Starr Vaughn Recap

Hi all, thought you'd love a full recount of our fabulous week at Starr Vaughn!  It truly was a great week full of top ribbons, fabulous horses, gorgeous facility and fun company.  This event was held at a favourite of ours: Leone Equestrians.  The footing was great, the rings beautiful, jumps and courses amazing (Heiko Wahlers flown in from Germany) and lovely sunshine helped to make our week even better.  For the easiest (and possibly least winded) description of the week I thought I'd do it by horse!

1. Bacantos:  This amazing boy had a super and somewhat easy week.  Only competing in 2 classes, he definitely made them count.  The winner of a 1.35m class and an 8th place finish in the Open Welcome, he wowed the crowd with his unbelievable talent.  Check out a couple of his rounds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5UbWT5b2OI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaVMUX2OurE

2. Cochese:  Starr Vaughn was the first outing of the year for our fearless leaders mighty steed.  And what a start it was, with 2 wins and a 2nd place finish in their division, the dynamic duo were Champion.  This amazing horse is quite the force to be reckoned with.

3.  Peter Pan:  First off, welcome to our newest FCF member, Peter Pan!  Fresh of the truck from Florida, Peter is stepping into the role of our resident Grand Prix horse and FCF rider Chelsea Jones' #1 boy.  He sure showed us what a boy he is too, walking into the ring and winning the 1.30m class, placing 3rd in the Open Welcome (missing the win by 3/10ths of a second and 2nd by 1/10th of a second), and 5th in the $20,000 Grand Prix!!  Prior to this week, Chelsea had only ridden Peter 1 time!!  Big things can be expected from this duo.

Welcome Peter!

4.  Cielo:  We love this girl.  She never lets us down, producing 2 wins out on the grass field, high placings in the Adult Amateur jumpers and a 4th place in the ever-difficult Spruce Meadows qualifier.  We are so lucky to have this mare in our barn and cannot wait for the final Spruce Qualifier.  Go Lynne and Cielo!!!

5.  Chicago 83:  One of the loveliest horses to come through our sales program.  This man is everything you could want and more.  Handsome, scopey, beautifully broke and sweet as all get out, anyone would be lucky to have a horse like this.  He earned a 2nd and 3rd in his warm up classes and jumped a  gorgeous clean round in the Open Welcome.  Looking for an incredible jumper? This is it.

6.  Journey:  Another one that never lets us down.  He was a double Champion at this show, earning the first one with Chelsea in the Low Hunters and the 2nd with owner Sharon Mackenzie in the Modified Ch/AA Hunters.  Mr. Journey competed in the USHJA Hunter Derby, as well, with Chelsea, where an unlucky rail over one of the higher options unfortunately kept them out of contention, but redemption was theirs when they returned for the handy and earned the highest score of the night (87!).  This show marked Sharon's return to the 3' Adult hunters, and what a return it was when they walked in and won!  Way to go Sharon and Journey!

You rock, Sharon!

7. Scotch and Soda:  Barn favourite Scottie was added to the roster at the last minute, just for a little off-campus fun with Chelsea.  Our horses tend to get quite bored (not so different from us) when in one place for too long, so owner Ann Kottler made the decision to send her boy for a field trip with the rest of the crew.  What a fun week this horse had too!  Showing he hasn't lost his edge, he walked in to his division and dominated, winning 4 classes and placing 2nd in the other.  Winner winner chicken dinner!!

8.  Conamour:  Giana Roberge and the wonderful Conamour joined us for a day of fun in the Open Welcome.  Always the busy bee, Giana managed to escape on Thursday, hauling in that afternoon to show.  She and Conamour had a great day, jumping a gorgeous round in the challenging and competitive Welcome, meeting with some hard luck when the slightest of rubs tipped 1 rail out of the cups on the 2nd to last jump.  Have no fear, they will undoubtedly get 'em next time!!

