This month of Peyton’s training started with attending our second cross country schooling at St. Augustine Pony Club. At the end of June, Peyton went to his first horse jumper show at Pairadice Equestrian Farm! We had a great time at the horse show. Peyton behaved perfectly in the large horse show environment. We placed second in the 2’-2’3” Power & Speed class, which included a successful jump off and placed 6th in the Gambler’s Choice class. Through this last month, Peyton and I have been taking weekly dressage lessons, which is teaching us balance and control. Our future plans…

We are coming up on 6 months of training for Peyton! This month we were able to take a few field trips. Our first adventure was to Fair Hill, Maryland, for some trail riding through the woods, over a few bridges, and through some water. Peyton is a rockstar going to new places including self-loading onto the trailer. We were also able to travel to St. Augustine Pony Club for our first cross country schooling. Peyton was very brave and jumped everything (even the very scary black pipe)! This month we learned that Peyton had some mild allergies and sensitivity…

With tracks closed to spectators, I asked our ambassadors to find a different way to engage the community. Over the past two months, we've had an assortment of activities: a mock award ceremony held pool-side (and virtually) in Florida, online trivia contests, history discussions, and an auction of thoroughbred memorabilia. Maryland ambassador, Don Walsh, suggested this aftercare auction a few months earlier. When creative alternatives for track meetups were requested, he offered to help run this auction. From our club members we solicited 37 items. Each club member suggested an opening bid and chose what percentage to donate to aftercare…

Throughout this quarantine, Peyton has been continued his training for the 2020 Retired Racehorse Makeover. Our training plan was to start horse showing and cross country schooling during April and May. Unfortunately, with the stay-at-home order in Maryland, our training has been limited to our boarding farm. We are lucky to have miles of trails that we can explore to get Peyton comfortable with new environments. Throughout this time, Peyton has gained more experience over fences. He is successfully jumping courses of fences at the 2 foot 3 inch height with ease. He also loves to jump the fallen trees…

Daddy's Teller joined the WV Stables barn in the summer of 2018. After six month running under our green and orange silks, he was sold in a private sale in December 2018. According to Equibase, he ran through July of 2019. Last fall he was purchased by Sarah Murphy and began a new life at her farm. Currently, he goes by the name of Teller and has a new best friend, Blazin' Fury. They share a field at Horizons Village in Nellysford, Virginia. Sarah is working on some physical issues that Teller has. He's been lightly ridden a few times.…

Peyton Place, aka Peyton, has been enjoying the warmer spring weather by going on plenty of trail rides recently. Unfortunately, with the recent Coronavirus quarantine our show schedule has been put on hold for now. Luckily, Peyton is continuously work throughout this downtime, and we have taken advantage of the trails behind our boarding facility. We started with short fifteen-minute trail rides to get him comfortable outside of the ring with the trees blowing and animals running across the trail. Throughout this past month we have worked up to an almost 7-mile trail ride. Peyton has meet plenty of new friends including squirrels, deer, sheep, cows…