Scholarship announcement!

I have been working with one of my local GMOs on a scholarship in memory of my dad.

It will be called the Dan Taylor Family Scholarship! To start off, it will be available through the Indiana Dressage Society. But my hope is that I am able to raise funds over the years and 1) Make the IDS scholarship self-funding and 2) start a couple other grants to give to other organizations such as therapeutic riding organizations.

But first I start small!

The IDS grant will be available to AAs who train their own horses. You have to apply, and there are a few other requirements. More information soon will be available through IDS.

But my hope is to offer a little help to those who are working so hard to train and show, plus hold down a "regular" job as well! It is NOT for people who have someone else train their horse and then hop on to show on the weekends. (Nothing wrong with that, but I had to set some perimeters) 

Right now one scholarship will be available per year but if I can raise enough funds it could grow to more. Would be nice to offer 2 or 3 someday!

I'm hoping to give back to the dressage community, as well as keep my dad's memory alive. And his legacy as an awesome show dad! Over the years he was a gatekeeper, announcer, food sponsor, groom, did work around the farms, class sponsor, horse holder, treat giver, stall cleaner and water guy, amongst so many other things!

If you want to donate, I would be forever grateful. I need to raise $1000 to fund the IDS scholarship for 5 years.

Hampton as an awkward 3 year old! ha!

A Porkchop turns 11

Wishing Hampton a Happy Birthday this week!

How is he 11 already you guys?!

How amazing to have gone from his first ride, to FEI. He is such a wonderful friend and teacher!

Here are some of my favorite photos from over the years.

Here be dragons

A blogger is born.
1979.

I am still navigating new, strange territory as my first Father's Day without my dad approaches.

When people say, "you will never be the same," I now know exactly what they mean. This isn't a club I was looking forward to joining. The Dead Parent club. But here we are.

I think I have been doing ok adjusting to life without my North Star. My protector. The guy who knew ALL THE ANSWERS. He raised me to be resilient, that is for sure. And that I have been these past 6 months since he died.

The best I can do is continue to live my life in a way that made him proud. To do what I love, and like he frequently said, "You are livin the dream." There is this thing about life: It goes on. My dad would not want me to be sad all the time, and give up living.

I will never move on from such a loss, but I will GO on. There is a difference, I have learned.

But people are right. I'll never be the same. And that's ok. When I listen to friends complain about their parents, how horrible they are - I find that so sad. There has never been a moment my entire life that I EVER doubted my father's love for me. I know that there are so many who are not that lucky.

Just because a parent or loved one is gone, doesn't mean your relationship with them is over.

I found the below description of grief to really ring true. I couldn't find the original author, but supposedly it was a reply to some Reddit post.

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As for grief, you’ll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

1980
Seems I liked pony rides.
*FORESHADOWING MUSIC*

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you’ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything…and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.

Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall.Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O’Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out.

Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don’t really want them to. But you learn that you’ll survive them. And other waves will come. And you’ll survive them too. If you’re lucky, you’ll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.

Still came to watch me show even when chemo was beating the life out of him.

___

"Here be dragons" means dangerous or unexplored territories, in imitation of the medieval practice of putting dragons, sea serpents and other mythological creatures in uncharted areas of maps.

Saddlebreds rock Rock Creek

Fine harness class

The Rock Creek horse show is 2 miles from my house, so I stopped by Tuesday evening to watch some of the show.

My former trainer at the head of the horse.

I really admire how the Saddlebred community has found the formula for success for their shows. They draw a good crowd, even on a Tuesday evening, charge people to watch ($10, although I snuck in the back way and pretended I was a groom. Probably looked like one, too), and they have vendors, booze and shopping. Plus you can hoot and holler all you want, making for a fun atmosphere!

Granted, I know that a large reason is because the clientele in Saddlebred land have way more money than they know what to do with, but I think Dressage can perhaps take a lesson or two on how to put on a horse show!

Their "warm up ring" was basically this long, straight strip

Anyway I watched a handful of classes and said hello to my former trainers. As usual they have a lovely string of horses and win a lot.

You can take tools from trainers in other disciplines, which I continue to do. I learned a lot riding with and working for them and being behind the scenes at shows. I know some may not agree with the shoes and training aids that are sometimes used, but the horses are treated well and get top notch care.

William Shatner and his entourage

Hackney pony!

They are beautiful to watch in the show ring. Granted, some dressage would CERTAINLY help some of the riders who can't seem to make their horses straight to save their own life, but then again - they don't care about straightness in this sport. They don't need to. So what if your horse canters sideways down the rail? As long as it's cantering you are pretty good! And who cares if it basically leaps and flails in transitions?!

