him, and then back on for the test. He wasn’t as rideable as he can be but still put in quite a pleasant test. When Volcan’s really on my aids I think he’ll be in the top couple every time, he has so much presence.

I wasn’t sure how Volcan would handle the cross-country because he’s quite green at the level, but he has such a beautiful gallop (though not the best to turn yet), and he got better and better around the course as far as footwork and rideability. He was 9th after dressage and ended up coming right on the time cross-country to move into 7th. He actually had the best warm up he’s had yet for show jumping, though had one down behind because I got him a little in his mouth coming out of the in-and-out at 9b. I was bummed about the rail but we ended 11th out of 57 starters. I’m super excited about him!

Because I can’t feel my right hand, a result of my accident, I don’t have the best coordination or fine touch, so I’m going to spend the next couple months working on improving my reactions with my hands. I’ll also be working on making Volcan better in all three phases and rather than going to Bromont, I plan to do Fair Hill in the fall. My hope is that he’ll be a Pan Am contender next year.

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Early Spring

5/9/2018

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I haven’t done a lot of competing this spring. When I got home from Aiken and decided to retire JR, other than young horses I just had my last man standing, Volcan, to compete. He’s been really great; I did the Intermediate at Morven and he handled it like a rock star. Then I decided to do 2-star at Fair Hill—he was a bit tense in the atmosphere, which is unlike him, but had a solid dressage test. He had two down behind in the show jumping but I think it was mainly because they had cross-country going at the same time and he was really amped up—he knew he had something else to do and was so sure he was going cross-country with people galloping by! The event was really nice because the organizers ran the two- and three-star on the Gallaher Road side, where they hold the International in the fall. It was a beautiful course, bigger than I thought it would be, but Volcan handled it really well. Because he had been excited with the cross-country going on during show jumping, it took him a while to settle, but I was thrilled with him. After that I decided I was going to go to Jersey to do the CIC**, having done some cross-country schooling at home and twice with Phillip.

Volcan, photo by Janet Gallay

I have a couple of young horses belonging to Anita Antucci and they and all the other horses stayed home this winter so are just getting back into competition order. Dashwood (Nora) has been to two events so far. I was super pleased with her cross-country at both events, but I think I need to work on some local jumper shows to make that phase a little more routine. She is for sale—just a super, all-around horse for an adult amateur or young rider.

Kortina spent the winter with Roddy Strang, who worked on just giving me some more tools with her. It’s always more difficult to have a horse that’s broken so late—they’re mature physically but not mentally so it’s like riding a three-year-old in an eight-year-old’s body. I don’t highly recommend it! Anita also has a new horse, Jolie, a big Thoroughbred that we brought from Liz Milliken last year. Having spent several months turned out at Anita’s we brought her to Surefire in November and started her new career as my next upper level event horse. She has a great mind and an amazing canter, and I’m really excited to get her going. I’ve jumped her twice and she seems to have great instincts. I’m hoping that I’ll do some local shows with her and maybe have her tag along to some events before I start to compete her myself.

I also went to The Fork and Kentucky as a selector. It was great to see the Fork and get an idea of what the course is going to be for the WEG, what the horses will do. Kentucky was awesome. One, I always find going to a competition of that level inspiring and educational. Two, I thought Derek’s course was masterful. It walked hard and rode like the riders really stepped up to the challenge. As far as the American horses, I thought it was great fun to see the quality of riding. Although we didn’t win it this year, I was impressed with our level of competitiveness in all three phases. I thought Lynn Symansky and Donner had the ride of the day cross-country. It was just effortless. Lauren Kieffer on Vermiculus was also noteable. Lauren has always impressed me by being so stylish, but this time she combined style with grit. It looked to me like both horses could have gone for days! I also think my good friend Sharon White’s ride on Cooley on Show was memorable, as well as Phillip’s masterful ride on the new-to-the-four-star level Z.

At home, we’re starting to ramp up for our Surefire Horse Trials, and the mowing has begun. Tom and I haven’t been inside before dark this last week and it only gets worse from here. Tune in for what happens at Jersey and how event prep is going!

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Perfecting the English Muffin

3/6/2018

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I’ve just finished six weeks of my Wellington experience. To be honest, it was really, really educational. In fact, I was talking to my better half, Tom, about it and he said, “Jan, it’s just like learning to be a chef.” I thought it was funny he said that, but he explained his point: “As a chef, say you have to perfect the English Muffin. You learn techniques to make the dough, you give it enough time in the toaster so it’s golden brown, a bit crunchy and a bit soft, you play around with it until you can win Top Chef!”

Tom’s so right, perfecting our riding is like learning to cook—being able to work on the my show jumping and dressage in Wellington, and concentrate on that and not be afraid to change my warm-up, experiment with sitting down or staying out of saddle, or figure out when to leave out a stride or cut a turn—it’s been amazing. My whole experience has been basically how to perfect the English Muffin.

During week three, it felt like all the wheels were coming off the cart, but it was simply me experimenting with new techniques. Our sport of Eventing is so small, you can get stuck in your own bubble—the events you go to and the people you ride with—and you don’t always expand your own program. It can be good to keep putting yourself in new situations, to be uncomfortable and work it out. With Volcan, Katie taught me I need to slow down and use the turn before the jump to get him in front of my seat and leg. That’s no different than using the corners in the dressage ring. I would jump Friday in the High Schoolings and then used the same philosophy to get a 70.9 at second level in dressage at Global, which was two points higher than the week before. This is just one example of being able to combine my thought processes to completely perfect my English muffin.

Toward the end of my stay, I got to jump Inmidair for first time. He was buck-wild on Wednesday, really relaxed and casual Thursday, awesome and sharp on Friday and then had a great dressage test. It’s been fascinating to be able to do enough showing to really be able to think about what I’m doing as I do it. I’m mindful I don’t normally get to practice like that. Wellington was an awesome experience and I can’t wait to see what my horses do this year!

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