Next Thoughts

Although a bit delayed, I am finally finding my thoughts about the past few weeks. Thoughts and emotions that are overwhelming, I find myself only able to deal with small pieces at a time.

What an amazing memorial service. No one could have arranged a more perfect day in a more perfect setting with the most amazing friends and family with which to share it. I remember taking a look around just before the service started and thinking once again, if anyone ever thought that Steve had nothing, just one look indicated how he had everything.

I know I didn’t have a chance to see everyone and never got to spend the time I wanted talking to those I did see, but each and every person there meant so much and gave more insight into precious memories and moments in Steve’s and my life.

These precious moments, family and friendships I am finding are incredible gifts that have been given to me that are helping me to get through the toughest moments of the past few weeks. I only hope I can find an adequate way to thank everyone and repay the thoughtfulness.

Please be patient with me as I take the time to figure out where and how my life will continue. At the moment I have returned to Louisiana. The horses are doing well and although any plans for the fall competition season have been put on hold, the spring season is not very far away and I will take the time necessary to get ready for it.

Meanwhile, please stay in touch. Keep sharing your thoughts, photos and making phone calls. I know that life is continuing on around me, and it will take me awhile to figure out where and how to continue mine. But wherever and however, I know I have a special network of clients, friends and family that will make it happen and make it fantastic again.

Thoughts From Laura

Steven had a rare passion for life that most never take time to experience. While everyone is busy trying to get ahead in life, Steve spent time making the most of it. At times it may have seemed that he had very little but in retrospect he owned an eternal wealth gained by investing in friendship and helping others, evident by the outpouring of thoughts and prayers of others at this time.

He never needed more than that and was always content with what he had. He had the natural ability to find humor in situations that seemingly went wrong. It was a rarity for him to get angry or impatient. Although I know I managed to provoke it at times, it would always be short lived and quickly forgiven.

Steven knew what was important in life – people, family and friends. It was important to him to spend time with his family and friends. He made time to enjoy the simple things and encouraged others to not complicate them.

I have often thought that many times we were trying to make Steve more like us while in retrospect we should be trying to be more like him. I always admired his sincere confidence in where he would go after death. He never hesitated, when asked to say, that he believed in God and in heaven.

Many people have asked why things like this always seem to happen to the good people. Maybe it is because they are already good enough to get to heaven and deserve better than life on this earth.

Steve always provided a calm strength that pulled us through the tough times and a simple passion for life that allowed us to enjoy the good times. I know he will still encourage us to find the same.

Laura VanderVliet Eventing Relocates to Louisiana

Maurice, LA - Aug. 5, 2010 - Jennifer Mosing, Maurice, Louisiana and Laura VanderVliet Eventing, Nottingham, Pennsylvania are pleased to announce that, effective August 1, 2010. VanderVliet's eventing operations will be based at Mosing's Sterling Silver Stables in Maurice.

Mosing owns several top event horses, including Pawlow, an 11-year-old gelding competed by Will Faudree and short-listed for the U.S. squad for the World Equestrian Games this fall. She was one of the first patron and owner members of the Professional Riders Organization. With the establishment of Sterling Silver Stables, Mosing began pursuing the development of a world-class equestrian center in Louisiana. The completely renovated facility that resulted has set the stage for bringing a top professional into her operation.

VanderVliet, who currently competes at the advanced level with the syndicated Mighty Mangaroo and Kathleen Overbaugh's King Billy, has moved all her competition horses to Sterling Silver Stables and will pursue her competitive career from there. A former assistant trainer for Scott Hassler at Hilltop Farm and Phillip Dutton at True Prospect Farm, VanderVliet has operated her own eventing business since 1998. During this period she successfully competed such upper-level horses as Irish Fling, Topspin, and Warrie Hill. In her work with Mosing, VanderVliet will be responsible for the stable's instruction and coaching program and for the training and development of horses owned by Sterling Silver Stables and its clients.

"I won't change much about my competition plans this year," said VanderVliet. "Keep an eye out for me, some Cajun food, and some fun at the big East Coast events this fall."

