http://www.hitairequestrian.ca/

Things that have happened are- Chester is back in FULL work. See link below at MREC 2 Phase show jumping. Right now we will aim him for CALI in late April if all things fall in to place with his health, finances, etc. He has come back as a WILD WILD WB… I thought that it was because he was on rehab and limited exercise. However, he is in full work and still a mad man. Going forward (WAY forward). Although I want to make sure that his sensitivity is not due to ulcer stress, my sense is that he is just happier on his feet. He came with a BAD case of thrush- the deep into the frog kind that seems impossible to get rid of. We tried many things, and never got to the bottom of it. In my gut, I believe that is part (or the entire reason) that he hurt himself in the first place. We will never know for sure, of course. But horses compensate when they are sore somewhere. The product I used to make this nasty bacteria living deep in his heels to GO AWAY is ‘no thrush’. If you have a horse with this condition, RUN do not WALK to this clay product. It is a miracle.

Escalade (Cal) is on a break right now and will get back in action later this spring with his owner Deja. Deja plans to compete Cal this summer.

I have a FAB new working student. Mikhaela is green in the sport of 3 day eventing, but a super girl, and very keen. We enjoy having she and her horse Lacey as part of the 3DAZE program.

HIT-AIR Equestrian Canada web site will launch this week- finally! I am very excited to be a part of spreading the word about this product, and enjoy this new aspect of my business. Check out www.HITAIRequestrian.ca later on this week!

BIG NEWS here in BC. After months of shameless begging, and harassment worthy of a restraining order, David O’Connor will come to do a two day clinic in my backyard, Pacific Country Stables. February 28/29 are our two big days to host DOC here in BC. Needless to say, everyone is incredibly excited about having him here.

That’s all for now, and I ‘pinky swear’ to update much sooner next time!

Asta la vista baby…

So check out the article above. I wish that I had written it. I didn’t though, I just passed it along. The photo below is clearly not of a father, it is of Kiyomi’s mom. Dad Jerry was at home. Kiyomi’s parent’s bought my 4 star horse Tasman Sea last year, and this is the post XC picture from their first 2 star at Galway November 2011. It was taken by a Dad (Dave Patterson) who was down there with his daughter Laura horse shopping (we found a great mare). So, basically some awesome parent’s supporting their kid’s insane dreams. And me helping to navigate the bus… and loving every minute of it!

Joan n Kiyomi n me

So a couple of weeks ago I walked into a Tim Horton’s for coffee and sandwich. It was not raining, but I had my pink Hunter wellies on. The outfits that we horse people go ‘out’ in is pretty shocking to the average person, I am sure. But really, who cares?!? I rock my breeches in the grocery store all the time and think nothing of it. So the Timmy’s coffee kid noticed my outfit and felt the need to draw my attention to my boots on a dry day. Him- not raining? Me- (at first confused. Remember I am getting COFFEE, so this conversation is pre caffeine) um, no it’s not. Him- I notice you are wearing rubber boots and it’s not raining out. Me- yes, now how ’bout that coffee and sandwich buddy? This fashion observation from a pimply kid wearing a hairnet, visor and polyester pants. Ironic, and clearly he is not privy to the Hunter brand. Listen kid, these PINK hunter wellies don’t just come ‘off the rack’ They were a special order from Zappos.com, who incidentally don’t deliver to Canada, so I had them sent to WA and had to drive ‘cross the border to pick them up. Bet your hairnet didn’t take that much trouble to acquire. Sadly, I KNOW where hairnets come from, which ones are best, etc. Why? Because as any horse girl knows, hairnets are a necessary evil of our sport. No I don’t generally sport the hairnet out and about. Turns out though I am uniquely qualified to give fashion advice to aforementioned pimply kid in coffee shop.

Bad outfits get worse in winter, since fashion takes a back seat to warm and dry. We are marching along into winter and I am the biggest sissy on the planet. We live in the most temperate place in Canada (rarely snows much) and I just get grouchy when the weather is white! We had a bit yesterday, will hang around for a couple of days, but next week is supposed to warm up again and rain, so it will all disappear. Crisis averted!

Galway CCI3* happened since the last post and I was sad not to ride, but I loved coaching my students as always. Two girls did their first two star, which is quite a milestone. I always feel a bit badly for my students. They see me do the upper levels and keep trying to stay there, hear the stories from days gone by etc. So they KNOW that it is really hard to even get to the first jog at a 2 star, 3 star, 4 star, let alone actually have the ride of your life and come home with a sound horse. Poor things- might be nice for them to at least have a little time period of ‘ignorance is bliss’. Regardless, they both got to the end with sound horses some goals met and a stack of homework for next year! I was a proud Momma with little ducklings! Also found a nice horse for a client down there. Fun to look forward to new things and new adventures!