Ok, so clearly I lied about the long-winded part, my apologies!  There was just so much great stuff to report!!!  I will try super hard to keep it short and sweet next time, promise!

Rewind: Capital City

Ok, so sorry for the delays in getting new blogs ups.  I may have been a little eager with the "easy to update while on the road!"  While it is true: it's easy to update, the part where I sit down at the end of a hard day of horse showing and write something... a little more difficult.  So lets rewind a little bit and talk about a fun weekend at Rancho Murieta.  2 things brought us here for our weekend getaway: a $10,000 GP and our quest for Spruce Team points.

Bacantos and Cielo (possibly the cutest horse couple ever) made the trip for what proved to be a good, maybe not great weekend.  Saturday brought some highs and lows, not too low, but kinda low.  First of all, we decided that with 2 horses, we would cut costs and do our own grooming.  This, to be honest, is not as bad as people think.  In this day and age, its so rare that we spend quality time with our trusty steeds outside of the arena.  Do not forget people: we started riding purely because we loved horses, why not spend more time with them?

Chelsea and Dusty: Grooms Extraordinaire!

We started out with a bang with Lynne Lancaster and Cielo winning their first class and a high ribbon in their second, a good prep for the Spruce Qualifier the following day.  Now it was on to the GP for Bacantos.  All was going well, he was jumping approximately 2 feet over the jumps, as is his flashy style.  Unfortunately, small disaster struck when making the turn to the double out of the corner near the end of the course.  A wet spot in the footing caused Bacantos to slip hard behind while making the turn, making the distance to the oxer coming in very long.  They made a valiant effort to go forward and meet the oxer correctly, which they did, but the forward ride caused the distance inside the double to become extremely short.  Bacantos tried his absolute best to slow down and rock back for the vertical but the barest of rubs had the top rail coming down to the ground.  They finished up beautifully but sadly the 1 rail kept them out of the ribbons this time around.

Now for sunday.  The dreaded Spruce Qualifier.  This class has proved to be a pressure cooker in the past, with multiple horse and rider combinations vying for the coveted points needed in order to make the teams travelling north this summer.  Lynne and Cielo had a strong showing, going clean in the first round and advancing to the jumpoff.  In true fashion, the duo had the fastest time, but like their barnmates, 1 slight touch of a rail left them with 4 faults.  They did, however, finish in 6th place, giving them much needed points.  Bacantos had no classes on sunday, instead enjoying a beautiful trail ride to the river.  This is such a treat for our horses, they spend so much time in the arena, it's so refreshing to be able to let them enjoy the great outdoors once in a while.

Perfect Sunday morning

Alright, think that's enough (perhaps too much) for one night.  A full Starr Vaughn report will be up soon, promise!  Until then: keep calm and gallop on!!

Brookside for an Evening

Bacantos soaring high

This past saturday night turned out to be a good one for FCF!  Heavy rain earlier in the week wreaked havoc on the Brookside footing, causing us to continually change our plans for competing.  Each morning was started with phone calls and updates on what was happening with the footing and schedule and each morning was a story of postponement.  The trusty Brookside managing staff opted to  hold off on jumper classes until saturday, ensuring safe and durable footing for us competitors.  The decision was made, we tossed our boys Bacantos and Conamour on the trailer and off we went saturday afternoon.  Now this was a first for both horses: neither had been to Brookside and neither had experienced walking off the trailer and directly into the show ring for a big class.  Upon our arrival, we got checked in, gave the boys a little tour of the warm-ups, tied them back up in the trailer and went to walk our course.  Originally, the $10,000 Jamie Alder Memorial Derby was meant to be a speed class.  Since the footing was good, but not yet great, management made the call in the name of safety to hold the class as regular return jump-off format.  This being done in the hopes of avoiding mass slippage while turning and burning, going for the win (which was fine by us!).  After walking the inviting 1.30m course, we ran back, threw our tack on and trotted out to the warm-up.  With our ever-fearless leader, Dusty, as designated jump-setter, Chelsea and Giana warmed their mounts up and headed to the ring.  Bacantos and Chelsea were up first, producing a beautiful clean round to return for the jump-off.  Not to be outdone, Giana and Conamour headed in and were clean themselves, ensuring they were the last to return in the jump-off.  Bacantos was a superstar, galloping to the jumps and making a fabulous turn that no one else dared.  Unfortunately, his style of jumping so impressively high over the fences is not the most efficient and it left him just short of the top 2 and in 3rd.  Conamour also jumped his heart out, not rubbing a single fence.  One navigation error left them with a 4 fault score and a 7th place finish.  After all this excitement, the boys meandered back to the trailer, got untacked, loaded back up and we all headed home.  Not bad for an evenings work!  We're so lucky to have such amazing horses.  Next up: Capital City Classic this coming weekend, hopefully we can recreate this wonderful experience (not to mention win a little money along the way!)

