Lauren Kieffer, who won the Ocala Horse Properties CCI2* with Veronica this past weekend, was kind enough to send us a blog about the exciting horses she has in her program right now. She also offers excellent insight on the need for a strong U.S. sport-horse breeding program. Follow Lauren Kieffer Eventing on Facebook and Twitter and visit her website at www.laurenkieffer.com. Take it away, Lauren.
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Lauren Kieffer and Veronica won the Ocala Horse Properties CCI2*. Courtesy of Palmer Photo.
From Lauren:
What a whirlwind the last six weeks have been! We have hit up EVERY Rocking Horse HT, Red Hills, Poplar, The Fork and Ocala Horse Properties, and I am currently procrastinating packing for the drive back to Virginia. The obvious highlights are the Ramsays’ Czechmate winning the CIC** at The Fork and Team Rebecca’s Veronica winning the CCI** at Ocala Horse Properties, but I am just as pleased with how well every horse in the barn has performed this spring.
Landmark’s Legendary Romance, Landmark’s Ginger Rogers, Landmark’s Monaco, Meadowbrook’s Scarlett and Vermiculus have all made the successful move up to Preliminary level this spring with top placings. Landmark’s Monte Carlo continues to impress; RF Cosima finished 2nd and 4th in the OI at Rocking Horse and CIC** at Poplar, and we will make our move up to Advanced later this spring. I am also so pleased to have Shannon O’Roark’s Lucky Devil back in action at The Fork, where he finished 4th in the CIC**.
One of the exciting things about this group of horses is that almost all of them are American-bred horses, most being from Ms. Mars’ breeding program. It has been said before, but I will say it again; this is a big part of what the U.S. needs to become a dominant force in equestrian sport again. We have to be able to produce our own horses. We have a lot of really top class mares competing in the U.S. now, and I can’t wait to see (and hopefully ride!) what they produce in the future. The great thing is that with embryo transfer we don’t have to wait until these mares retire to start breeding them, and I think we will start seeing a big jump in the quantity and quality of our homebred horses sooner rather than later.
Another step we need to take is not only getting more sponsorship, but appreciating the sponsorship we get. At the Rider’s Meeting at Ocala, Peter Gray made a point of trying to get us riders to show up to the sponsored parties and to send the sponsors a thank-you email at the very least. It’s sad he had to do that. We are all guilty of complaining about the lack of sponsorship, prize money, etc., at events, yet we put very little effort into appreciating the ones we get. A lot of these sponsors just want a little recognition for the support they give, and if we want more sponsorship, we need to make sure we hold up our end of the deal instead of expecting the organizers to go around and ask for us. A lot of people have put in A LOT of effort to get the events more sponsorship and money, and we need to make sure we do our part to keep them interested.
OK, time for me to stop procrastinating and go pack! I can’t thank everyone enough for all of the support. I have the most incredible team of people in the barn, an amazing group of horses with even greater owners and top class sponsors. Once we get back north, we will take a bit of a breather and then be rolling again with MCTA, Jersey Fresh, VHT and Bromont. Keep up with us and our sponsors at Lauren Kieffer Eventing on Facebook and Twitter and laurenkieffer.com!