Mighty Mangaroo – Bromont 2010 – The Roller Coaster Ride

I always forget what a Roller Coaster ride a Three-Day Event is. But if you like Roller Coasters, it can sure beat some of the best ones in the country!
I love the excitement of finally arriving at the event and joining all the hustle of everyone unpacking, checking in, schooling, cleaning their horses and catching a first glimpse of the cross-country course. I love checking out how everyone organizes their trunks, tack and equipment to provide the most efficient use of space and time. I love the pre-game anticipation at the first rider's briefing and how everyone wraps up their morning schooling sessions in order to walk around the course for the first time just after it opens. Then there is the quiet lull as grooms primp the horses for the first inspection and riders disappear to find the most appropriate outfit in which to present their horse.
They say eventing has three phases but they forget to count the jog-ups. No matter how confident you are in your horse's soundness to that point, there is no relief like the voice of the announcer saying that your horse has been accepted.
From this point on you are on an up-swing of the Roller Coaster. A slow steady climb gauging schooling sessions, hand-walking and grazing, bathing, tack cleaning, braiding and orchestrating your warm-up to perfectly time your horse's peak interest in performing the best dressage test he will do this year to date. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. One thing for sure is that with a horse like Mighty Mangaroo, it keeps things quite simple and greatly increases your chances of making it work. As Kathleen Overbaugh (one of Roo's owners) put so well after Southern Pines, there is no drama involved in warming Roo up.
Once you have completed your dressage test, a small downhill swing, there is again a pensive lull while you wait to hear your score and whether the judges agreed with your summation of the performance. I was very happy with Roo's performance. I think it was a good performance at this stage of his training. I was a bit unhappy with the error I made and halting too late on the final center line. I knew where I was to halt but I got disoriented and it ended up being quite beyond the letter. The judges seemed to agree!

I mentioned that there was a small downhill swing of the Roller Coaster at this point. That is because the steady climb begins again as you start walking the cross-country course, getting minute markers, checking equipment, organizing stuff to take over to the vet box and obsessively going over your routes through combinations and lines to your jumps. You check with everyone about the lines they are taking and the number of strides they think will give you the best ride through specific combinations on course. In the end, you have to decide what you feel is the best ride for you and your horse.
I have really enjoyed reading a book my sister Kathy gave me called Mind Gym – An Athlete's Guide to Inner Excellence by Gary Mack with David Casstevens. It is a book about sports psychology and the power of your mental game while competing. It has unbelievable examples of how mental preparation has increased athletes' performances. Riding and preparing for cross-country is a huge mental game. Your mind can race in uncontrollable negative directions that will completely undermine your ability to ride well. I always feel that Saturday morning of a three-day is the one time that I am sure I would be fine riding dressage the rest of my life!
Mind Gym offers great ideas of how to understand these thoughts, control them and send them into a positive and confident direction that helps you perform at your peak ability. I will add once again, that having a great horse helps! Roo is such a perfect gentleman. He was so confident and rideable that my only job was to show him the fences and the pace we needed. He jumped the fences with ease and galloped easily within the time allowed.
Wow! That was a steep hill down. What a rush with it. Once you have cooled your horse and received clearance to leave the vet box and return to the barn there is some time to bask in the elation of successfully completing. The horses are calm again, relaxing, munching on hay and standing in ice. The quiet mood in the barn has once again turned to laughing and chatter of riders recapping the perfect or not-so-perfect moments on course.
Roo recovered from the cross-country easily and without issue. It made for a very relaxing evening where Steve and I were able to enjoy grilling with my Mom and Kathleen who were able to join us for the weekend.