Good Boys!

How about a little recap?

Well, it's been a little while since our last newsletter, so we thought a recap of the last couple months was in order!  New jumps, horse shows, and horse sales appeared to be the theme to our winter.  After compiling our yearly show schedule, we realized the start to our season was fast approaching.  To help ensure we were all properly prepared, our fearless leader (Dusty) decided it was time for some new jumps.  She appeared one Monday afternoon with a trailer full of old show jumps in need of some cleaning up.  After much hard work (many thanks, Skyler Brittner!) we had a ring full of cool new standards, rails, planks, panels and gates.

Pretty right?

After the luxury of practicing over show ring courses, we were ready to begin our competition year.  FCF Professional Chelsea Jones kicked things off by travelling south to Mexico to lend a hand to FCF Sales business partner Antonio Maurer and compete in the beautiful Valle de Bravo horse show.  She had the opportunity to compete at all levels, from the 1.30m to the Grand Prix, on some incredible horses and was met with much success.  Check out some of her rides:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxVJqd0ggYo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvQCTo9egHQ
Upon her return, we headed over to Sacramento for the Northern Winter Classics.  Always a favorite, NWC is a great way to start the show season.  FCF horses jumped superb, winning Championships in the Performance Hunters, 1.15m and 1.20m divisions, as well as top placings in the Mini Prix.  With that under our belts, it was time to head down to Thermal!  2 weeks in the beautiful sunshine brought about some fantastic rides and ribbons in the 1.40m, 1.30m, 7/8 Yr Old and Low A/O classes.  What a great start to the year!
So now, that brings me to my last topic: horse sales!  It's been a great winter for sales/leases at FCF, not only outgoing, but incoming as well.  Congrats are in order to Garnett Farms and Willow Tree Stables on the the purchase of Hugo.  This is the 3rd FCF horse (Zappo, Magno LS) to head to the wonderful Willow Tree Stables in recent months.  We would also like to congratulate our clients for some in-barn purchases/leases: Giana Roberge + Conamour, Phoenix Williams + Flying Solo, Cheryl Daniels + Star Gazer, Emma Price + Andy, and Brittany Shehi + Remonta Galeon.  We look forward to seeing these new partnerships flourish in the upcoming show season!

Good luck in your new home Hugo!

Well, that about loosely covers the events of the last few months.  Now that we are up to date, we will continue to keep everyone in the know with our new blog!  Until next time: Keep Calm and Gallop On! :)

Welcome!

Hello all, and welcome to our new Full Circle Farm blog!  We are very excited to begin our blogging, which will now replace our monthly newsletter.  We thought this might be a more fun and accessible way for everyone to keep up to date with what's happening and allow us to update you whenever, wherever!  We also offer the option of receiving email alerts whenever we make a new post.  How you may ask?  It's simple!  Enter your email address in the box to the left and click the "submit" button.  Now you will never have to miss what's going on at Full Circle Farm Inc!