Summer Slump

8/25/2025

July and August have been insanely busy with horse things, work, and my personal life - the fact that I am finding a few minutes to scrap an update together is nothing short of a miracle.

I just wrapped up my busy season at work where we run a summer internship program for high school students and I had to be in the city more days than not. I really enjoyed it, but driving in and out of Boston makes for long days. Outside of that, Drew and I also bought a house - so you can imagine that things have been over the top crazy!! But also really exciting 😊

I've somehow managed to squeeze in several fun things with Sophie on top of all of that as well. We started the month of July by attending a clinic with Buck Davidson over at Course Brook. It was over two days, with show jumping on Saturday and then cross country on the Sunday. I had never ridden with Buck, but I had heard good things and wanted to have a new experience. I thought he was great - the show jump exercise was really challenging and something I took a lot home from. He set up two diagonal lines, one that rode in one stride and another in two, with two of the outs leading to a line of small cavalettis and the other two outs leading to a set of cones that he required us to go through on landing (or approach depending on which way we came into the lines). It was an exercise that required incredibly good steering and precise pacing to make work. It forced me to care a lot more about my canter on the landing side of a line, which was a really good thing for me to have to work through. I felt really proud of Sophie and I's efforts after the lesson!

Cross country day was super fun, especially because Merritt and Juliet were in our group so we had a friend to cheer on. Buck again brought out cones to create skinny options on wider fences and Sophie took to the challenges with ease. I had a blast and took a lot of great notes home from Buck.

Following the clinic, Sophie and I ran up to Vermont for a go at Huntington for their July HT. It ended up being a very average outing for us, with a dressage test in the 40's, 4 rails down in SJ due to Sophie's hind end bouncing and never finding a rhythm, and then one very silly rider error on cross country that caused a 20 that I am still kicking myself about right now. We had a nice time with our friends Julia & Percy, Leyla, and it was great to have Adrienne up to help us out, but I was pretty disappointed with our attempt overall.

That weekend ended on a good note, as I helped out my student Julia at a home CRDA show the Sunday after getting back from VT, and she had a good time and continues to learn so much from super lesson horse, Cabby.

The following weekend I took Sophie over to Course Brook again to have a go at their July HT. I am usually pretty anti running two events back to back, but Sophie was feeling sound and fit, and I felt silly not at least giving Course Brook a good try seeing as they are our next-door neighbors. And that day turned out to be not too much wear and tear on her legs anyway, as I got the big fat E on cross country. It was not Sophie's fault, and I felt like a bad horse mom - I had been taking Sophie to Course Brook a fair bit since it's a great facility for schooling and we also recently had that Buck clinic, so in my head I thought Sophie would be comfortable there. I was wrong. She was backed off from fence 1 on cross country, and as soon as we got to the main field, I could feel her body shut down, almost as if she was completely overwhelmed by the environment. Show Course Brook cross country is a LOT different from schooling Course Brook cross country - the main field had a litany of jumps, tons of volunteers, spectators, cars, and tape. Sophie's brain just shut down and we walked away incapable of completing the water question. The silver lining of the day was that our show jump was clean and clear - and she felt fantastic in that ring, which was huge improvement from her screwing around at Huntington.

What was fun for me is that after walking away from a failed HT attempt, I spent the remainder of that day coaching tons of the AKF family. Merritt took home the W in her training division, and the rest of the AKF squad came home with ribbons or really great lessons learned. It was a great day of horsemanship and teamwork, and I am so proud to be a part of Apple Knoll.

My amazing team of coach Jacqui, super groom Reese, and my amazing mare at GMHA

The following weekend, I took Sophie back over to Course Brook to school the rest of the cross country that we didn't get to see at the show, and I took my working student Reese and her pony Moon over with us, as those two also didn't have their best run at the show and needed to school what they didn't get to see. Both horses were wonderful and we made up for our performances the weekend prior. I am super proud of Reese for continuing to work hard at kicking some pony butt!

After schooling I again came back to the barn for a home CRDA show where my student Julia had one lovely test on Cabby, and then one test that a lot was learned from. I continue to be proud of Julia for finding these opportunities and pushing herself to be better each outing.

Following all of this craziness was GMHA Festival. I had set some high expectations for myself for this show, and entered the 2*. I've wanted to do an FEI at Festival for a while, so I was excited to give it a go. I organized the world's best horse show team for the weekend, in the form of super groom Reese, supermom Addie Mae, and super coach Jacqui, who I had asked to come support me for the big weekend. It was so nice to have Jacqui in person on the ground again, and she not only helped me out but also gave Reese a ton of wisdom as she was navigating the world of being an FEI groom. Addie Mae brought so much good moral support and we had the privilege of staying in their lovely ski house not too far from the venue. Reese took excellent care of my pony all weekend long, and her help gave me the freedom to course walk, socialize, and spend time mentally preparing for each phase. I am so grateful for such an incredible team of people.

Unfortunately I could not put on a show worthy of such a great team. Sophie and I had a tense ride on Friday night after arrival, but then we warmed up a bit better for our dressage test Saturday afternoon. I felt fairly confident that we would be able to put on an average Sophie/Kailyn performance as we trotted down the centerline, but then I had the bell rung on me as I started my first leg yield. I was thoroughly confused - and upon talking to the judge at C, I was told that the judge at B had rung me for an error for 'starting my leg yield a letter early'. I apologized, told her I knew it was supposed to start at P and I apologized if it didn't look that way, and she said she was glad I knew the movement and asked me to start again from that point. I will get back to this in a moment.

