One Star Dressage! GO AREA VI!

As much as I would like to talk about Chloe and how awesome her jump school was today im going to skip all that stuff and go straight into telling everyone about the one star dressage!!! Our area is currently sitting in first place with Kelly Loria also individually in first on a score of a 40!! She had a very relaxed, accurate, beautiful test and deserved every good mark!! Madison Reeb put in a good test and rode very well. She is on the fast track to being one very good rider. I am so proud of area VI! Kelly Loria also had her press conference which was so exciting for her! She did an awesome job representing us :)
Natalia and I both had a jump school today and I feel great about tomorrow! It is different for me to jump on grass and have terrain so it was nice to get a feel of how she would be. After walking my coarse for the fifth time I am feeling great about it! The weather was great today, lets hope it stays the same tomorrow! Chloe has enjoyed the weather and it is great the horse park lets us rent paddocks, all the horses have enjoyed it!
I'm going to keep this short tonight and go get ready for tomorrow! Any good luck vibes are greatly appreciated!
Xoxo Kelly and Chloe
Dayna Lynd Pugh warming up Kelly Loria
Kelly Loria
Press Conference

Madison Reeb. That horse has a killer lengthening!

Dayna and Madison. Hugs all around!
Chloe in her turn out!

Dressage (for the pictures start at bottom to top...

Today was the two star dressage and boy was I nervous! Usually dressage tends to be our weaker phase and as I went out on our morning hack I started looking at the other two star horses and thinking to myself "there canter is better then mine" or "my canter departs are not nearly that good!" I had a moment of self doubt but then I realized that I can only control how I do, sometimes not even how my horse does, but definitely I can control how I ride. I did some intense visualizing and after hacking her I was feeling way better. She felt amazing and I was confident that with all our dressage lessons with Nicole Perry and all the work I had put in with my mom that I needed to have a little more faith in myself. When I woke up this morning I wanted to shoot for high 40's low 50's and I was hoping to be in the top five. Trotting around that ring today I felt more confident than I ever had on her and I went down that center line and knew what I had to do. Chloe was fabulous and put in her best test yet for a 51 and we are sitting in second place. I know this horse has it in her and today she proved it. It was an amazing feeling. Natalia also put in a great test on her horse and although its hard being one of the first out she handled it amazingly and I honestly could not ask for a better teammate!
After dressage Natalia and I walked the cross country course with my mom and things I was originally worried about are starting to look better. After the course walk I had to rush off to a press confrenece and that was really exciting!! I met some of the other young riders and they were all so nice! I was proud to be representing California :)
Then I went back took Chloe on some walks, tucked her in and gave her a million carrots. She deserved it :)
Apart from NAYRC there is a jumper show going on where some really big names are competing. My mom, dad and I went tonight to check it out. Kentucky has beautiful evenings and it was an awesome opportunity to watch some amazing riders.
Tomorrow Me and Natalia will have a jump school, walk our course another million times and most importantly cheer on Kelly Loria and Madison Reeb as they will be doing their one star test! I have a good feeling about it!! Go area VI!
Xoxo Kelly and Chloe
Team mascot :)
Area VI!!
CAnisa, Me, Devon, and Karen at the press conference
"uhhhhhh........"
Amanda found a four leaf clover! Its going in my arm band

Best Chef!

My wonderful parents
So proud of her

she is so clean!
Area VI cheering her on!
so pretty!!
Natalia and Teqs!!!

Day One!

It has started!!
We had lessons first thing this morning and Chloe felt amazing! All the other girls came back reporting the same thing, I'm so excited for our team! We then spent our time getting ready for the trot up. We had some wardrobe malfunctions and ultimately a couple of us had to be sewn into our skirts, but all was well because in the end all the horses passed and that is what matters!! After the jog I walked my two star coarse for the first time ever and I know i have asked this many times before but cant we please just fast forward to cross country!?! The track looks amazing! It is a very galloping coarse and has some good questions and I honestly cannot wait to ride it! We also picked our order of go for the weekend and Natalia Gurmankin is first out, she is going by the name trail blazer now! Next out we have Tessa Becket and third out is Me and Chloe. I'm planning on going to the barn extra early to ride once before and the rest of the time will be dedicated to bathing her, I swear she plans on getting extra dirty the night before dressage. Today we also had the opening ceremonies and it was awesome getting to walk in the grand stand arena with all me team mates representing California. The competition has started my friends and i'm excited to trot down that center line tomorrow. For now though im going to go visualize my test some and SLEEP!!
Xoxo Kelly and Chloe

This is her giving me a dirty look. Braiding, FUN!
CHLOE IS CLEAN! This is also the skirt i was sewn into. It worked!
The worlds best groom and coach, aka my parents :)

Natalia and groom Amanda Sanchez, vet Laura Werner. Getting ready for her jog!

