End of Summer Update

August 28, 2026

I need to get back to consistent updates! I have been incredibly busy with my day job, as well as with teaching lessons and horse related things. Here's a brief summary of some fun things we've been up to the last few months.

Earlier in the summer, I had the privilege of attending the North American Young Rider Championships for eventing at Loch Moy Farm as the Chef d'Equipe for Area 1. I am so grateful to Melanie Loschiavo for giving me such an incredible opportunity.

We had a strong group of Area 1 Young Riders in the 2* and 1* teams: Lyman Ordway, Tori McCallum, and Ellie Winter for the 2*, and Merritt Sheffield and Lexi Young in the 1*. It was a fantastic weekend of riding, teamwork and horsemanship, and we had superstar groom, Leyla Sheldon, holding down the fort. Area 1 also had a really unique level of participation, with all 4 slots in the newer mentorship program being taken by riders from our Area: Reese Weiss, Megan Cavanaugh, Caroline Abbe, and Charlotte Thompson.

It was so fun having such a great Area 1 presence all weekend, and several of our riders came home with ribbons and amazing experiences. It was also quite special to see Merritt complete her first FEI with her mare, Arden Juliet, and to have my second-to-none working student, Reese, come down and participate in a program as cool as the mentorship program. I even got to sneak Reese over to CVF for a ride and some Sophie visits. <3

Read more about the weekend on the official Area 1 press release, link here.

I did make that weekend work in my favor: Loch Moy is conveniently located 25 minutes down the road from Chapel View, so not only did I get to spend some quality time with Sophie, but I also trailered Ginger down to spend some bootcamp time with Jacqui while I was busy chef-ing at champs. A huge win-win for me and my schedule!! On one of the slower mornings at champs, I was even able to run over for a lesson on Ginger with Jacqui, which was hugely helpful.

I am excited to continue to put time into working with the Area 1 Young Rider program, and am already gearing up for 2027 champs!!

2* Podium at Young Rider Champs, captured by Erin Gilmore

Following our trip south, Ginger and I came back north with some motivation and I entered her into her very first horse trials at Azrael Acres July schooling horse trials. I thought I might as well rip the band-aid off since she had been going pretty well, and I am so glad I did. She was just fabulous that day. I had been a little wary about how she might behave in the warm up ring, but she held it together quite well. Dressage was averagely tense for a young tb at their first away show, show jumping was appropriately wiggly, and cross country was a blast. Our steering was still a little questionable around some tighter turns in the show jump, but Ginger answered every single jump question with an 'oh this? okay' and sometimes even with a very enthusiastic 'yes!!'. We even got to school a ditch that was partly on the starter course. We ended the day with tons of experience, and even brought home a ribbon.

By the time of the July horse trials at Azrael, I was already knee-deep into my work's busy summer programming, so I only took a handful of lessons, mostly long-lining lessons with Adrienne, and I also pushed Ginger into the July CRDA show for a quick dressage test practice. As my summer workload started to wind down, I ended up putting Ginger back on the trailer for Azrael's August schooling horse trial, where she was a total star finishing on her dressage score and bringing home a third place ribbon. Besides showing well, and showing clear improvements from the previous outing, she was also incredibly chill at the trailer and walking around the property. We brought our friends Alli and Piper with us that weekend, and she still didn't mind leaving her friend or having her friend leave her at the trailer. She was so good that I decided it was time to enter her into her first recognized.

I decided to really go big or go home, and entered her into Huntington's August horse trials, which also were the Area 1 championships. I took Ginger up this last weekend along with a super fun crew of Leyla and her new superstar horse, Haz, and of course Reese and both super moms, Addie Mae and Hessie. We had a weekend for the books, with Leyla taking the win in the junior novice division, after only having Haz for a few weeks, and Ginger brought home an 8th place ribbon only adding some reasonable baby penalties out on cross country. I figured she'd have trouble with the water they use on the starter course, and after backing half a mile up the hill away from it after presenting it, we took the option and finished the course. She didn't say no to anything all weekend except for that - but I then of course schooled her in the river by the stabling area the next morning :)

My most proud baby event horse mom moment was on cross country, when she was busy caring about the water, the rider behind me was catching up. The rider, a younger kid, did a great job of calling out that they would be passing, so I turned Ginger to watch the pony cantering down the hill towards us. I braced for impact, not sure what size of a reaction we might have to a horse running by us, and to my shock Ginger didn't move a muscle! She also did not try to chase the pony as it passed. I was floored. That, and getting to participate in the victory lap on Sunday after show jumping, were my wins of the weekend.

I continue to be excited about this young horse, and I cannot wait to get her down to Virginia for a much needed field trip in a few short weeks. Hoping to have some more fun this fall before the cold kicks in!

And to add, Sophie is thriving in retirement. I get updates pretty consistently from Miranda, and she is happy as a clam with her small herd of retirees and babies. I can't wait to see her again soon. <3

Thank you for reading, and hopefully I will have a more timely update in the future.

Ginger in the victory lap at Huntington, captured by Reese <3