The only disappointing thing I saw was the Hunter under saddle class for the saddlebreds. I think there were 5 entries and 2 of them were quite lame. The winner was nice, but in order to win this class you would need to shoe your horse (like more than just a normal shoe) and teach it to have a "head set." Which I think is unfortunate, as I don't think the class should be ex-English horses in huntseat tack.

Two hunter entries. 

Equitation rider

The in-gate

Saddlebred shows are a good time though. And I give the lemon shake ups an A+!

Plus where else can you see William Shatner hanging on for dear life behind his harness horse who basically took him for a ride and then WINS the class?

William Shatner awaiting the results

Dressage at Balmoral results

Reserve chamption AA FEI on Saturday!
Plus matching wind-blown frizzy fros!

Horse show 2 is done and done!

And this time went much better!

Hamp and I left early Friday morning and stopped to pick up Liz and Royale on our way up to the Chicago area. The drive was windy, but relatively easy.

When we left Indiana, we were all dripping sweat in 90 degrees and 100000% humidity. Imagine our surprise when we got to the venue, opened the doors and were met with a cool wind and 70 degrees!

After we got settled, Hamp and I went to school with JK, my coach from Indiana. Hamp was fresh at first, but went right to work. The atmosphere was HUGE. The wind was whipping around flags and banners, and the horses were fresh in the cooler weather. We had a good ride and went for a hack around the grounds a bit. It was so neat, almost like showing in Wellington or something!

On the track!

Up by the score boards

Balmoral is a HITS facility and so there were a plethora of show rings in the old infield, hacking paths and plenty to look at. It was a harness racing track until it closed in 2015. Boy it was dripping in history!

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We were up early Saturday since I had a 9:13 am ride time for the PSG. JK helped me warm him up which I really appreciated. She gives me such confidence to really ride him with authority. He marched right in the show ring and had one of our best PSG tests to date! I did make a few mistakes, but they were mistakes where I knew what happened, and I knew how to fix them. Most importantly Hampton was loose in his back, ridable and totally unflappable in quite the atmosphere!

After our great PSG test Saturday morning

I was thrilled with our score of 62.5% - giving us first place in a class of 5 AAs. Plus a qualifying score for regionals. Still so much room for improvement, but what a fun time!

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Later in the day I did my freestyle again which went MUCH MUCH better than at the KDA show. Hamp remained ridable, and I really only made one mistake in the 4s which was TOTALLY my fault because my count was off. I still also need to tweak my music some. I got a time penalty for going over time, so I need to mess with the music still. Work in progress! But still, we scored a 63% and some change. Good enough for a regional qualifying score!

Warm up ring

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Sunday morning we just had a PSG test to go, and I left about 30 minutes to warm up. It was super windy again, but Hamp came right out feeling great. In fact I thought maybe I should just walk a bit and save his energy. But mistakenly, I did a longer warm up and I think I ran him out of gas. Our test started out good, but he got downhill on me during the canter work and starting to dive down ... down down until I was screwed. Sigh.

The old Winner's Circle

I believe at one point the venue was called Lincoln Fields

Bar in the Grandstand building
(we went trespassing exploring)

This is what remains of an old tunnel that goes under the road, and comes out
by a train station. 

Cool stuffs

Clocks showing the time at various tracks across the country.
Except all these clocks were dead.

But STILL we managed a 61%. Which I took it and RAN. That's our second score for regionals, and a fine score considering the canter work was a struggle. I think he was just getting tired.

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Royale also did GREAT this weekend! He behaved himself so well in an atmosphere that had a number of seasoned horses losing their shit! He and Liz also took home a high point award and Royale got some great experience.

Nerd.

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I didn't get back to the farm until about 10 pm because I ended up stopping to pick up a stranded eventer on I65. She had blown 2 tires. I felt so bad for her. I took her horse back to our farm for the night, and she was able to get new tires in the morning.

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Overall I give Balmoral Park an A+ as a venue! Outstanding footing, nice facilities, friendly staff. My ONLY complaint is that there isn't much food close by. The surrounding areas are a little sketch, so you have to drive 15-20 minutes for anything decent. So if we go again, will make sure to pack some food!

Porkchop approved of the stall windows

Also, we drove through a SANDSTORM on the way home.
In INDIANA.
eery.

Whew! Man I am happy to get back into the normal routine for a while now.

Good boy Hampton!