Getting ready for opening ceremonies, Go area VI!!!
The whole clan
Bounce into water and it goes to the turtle in the water. That is also a Styrofoam jump in. If a horse hangs a leg it will supposedly crumble.
Double corners
so many gallop fences, I love it!
Kelly Loria and Maddie Reeb and their beautiful horses!
The coach and Chef

Finishing touches...before it all begins!!!

Our area VI mascots!! My poor tortured dogs...
Area VI
Coach Dayna Lynd Pugh and Chef Shannon Lilley
Our decorated golf cart and curtains!!
Decorating the golf carts
Chloe and the young rider Antares stall guards
Area VI!!!
Today it actually started feeling like we were at a competition. Our coach, Dayna Lynd Pugh, our chef Shannon Lilley, our vet Laura Werner and our two grooms Scott Kuhlman and Amanda arrived! We rode early and had lessons. Chloe felt great! We then went on another long walk and I swear once you think you have seen the whole property, you haven't! I think maybe i got lost a few times, I was approached by more then one person saying "excuse me miss you seem to have lost your way." Whoops. The weather started out nice and sunny and a bit warm and within ten minutes it was lightning and thunderstorms. It alternated like that throughout the day, so different then California!! We spent the rest of the day hanging the rest of our banners, decorating our golf carts and checking out the shopping vendors (I'm guilty!). We had in-barns today and all the horses looked great. We also had our first mandatory meeting and it made me that much more anxious for the competition to start! Howard Simpson gave a great little talk. To sum it up he said that "yes some of us will receive medals this weekend and some of us may not have such good luck, but we have all worked so hard to get to this point and with that said we are all champions." It was so true. Looking at everyone on the area VI team, we have worked so hard to get to this point as I'm sure everyone has. The fact that we are here says a lot.
I left Chloe a little earlier tonight and I'm sure she is relieved to not have me there fussing over her every second. I think this may be one of my only chances to get to sleep at a decent time so im going to take advantage of it!!
Tomorrow we will have lessons again in the morning and then we have our trot up! That means the competition will have begun!! I will keep you all posted on the jog and hopefully have some good pictures :)
xoxo Kelly and Chloe

Settling In..

Today was all about getting everything in order and making sure the horses were getting settled nicely. Chloe looked good this morning, maybe a little tired but who can blame her? We took a long walk first thing this morning to try and beat the heat and I had the best time touring the place. Chloe was pretty calm and I couldn't believe how nice everyone at this facility is. It was hard trying to pick an arena to ride in, there were so many!!! Chloe then got a bath and got to relax in her stall. I hung up a couple fans that keep it pretty enjoyable for her! We got our tack rooms set up and hung the majority of our "Area VI" posters up. We also purchased a turn out so we kept rotating the horses throughout the day to graze and stretch their legs. I rode her again in the afternoon for another nice, long walk and I have to say the weather today was completely tolerable! The horses all look great and tomorrow we start lessons. I will try and get pictures of the barn isle and facility up tomorrow! I cannot wait for the competition to start!!! I Have been able to scope out some of the cross country and if i had it my way Chloe and I would just fast forward to Saturday! For now though we have checked into our hotel room and Natalia and I are hitting the hay! I hope you all enjoyed the airplane pictures and stay posted for more of the horse park! It truly is amazing...
Goodnight everyone!
Kelly and Chloe

AIRPLANE PICTURES!! (Start at the bottom to the top...)

Maybe this is why he runs away.....
The horses never touched the tarmac. They put a ramp through all the trailers. The horses would walk from the plane to the farthest trailer and when that was filled they would move to the second farthest and then the closest.