Kiyomi Galway XC

The ‘first two star’ deal brings me to a random thought about the recent Pan Ams in MEX. Kudos to the Americans for giving a clinic in Team domination! My Canadian peeps came home with an individual GOLD, but were clearly disappointed in HOW they won team silver. It was not the hard fought battle that we all expected, and although we are proud of their efforts and silver is nothing to sneeze at, I know they all wanted more. That aside, I have wrestled with a thought about that competition. Years ago it was a 2 star, then a 3 star, now back to a 2 star. I am not sure how I feel about riders getting a pinque coat at a 2 star. Actually, I DO know how I feel about it and I don’t like it. Representing one’s country is an enormous honour, regardless of the level of play. However, there is a very real possibility that a rider (and I am not thinking of any rider in particular who was on any team this time) might get a ‘red coat’ and never actually get to a 4 star. Meanwhile, other riders have to do 4 star exceptionally well in order to achieve the pinque. The difference between 2 star and 4 star competition is so huge that it might as well be two different sports. My thought would be perhaps a team patch for jacket or some other designation, but that the pinque is especially reserved for 4 star. That’s my two cents but nobody asked me! I’m just frankly happy that my ancient pinque coat still fits me at the tender age of 42, and I hope to use it in Team competition again one day.

Big news for me personally since last post is that Kennett Square aka Chester is back in action. Chester is an amazing horse with a bright future. His recovery from a mild tendon tweak is going absolutely great. I am so appreciative of my vet Dr Kleider. Lucky for me we had insurance, so actually his injury that was incredibly minor got treated like it was very serious. We basically threw the book at him treatment wise. He will have his tediously boring but very effective strictly regulated two month return to exercise schedule maintained until January 8th (but whose counting…) then we can jump, lateral work, whatever our little heart’s desire, so long as the ultrasounds look good! We are using atravet every day when I ride him to keep his feet on the ground, and even at that he is pretty high some days. We used a long lasting drug when it first happened to help him deal with rest. Fit horses+enforced rest=challenge. We can’t do another round of that, even though it worked great for Chester, as it can stay in the blood stream for months, and we can’t risk any positive drug test in the spring competition season. Plans are for a late March early April start to his season, which gives me 2 1/2 months from the end of rehab to first event. Should be good timing. It’s horses, what could possibly go wrong?

Chester THIS is why we are bothering...

Hickstead died recently and that is devastating for Canada with the Olympics coming up next year. What an indescribably amazing horse he was! I was in Atlanta riding at the Olympics in 1996 when Eric tested positive for cocaine. He was banned from Spruce Meadows and it took him awhile to get his act together. Say what you will about second chances and whether Eric deserved his or not. He and that horse created magic. The best part was how he always seemed to defer to the horse with each success. I don’t really know Eric, but I know horses. Eric is obviously a talented rider, but particularly post WEG when Hickstead was fault free in the rounds with other riders, it was clear the horse was freakishly good. It always seemed that Eric knew he was sitting on something that could have been successful with other riders as well, and was grateful. I sure would have viewed it that way if I was sitting on that. So heart breaking to have those images beamed live to the world. Let’s remember that fantastic little horse for how he lived, not the way he died.

Last, 3 DAZE has a new working student. Welcome to Nicole Mills. I hope she has fun, learns a ton, and works her ass off! So far so good.

The HEIGHT of coffee shop fashion

It’s been a week that we have been home and in ‘blog time’ that might as well be a year…

I have needed a little time to reflect on the experience and what happens next. When Eascalade (Cal) was purchased for  my teenaged clients a few years ago, it was with a view to have a lovely training/preliminary horse for her. He has proven time and again that he is that in spades, with many ribbons and wins under his belt with myself and his owner, Deja. Earlier this year I had my sights set on a spot on the Pan Am CCI2* team. Clearly, THAT did not happen. In the meantime, we discovered some kissing spine, back soreness issues. I was really hoping that once those issues were resolved, he might be more than just a very nice preliminary horse. Unfortunately at Woodside CIC2*, it was not to be. His dressage was our very best yet! I was excited as my comments were- poll too low. Judges, you have NO IDEA how many months and HOURS have been spent getting him forward, even in the reins and moving his neck DOWN into said reins. I texted Andrea Taylor my dressage coach and we were both excited. Great problem to have with that horse! I simply misjudged the transition from his schooling frame to his competition frame. Easily remedied, and in the snaffle instead of the double no less.