No matter how good your horse looks or how confident you feel, the Coaster turns quickly upward again Sunday morning. Everyone is up early, jogging horses, braiding and dressing to the nines to present their horse at his best to the ground jury at the final inspection. As you are waiting for your turn, you ask everyone you know and whose opinion you value to watch your horse jog in hopes they will convince you he looks fine and that the ground jury will agree. Mighty Mangaroo accepted. Thank God!!
Now for a very short period of time you actually feel like eating breakfast. Something you have not done for several days! It is a fun time to catch up with parents, owners or other riders and maybe even watch a bit of the earlier divisions. We were able to watch the end of the training division and the start of the CCI* before the Roller Coaster took off again.
Since you are required to be dressed for the stadium coursewalk at a CCI, riders start appearing in their attire. Once again you start to plan the timing of your warm-up and repeatedly attempt to calculate when you should begin. I was quite confident in my warm-up plan with Roo and the fact that he would not need a lot. Of course I had a crew of people helping me time it perfectly. Arianna was grooming for me. Steve was keeping track of the order and helping set fences and Buck was there to help determine the exact jumps and exercises. Roo felt fantastic and I was looking forward to our round.
Just as the Roller Coaster turns quickly upward, whoosh, down it comes. Those of you who compete, will know how this feels. For those of you who don't, it is amazing that you can feel so high walking into an arena and so low walking out. Even though Roo was steady and rideable throughout his round, the rails kept falling down. We went from a top three finish to out of the ribbons with each rail that fell.
All kinds of questions and doubts fill your mind but I know one thing for sure. I have had better finishes with horses that I have felt worse about. Roo was fantastic to ride all weekend. He is a young horse competing at his first CCI** and it is a lot to ask them to perform at that level for so many days in a row. When I mentioned to a fellow rider that our stadium round was a bit of a disaster, that rider, Will Coleman the winner of the three star division, stated back that he would hardly call it a disaster and that Roo had looked great all weekend.
As everyone heads back to the barn, some with ribbons and some without, the efforts turn toward packing and heading home. It is like the cars of the Roller Coaster have slowed enough that everyone starts to step off and go their separate ways.
I had ten hours driving home to go over everything I will try to improve for our stadium round at the next event. But most of the thoughts were of how great Roo was to ride and how fun it was to be competitive throughout the weekend. Kathleen commented that while we didn't win, we had our moments. What a Roller Coaster. I hope the other owners and riders that were there were able to enjoy the ride as much as I did.

Mighty Mangaroo - The Journey Continues

Excitement is growing as we get closer to leaving for Bromont CCI! Roo is doing fantastic and feels great as we make our final preparations. We had a chance to jump with Buck Davidson last Thursday and he thought we looked ready to go. The hardest thing at this point is to not over do anything, trust that you are ready and just keep everything tuned.

We have a couple of gallops left which will consist of some short fast works to develop wind and sprinting fitness. We are also doing a couple of dressage schooling shows that will allow us to ride through our CCI** test in a competition ring atmosphere. Roo's dressage is good and keeps getting better. I am hoping that we will put in a very competitive test.

I know that several people have made plans to join us to watch in Quebec. If anyone else is interested check out the Bromont website for dates, times and suggested accommodations. Bromont offers a fabulous venue with an international flare. The cross-country is spectacular and very spectator friendly. We would love to have you join us!

Mighty Mangaroo Update

Hi Everyone!

I just wanted to send you an updated schedule of the competitions that Roo will be running. We decided to aim for the Bromont CCI** in June rather than the Jersey Fresh CCI in May. Bromont offers a beautiful venue, fantastic footing and phenominal cross-country course. It was the site of the Montreal Equestrian Olympic games and still holds some of the same flare. It also gives me a chance to ride a few more competitions at the intermediate level with him in hopes of continuing to develop a partnership that will be very competitive in June.

We had fantastic runs at both Southern Pines and The Fork Horse Trials in March and April. I am sending a link to a couple brief videos that Steve took at The Fork horse Trials for you to see. An unfortunate rail came down in stadium (he seems he barely touched it!) that kept us just out of the ribbons in some extremely tough competition but overall Roo put in a great round.





I am looking forward to this coming weekend at Poplar Place in Georgia. I will be riding both Roo and Kathleen's horse King Billy in the Open Intermediate division. We were lucky to catch a couple of fantastic lessons and schooling sessions with west coast rider Amy Tryon while she was in Aiken preparing for the Kentucky Rolex Event. She had some great ideas to focus on in the show jumping to keep Roo's feet moving quicker and some pointers for my position to help keep Billy straighter on the cross-country course. I am anxious to give them a try this weekend.