Tex Sutton
All of our stuff unloaded in Kentcuky. Are we having fun yet???
You can see behind Chloe the rows of other horses. They had three horses per row and a space to walk in front of each row. It was fun trying to guess what discipline each horse was
Chloe and her airplane buddy Sounder. They eventually had to put up a wall between the two. Chloe wasn't his biggest fan.
I got to be with her :)
Chloe in her airplane slot. They were about the size of a trailer slot.
Madison Reebs horse being loaded
Chloe planted her feet right there and said "no thanks guys" They were very patient with my clean stubborn horse
All of our stuff. We had to load it onto the plane ourselves too! We had a lot according to the pilot...woops
Area VI!



Chloe was not pleased about her 1 AM photo shoot. She is clean though!!
Jennie Brannigan and I representing west coast!

Airplane Ride and Arriving at the Horse Park!!

Well it turns out that 2:00 AM is a very lovely hour in Temecula Ca. It was about 70 degrees and I didnt have much of a chance to acknowledge how tired I was due to the fact that I was going to be loading my horse onto an airplane in less then two hours. The night before I really had all intentions of going to sleep at 8. At that time though I was not aware that a friend of mine Jennie Brannigan would be stopping by. Quickly my 8 o clock plan turned into an all nighter. It was great catching up. She was the one who originally found Chloe for me and also she is a gold medalist from a previous young rider year. 2:00 came quickly and I really was like a kid the night before Christmas, SO EXCITED! After spending a good amount of time just getting Chloe into the trailer my excitement quickly turned into nerves. What if she didn't load on the plane?! Then what?!?! My mom must have sensed my nerves for she texted me at 2:45 in the morning wanting to know everything. We drove to the airport, five horses in the trailer and five extremely sleepy girls in the truck and Terry, the man who so kindly volunteered to drive us. When we got there everything went so quickly. We unloaded all our stuff at an amazing speed and then quickly helped load it on the plane. Then it was the horses turn....Everyone loaded great!! ....except for Chloe. I have to give credit to Tex Sutton, they were so patient and made her feel completely comfortable and slowly she decided to leap on the ramp and then preceed to deer hop all the way to the top. (I got some good pictures!) Once on the plane we had to remain seated and couldnt see our horses until we were in the air. They were normal airplane seats and they did serve us Jack in the Box breakfast, how do I keep getting so lucky?! Once the plane leveled out I went to go be with Chloe. Two bags of carrots went quickly! Its amazing how they packed them in, at least twenty horses were on the plane and it was rows of three. Chloe seemed pretty content until landing and I don't blame her! The handlers let me be with her during landing, and let me tell you standing up while landing is not the most pleasant thing! The flight was freezing cold just like everyone had told me and my 12 layers did not seem like enough until we exited the plane and I was greeted with 90 degree weather and plenty of humidity!! We unloaded all our stuff and repacked it into the trailer that would take them to the horse park. If you haven't noticed a theme in these blogs..packing, jack in the Box and keeping Chloe clean are the main ones! The horses went directly form the airplane to the trailer and Natalia, Tessa and I got situated in the truck that would take them to the horse park. Well after the driver convinced us he knew a short cut then proceeded to get lost, make tiny u-turns, talk about his boss who was his soon to be ex wife, and blast the Indy 500 race on the radio....we arrived!!!! All the horses looked great getting off the van! Chloe was excited about all the grass and it was good to see my dad. He had the stalls all ready for us and helped us set up. I'm pretty lucky!
I returned to the camp site with my dad and was extremely excited to see my dog, avocado! I was greeted with a leash and a collar attached...but no dog. After walking around and yelling "avocado!" (imagine how awkward that is) I soon discovered he was smarter than all of us and made his way into the camp grounds air conditioned office.
I left Chloe with a lot of food and a stall full of shavings! She deserves a good nights sleep :)
Now if you are still reading all of this and have reached this point it is time to share the bad news. I dont have my card reader for my camera! So the only cool part about this post (the pictures) wont be up until tomorrow! But I promise it will be first thing in the morning!!!!!! I got some pretty amazing plane ones! Now it is my turn to sleep!
xoxo Kelly and Chloe