Clover Ledge Farm

After over 150 emails and dozens of phone calls, Reva has finally found a perfect new home.  It was bittersweet (and I cried) to watch that trailer leave with my girl loaded up inside, but I am so pleased to know she is going to a family who will love her like I do.  She is about an hour and a half north of me here in Maine, with people who have owned Standardbreds in the past and still do, so they understand and respect the breed.  She will be the primary mount for the husband who does distance trail riding, specifically something called Cross State , and I think Reva will love that.  I remember their daughter (a few years younger than I am) showing me with at three phase events and I have been to their farm to compete in the three phase they put on each year.  They are involved with the local pony club, so I suspect the daughters and various pony club girls will spoil her too.  So far, I hear she has adjusted well and fits into her new herd.  My hea...

I have not set my 2013 goals yet for several reasons.  For one, I have been busy enough to let blogging slide, and while I have been doing a lot of thinking about what I want 2013 to look like, I just have not had a moment to sit down and write.  Also, there are many things up in the air at the moment, so I just have not felt ready to put anything down "on paper", so to speak.  (How is that for a sentence full of cliches??  LOL!)  Hence, this is a list of hopes, not necessarily goals.   Sparky My wonderful old mare is going to be 31 this June.  It does not seem possible that I have owned her now for twenty years!!  As always, I just want to keep her healthy and happy and sound.  She is a grand old girl and deserves the very best I can give her, since she has always given me her very best. Dreamy Just what in the WORLD can I possible accomplish with this mare, who has proven time and time and time again that she is one of the best ambas...

Six banquets and a hunt ball later....the mares won several year end awards for 2012!  Yay!  I did not attend two of the banquets due to time and money constraints (NEHC and SPHO-NJ). I already wrote about the Maine Horse Association banquet .  But I figured I might as well just do one blog post about the rest.  I only keep track of this for my own purposes, and writing up six different posts just seems, well, too much like bragging.  :-( Reva Maine Horse Association - Champion Standardbred In Hand - Champion Standardbred 2-Gait Pleasure - Champion Open Introductory Level dressage - Retired the Standardbred Challenge Trophy Southern Maine Dressage - Champion Introductory A - 70.33% average score - Third Introductory B - 70.633% average score Maine Dressage Society - Champion Introductory Level - 70.25% median score - High Point Standardbred HOY (certificate and medal) - High Point SPHO-ME trophy (saddle pad) New England Horseman's Council - ...

Yup, four mares.  Just too damn many!  LOL!   *SIGH*  I didn't mean for this to happen.  Honest!  But I couldn't say no to Snappy, who needed a place to call home.  She spent six weeks at a local Standardbred farm, and I was very lucky that it was a great situation for us both.  But despite the fact that the farm is only a five minute drive from my house and the board was very reasonable, I just couldn't do it for the long haul.  Plus, I felt badly about staying any longer; they are not a "boarding" facility and I had originally asked about a 4-6 week stay to figure out what I was going to do... So, I did what any horse crazy girl would do who has four horses and only three stalls!  I created a REDNECK stall for my older mare Sparky!  LOL!!!  This is where I previously kept my shavings, a few trunks, my wheelbarrow and Vermont hay cart.  She is soooo super good.  I didn't even take down the windchime.  She li...

Remember the artwork I had commissioned of my mares?  It is DONE! It looks so gorgeous in the photograph that Niamh sent that I cannot wait to receive the real thing!  Yay yay yay yay!!!

I am pretty excited to share this with you!  Niamh over at  Hoofbeats for Heartbeats  is in the process of creating a beautiful piece of paper cut artwork of my three mares.  Here is the start of Sparky's portrait that she sent me as a sneak peek... Isn't that amazing???  Niamh is easy to work with and super communicative   She has written more information about her paper cut artwork  here .  I think her artwork is quirky and different, but just so beautiful and painstakingly created.  It sounds like it will be done very soon!!!  I cannot wait!

The 2012 year end points for the Maine Horse Association were posted the other day and I am very proud of Reva!  She won four championships!!  Hard work pays off! And congrats to my horse friends Shelly, Katie, and Tania for doing so well!!  Yay!!  :-)

Reva and I competed in our last dressage show of the season on Sept. 16.  Actually, I am pretty sure it will also be our last horse show of 2012! Relaxing at the trailer before our first ride. We rode Intro A and scored a 72.5% for a second place out of four riders.  That was our highest score yet to date!!  I was a little shocked, but she was super good and easy.  She was a little more tense than I would have liked, as there was a horse freaking out in the warmup while we tried to warm up.  Reva was unsure as to whether or not SHE should freak out too, but she held it together well.  We had really nice moments as the test went on; we scored a 6 and 6.5 on the first two movements, but then had all 7s, 7.5s, and even 8s on everything else!  I even had a 7.5 on my rider scores.  Our right trot circle, change of rein, and final halt were all 8s.  I was especially proud that our final halt comment was "straight and square" since we have wo...

On August 4, my friend Lydia and I took our horses to play in Otter Pond in Standish, ME.  We had hoped to actually swim in the pond, but it was really shallow really close to shore and then there was a HUGE drop off into the pond.  So we really could only splash around a little.  It was still super fun and I hope we can find a place to actually swim next summer when Lydia comes home from college in Montana! It ended up that the only day that worked for us both was the Saturday right before my dressage show that I posted about yesterday.  While Dreamy is a complete been-there-done-that horse and would be the obvious pick for my first try swimming with my mares, she really doesn't like water.  Of course, she will trot and even canter through water on the trail and in a cross country course, but she only does it because I ask.  Reva LOVES water and tries to splash in the little puddles in the yard.  So I felt like Reva was a better choice, even thoug...