The SJ preceeded the XC which I thought would be a bonus for this horse. I chose to do a longer right turn to the first, and a longer left turn to the second jumps, so as to give him more time to settle and access the course. If it meant a few time penalties, I was not concerned. My goal was a smooth round with a building feeling for the future. Jump two was a relatively small vertical, and he had it down. After clearing fence 3 good sized oxer, we turned to a triple bar. Now, anyone who has been in our jump ring at home knows that there is ALWAYS a triple bar hanging around somewhere, usually off of a short turn. Those fences need to be jumped and jumped so that the ‘boogie man factor’ goes away. He came around the corner and backed up hard. It was like he had never seen one of those things in his life. Anyhow, one rail led to five and there you have it. One crappy round does not a horse make, but this has been a pattern for him at this level, both in the SJ and XC. I firmly believe that he is trying his very best, as that is his nature. His best will just preclude him from doing more, even with sore back issues completely under control. It is not his fault, he is doing the best that he can. I know that he feels badly, since he is a try-er. I decided not to go XC, as if he is not going to do the upper levels, then why risk it? I was happy to bring him back to his owners in one piece. I will ride him a bit still over the winter and see what his future holds with his owner in the tack. He is a good boy. I do not regret trying! What a pleasure it has been to ride such a lovely dressage type. And we always, always learn on the journey with these horses. It was simply not meant to be, despite everyone’s best efforts. I am so grateful to the owners for following us along on this year’s adventures!

So unfortunately that leaves me standing on the ground for the moment regarding competition horses. My spectacular greener guy, Chester who was ready for preliminary and then got a boo boo will be back in the spring. I don’t have giant depth of horse flesh like many in our sport. It is just the way it is right now.

These times are good for enforced reflection. It reminds me that at age 42 I am absolutely NOT done in our sport (go Mary King in your 50’s, HSBC champion for 2011). I will regroup, reorganize and get back in the game! In the meantime, misery loves company or something like that. Kyle Carter and Steph R-B have also kind of had bummer 2011, among others. The tough get tougher and all of that jazz… This sport is not for the faint of heart, and that includes getting your ass in gear when bad stuff happens, not just being brave cross country!!

I am also busy with the HIT AIR equestrian Canada business, which is a new fun challenge that I enjoy a great deal.

More news as it happens. I’ll be the one at Galway in my jeans instead of my breeches, coaching students, cheering on the ones in the tack, making plans and hounding EN John for my long awaited EN hat!

In barn and jog is tomorrow. Cal feels like a million bucks. Hacked him around the grounds this morning, and did a little flat school tonight.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Dressage is normally Cal’s strong point. I think his worst score ever to date has been a 36 something. We blasted through THAT barrier on Friday! He can be spooky, but in usually focused and unchanging in the ring. The judge was very generous with a 49 ish score! I never actually got into the corner at ‘F’… Anyhow, horses in general (and dressage more specifically) are wildly humbling! I should be more concerned, I suppose, but it is not his habit, and in fact I’m kind of proud of him a little! He is always Mr. Compliant. I didn’t think he had it in him to be that naughty. We have been working hard on the feeding and fitness, so I guess that is obviously on track! The rest of the 3 DAZE gang had good tests.  The two girls doing thier first preliminary botched the counter canter, but it is not yet ‘there’ at home. It doesn’t tend to magically come together in the ring all on it’s own. Having said that, USEA prelim test B is really mean! You have to counter canter all the way from E to B. Very challenging!

XC day was a little misty rain, the kind of weather that makes you ride well XC…

Cal zipped (okay it was WB ‘zip’ not TB ‘zip’ but still…) and never wavered! He actually very nearly jigged coming into the box! Last outing at Aspen he felt on track by between fence 3 and 4, but fence two he has still gazing around wondering what day is was. This has been the norm for him. His 7th INT and he still wakes up Saturday without a clue what is going to happen that day! I barely had to kick him to keep up INT speed, and he skipped around the first part of the course in fine form. We stopped at about 3:10, after doing a big slide hill, water, two skinnys on a bend, Weldon’s wall and angled ramps down a hill. Pretty much had a taste of every type of jump, then pulled up to save his legs for the FEI. I am pleased as I could be, and he was proud of himself, as he should be.

Show jumping is the big test for his back. Twice out this year (once at the CCI* at Rebecca Farm) Cal had FIVE rails. Really he should be a clear round/one rail sort of horse. I have been fussing with my position as we approach the fence and leave the ground. I don’t tend to sit on them hard in the first place, but he seems to want NO ass in the tack at all, especially the last stride and leaving the ground. So, I have been doing that and it seems to make him happy. Even though presently, he does not seem to have any soreness whatsoever in that spine, he wants to feel that freedom in his low back. I did have one rail, triple bar out of a turn, just let the canter get a teeny bit too big. The rest was so encouraging, as I could put him pretty much anywhere and he was able to jump out of it fine.

Cal SJ Rainier

We have driven to Woodside now- left at 1 AM Monday morning (or middle of the night, as the case may be) Needed to leave then or face the Bay Bridge at rush hour!! Weather is a little rainy, but supposed to get better tomorrow (Wednesday) Will give the horses a light ride today, then go see Alcatraz later on.

When we drove in the gates, the XC course is there on the left, all ready and flagged! Exciting, can’t wait!!

We set out today for WA. Destination Polestar Farm for a XC school, then to NWEC event. A few 3 DAZE-ers will continue to Woodside event which I am really looking forward to.

The only bummer is that Chester is not going to be coming. He has sustained an injury, so needs a little time off. Will update his progress and the news of the competitions as things unfold.