Our Week In Aiken

The week in Aiken has gone by fast.  Our not so great month of January continued with the hopeful easy trip to Aiken nothing but that as Tag coliced again on the way down.  We were 2.5 hours from NC State at that point and determined that was our best option.

The staff was great and Dr Edwards and her crew are wonderful people and vets.  Tag had multiple treatments of tubing with fluids and IV fluids, and lots of walking...Laura, my wonderful groom, had headed down with our commercial shipper with 6 horses and arrived there safely, unfortunately by herself, and got those horses settled Saturday evening at Jumping Branch Farm.  Bridget Hutchens, who was helping us for the trip, Neal, and I spent Saturday night in Raleigh with Tag and the other 5 horses.

Sunday morning, Tag was much better, and it was determined he could leave...that's when we noticed our flat tire...yet another challenge.  The vets suggested that we stop every 2 hours for the rest of our trip and give Tag a walk, so he got to meet some interesting people and check out some hotels...here he is at Howard Johnsons...

Tag Grazing at Howard Johnson in Lumberton, NC

The horses started work on Monday and Tuesday and, as were expected, wild!  Most of them spent some time on  the lunge so I would not get bucked off, although I did hit the ground once, ouch!

All of the horses have been good, and the weather has been spectacular.

Laura riding Nevaeh and ponying Vegas

We've started showing horses for sale as well and met with Emily, Missy, and Kelly this weekend, and are hopeful we can find them a quality mount.

Also we went to our first event, taking Nevaeh and Vegas to Sporting Days.  Nevaeh was very good except for one playful moment in the canter, and she jumped a double clear to finish a good 3rd in a very competitive division.  Vegas found himself a bit distracted and cried during his test, but did keep his head down and was 6th in dressage...he continued being a bit distracted in the jumping phases and had a rail in show jumping; however he jumped clean around his first recognized training cross country with just a little time to finish 8th.

We also were able to see lots of our friends and old horses at the event and are proud to post some of their results: Erin Renfroe and Porter Creek, 1st in Novice , Kerry Bosman and Mango Bay 8th in the Open Preliminary, Tiffany Cunningham and Samson, 5th in the Open Training, Marci Greene and Mr Parks 6th in Training, Laurie Bigelow and Tullamore, aka Crack On Connie, winners in the Beginner Novice.  Wow, what a great day!

We look forward to seeing more old friends and catching you up on all or activities..stay well and remember its February....yippee!!

All the best,
Courtney