Reva and I competed at our third SMDA show this year on August 5.  We have been taking weekly lessons this summer, so I knew we would show improvement since our last SMDA show in June.  My only goals were to have fun, stay on the horse/stay in the ring (always a goal!  LOL!), score at least 65% on each test, and 7s on rider position.  We met all of our goals!!  Yay!!  :-) Reva was excellent.  I was so proud of her!  She has shown so many times now at the Hollis Equestrian Park that she is super comfortable there.  It is only a 30 minute drive from the house as well, so it is an easy day.  She warmed up PERFECTLY.  No fussing, no heaviness in the bridle, no anxiety at all.  She was forward, light, rhythmic, and happy!!  I loved it!  Even if I did not meet my showing goals, I felt like our warm up for Intro A was so lovely that is really didn't matter what happened.  Our tests both felt good and to my su...

Our sixth Maine Horse Association affiliated show was on July 29, 2012.  It was a benefit show for the  Friesian Events Association .  It was a soggy and wet day, but we had fun, as usual!  I am lucky to have a great group of horse show friends.  My grandfather and father both showed up to watch, which was really neat!  Reva was a very good mare... Champion Junior Pleasure Horse Reserve Champion Adult Equitation, Open Reserve Champion STB 2-Gait Pleasure 1st STB In Hand  1st Adult Equitation, Open 1st Junior Pleasure Horse 3rd STB 2-Gait Pleasure We won cute canvas bags (left) as trophies, which means I have four!  LOL! I am very proud with the mare's progress this year.  Due to time and finances, I might not be competing in any more MHA shows this year.  While it is a bummer because I do enjoy the shows and the people, I feel really good about how well we have done in MHA this year.   The profession...

Normally, I would do a separate entry for each of these four shows, but now that I am behind in my blogging, I admit I don't remember many specific details to write about!  ;-P  Plus, things were pretty much the same at each show.  Reva has been outstanding so far this year and I am really proud of her!   Our first Maine Horse Association (MHA) affiliated show this year was back in May .  We have since done four more... Downeast Horse Congress - June 15-17 This is one of my favorite shows!  This year I was the dressage manager, so it was a bit more work than normal, but it was still a lot of fun.  We had lots of laughs and good times.  Reva was very tense in her first few classes and we had a few bucks, but the second and third day she was much better (and probably tired!!)  We couldn't seem to pull a blue, so it was a "bridesmaid" kind of weekend, but for a young (still sorta green) horse competing with much more seasoned horses, I was v...

Reva has been coming along well in the canter.  We have been lightly lunging her in my weekly lessons.  We tried it a few times last fall and have again done it a few times this summer.  It has seemed to help her balance and confidence in the gait.   This is her weaker lead, which I had been having trouble picking up.  But she has been picking up the right lead correctly on the lunge line and improving so much under saddle!! Reva - right lead canter from Elizabeth Tewksbury on Vimeo . And here is her left lead.  She is also finally not plunging and "dolphining" herself into the canter.  She is still a bit too fast, but we are getting there!  Under saddle I am starting to have a half halt in the canter, which is amazing!  Such a nicer gait when she rebalances and softens! Reva - left lead canter from Elizabeth Tewksbury on Vimeo . Progress is slow...but I am pleased!  The best training tool is TIME!  :-) ...

Reva and I attended our second dressage show of the year back in June.  I am woefully behind in my blogging!!  Oh well!  Reva was again very well behaved.  We rode Intro A and B and she was a bit less tense through her back.  We had a good warm up and no bucking!  Yay!!  Overall, I am very pleased with how her relaxation improved, hence our scores! Intro A - 68.2% and a 2nd place out of seven! Yay!  We scored all 6.5s - 8s.  The 8 on our last centerline was pretty awesome.  The comment said "quite straight" and I was happy to see that since we have been struggling with straightness off the rail.  Our overall comment was "Well ridden.  Some unsteady connection today caused loss of elasticity to hand and curling neck."  That is spot-on, as Reva's biggest evasion seems to be curling her neck and getting behind the bit.  We are working SO hard on that right now.  In recent lessons she has really started to impr...

While I have been doing a lot of showing this year, I feel like all I write about is showing!  But there is so much more to what I do with my horses than just that.  I figured it was time for just a general riding progress update.   Reva and Dreamy have been doing very well this year.  Reva has begun to really grow up and start showing great progress.  Dreamy, despite turning 21 years old (!!), is still happy in her work and in really good shape.   Reva is a very sweet mare, and her early work with me was super easy because of her good temperament   She did the typical young horse thing, where as soon as the work began to be, well, actual WORK , she started to show a bit of attitude.  It really wasn't that bad, but it was obnoxious enough that I really prayed it was just a phase.  LOL!  She didn't want to bend, she didn't want to learn about half halts, and she would sometimes get herself into such a baby temper ta...

Reva and I competed at the Dunegrass Living Classic show on May 13 and had a great time!  We started our show career a year ago at this show (though it used to be called the Ocean Communities Classic before it had a sponsor change).  This show is run by the American Saddlebred Association of Maine (ASAM), but it is Maine Horse Association (MHA) pointed.  It is a fun show in that it is double judged, so not only do you get double points but also double ribbons!  So while we only entered six classes, we came home with TWELVE ribbons!  That makes a ribbon whore like myself quite happy!  LOL!  ;-D Overall, it was a wonderful day!  Though I ended up bathing Reva that morning before we left for the show, and accidentally I used her Eqyss Microtek Medicated Shampoo (she has intermittent skin issues) instead of the Vetrolin shampoo I normally use for showing.  Whoops!  She did not come out as "clean" as I had hoped, so I spent some time be...