Southern Pines Wrap Up by Kathleen Overbaugh

Laura has been working with Mighty Mangaroo since late summer so they are beginning to form a real partnership. I think this competition at Southern Pines proved to Laura (and to those of us who watched) that this is a horse for the future – a horse that she can compete and win with. Roo is a fabulous mover so his flat work looks easy. Don’t get me wrong, Laura has worked hard with Missy Ransehousen, Phillip Dutton, even Scott Haussler, on the dressage, and it is paying off. The horse is really laid back most of the time, which means there’s no drama when he’s working. But it also means she had to learn to push this horse, after years of working with horses that have to be kept calm and quiet, so it’s taken her a while to get the feel of keeping him going forward.

Cross country, Roo is very businesslike. He has a lot of scope, so the intermediate fences are easy enough for him. There’s still a lot out there that he hasn’t seen, but we are not in a hurry to push him up to advanced until he’s really ready. Laura tells me he’s a bit “looky” on course, including in the stadium round, but once he focuses on the jump, he just does his job. As they approached the finish line, he shied away from a patch of footing repair on course, and got a bit too close to a southern pine tree!

The event was a real event for us owners. The Professional Riders Organization is a new organization whose goal is to promote the sport of eventing, and a big part of the focus is to keep the owners happy. Now, at last, the owners can come in under the tent with the sponsors during the cross country and stadium phases. Lunch is provided, along with water and coffee, and even wine and beer. It was special for me – I don’t just join groups of people I don’t know, and am happy to be off by myself. At first I thought this will never work. The ladies in the sponsor tent are dressed to the nines, with makeup, earrings and hats – I leave my bling at home, and spend the days in my barn clothes (I might occasionally pick a stall or walk a horse- can’t do that in heels!). My only decoration is my owner’s bracelet that comes in the entry packet, and usually that doesn’t match my barn outfit. But I think it’ll all work out and we will begin to make friends in both groups. Surely the events wouldn’t happen without the owners or the sponsors. Maybe next time, I’ll bring some dressier clothes for show jumping day.

I look forward when we syndicate owners can party down through the entire weekend!

Training Forum–Up and Running

After a year of promising to get this training forum started, I am finally finding the inspiration to get it off the ground. Although the days have been busy, and not always as warm as expected here in Aiken, I am finding some focused time to spend training the horses. My hope for this forum is to provide the opportunity for clients, owners, students and supporters to follow their horses on a regular basis as we set competition goals, determine conditioning and training programs and attend competitions. I hope you will enjoy joining us on our training adventures and maybe find some inspiration yourself through it.

Isaac

Isaac – Isaac is a DWB gelding owned and bred by Douglas Land of Trumansburg, NY. He came to my barn as a 2 year old and started his career eventing as a four year old. Isaac’s never-ending growth spurt left him close to 18 hands and although he loves jumping, his phenomenal movement and aptitude for dressage has inspired me to pursue the upper levels of dressage. He is an eight year old who is yet to grow up. He demands attention in the barn and loves to train. He is a show-stopper at the competitions. Isaac competed successfully at first level but has spent his time training rather than competing. Our hopes are to be back out soon competing at the third level and debut at the FEI levels in the next few years. I am very excited to have the opportunity to continue up the dressage levels with this horse.

Quick Jack

Quick Jack – Jack is the American Tb representative in the barn. He is a 13 year old, 16’2 hand gelding owned by myself and Kathleen Overbaugh. Jack spent the first six years of his life racing and then spent some time at a jumper barn before landing a career in eventing. His attractive movement and boldness over the cross-country course suit him well to the sport. He is also at the intermediate level this year.

Mighty Mangaroo

Mighty Mangaroo – Roo is the newest addition to the stable. Recently purchased from Phillip Dutton and Annie Jones he is currently nine years old and syndicated with several owners with high hopes. He is a 16’3 hand, Tb gelding imported from Australia. He is a gentleman to ride and he has the looks and talent to be very competitive through the upper levels. He is currently competing at the intermediate level.

King Billy

King Billy – Billy is a small statured, big-hearted, 16’0, 14 year old Tb gelding originally from New Zealand and currently owned by Kathleen Overbaugh from Trumansburg, NY. Billy has competed at the 3* level but due to some nagging injuries as been out of major competition the past year. He completed the 2* at Fair Hill International last fall and is preparing to get back to the advanced level this spring.