I was rattled but started from that spot again, and then my brain being screwed with translated to my ride, and Sophie started to wind up as soon as we got into the canter work. I unfortunately made the mistake of audibly attempting to calm my horse down, and the judge at B once again threw an error my way, which I found out about after my halt and salute. After finishing, I walked up to the judge at C to thank her and ask for clarification, to which she informed me that they had decided to waive my initial error, but they had to keep the error for speaking to my horse. That to me was reasonable, I need to be quiet, but it almost added to my frustration that the interruption at the start of my test ended up being for nothing.

After exiting the ring, I was having a whole host of emotions over what had just transpired. My gut reaction to receiving an error for starting a movement, allegedly, 'too early' was that it made no sense - I am no stranger to having some points docked for being 'a little early' or 'a little late' to a movement, but from my understanding, errors on movements were most often given when they interrupted the course of the test. Not for being early or late. I then had this thought confirmed by several other dressage riders and judges after speaking to a bunch of people on what had transpired. I am still frustrated about this ordeal, but I have submitted an evaluation form for the event in the hopes that someone can see my view point and this doesn't happen this way going forward. Which, on a side note, if you are a competitor / volunteer / involved with a horse trial in any way, you can always fill out evaluation forms to give critical or highly positive feedback on any portion of the competition. It's a great way to praise venues that you think are doing a great job, and also to give feedback to places that might be seeking it out. Evaluation forms are available here. GMHA ran an absolutely lovely show, as usual, and my frustrations have nothing to do with the event itself or anything about the ring, environment, etc.

Following our unfortunate dressage, Sophie and I stepped it up to have a solid show jump round later that afternoon. Sophie was in top form in the warm up, jumping just as well to keep up with some of the best in the area, and we had 2 rails down - one from a poorly chosen line on my part, and the other from Sophie being too busy focusing on the cow fields in the distance and not seeing the fence until we were on top of it (oops). Regardless, we went back to stabling that night pleased with our jump performance and ready for what was to come.

Cross country day gave me so much really important feedback as the owner of a Sophie. We started off the spring SO strong, with a fabulous clear jumping run at Morven in April, then a great 2* debut at Fair Hill where our only jumping issue was something spooky in the woods, and then from there we have had struggle after struggle after struggle. Some of it has been weather related, some of it silly rider mistakes, but a lot of it I truly believe has been my horse finding this level extra challenging at Area 1 events. I love Area 1 so much, and I will continue to give as much to it as I can, but one thing Area 1 lacks is open, rolling fields. I think that horses that are built in Area 1 can handle anything thrown at them, but I have built Sophie as an upper level horse mostly in Area 2. Sophie has done her share of events up here, but prelim sized fences in the woods and around blind turns is something that both of us have been heavily struggling with. When the fences are smaller, Sophie is confident and catty enough to just pop over it and make it happen, even if she is really backed off, but with the bigger fences and more technical rides required in combinations, I can feel her whole body tell me 'this is hard and I need more help if it's going to happen', and I have not been able to give her that required support. It was so abundantly clear at Course Brook, and even more blunt at GMHA, where she was highly alert and unsure of herself all the way to me hitting the water at fence 9, which was a solid wooden roll top-type fence around a blind turn. I tried to find a line to it from far enough away to give her a few seconds to see it, but my horse loves a distraction, and was so focused on coming out of the tree line and seeing a bunch of fences, water, volunteers and spectators and by the time she was the fence, it was never going to happen. I appreciate that my mare has enough self preservation to not try when the going gets to feel unsafe if she did, but it does mean I have to be so much more prepared and accurate if we are going to make things happen.

The nail in this struggle coffin occurred this past weekend at Huntington. I did a quiet one day trip up with the hopes that Sophie and I could pop around the modified as a confidence builder, but that unfortunately was not the case. After a fabulous dressage (for us), and a really solid show jump compared to the last time up here, I was yet again met with a completely unrideable horse out of the start box. It started off fresh, with so much bucking I was almost unseated, but then it quickly became unmanageably spooky as we turned up into the woods. I put my hand up by the time we got to fence 5, after already having an issue at fence 3, and we walked back to the trailer with our heads held up just enough to congratulate our peers for great performances at a truly lovely event. I am a big fan of what Huntington has been doing, and I wish my horse felt the same!!

To lift my spirits, I spent the entire day after Huntington over at Course Brook with the AKF squad for the schooling horse trials, and was reminded yet again of how as much as I love riding and competing, it is just as awesome to be a part of a huge and wonderful barn team, helping from the ground and cheering on others. I am so grateful to be where I am.

Apple Knoll Squad <3

Fortunately, neither Sophie nor I walked away with even a scratch at all of these failed outings, but my fall plans have been adjusted significantly. Sophie and I are going to cruise around modified until things feel a little better, and then we'll plan to end our season at Morven in October, a place we both love. I am hoping to gain more information about what will work for my horse for the future as we finish this season. I keep reminding myself that I did still make a 2* horse this season to not feel like so much of a failure, with the hopes that we can get back there again at some point.

I like to set goals, so sometimes it's hard when things don't go according to plan, but it is a privilege to get to do what I do and to do it with a horse as cool as Sophie. I am hoping we can end our fall season full of confidence and then come out swinging again in the spring. And I also keep reminding myself that I am learning and growing so much as a rider and a horse owner, and that I will be all the more ready for what's to come in the future from these types of experiences.

Thanks for reading this update, and hoping to have more for you all soon!

K