A true “field of dreams” destination, The Event at Rebecca Farm in Kalispell, Montana, is special to our sport as a national and international competition, a three-day event, and host of the North American Youth Championships. For many eventers the road to Rebecca is long and winding — literally AND metaphorically. We are excited to be following the journey with two Area II Young Riders, Caitlin O’Roark and Maddie Chisholm. Many thanks to Lindsey Taylor of the Zebra Group – Offering Creative Marketing Solutions for Equine Business for the updates! If you missed it, read the intro to this series here.
Horses have been arriving steadily over the last couple of days in Kalispell, Montana for The Event at Rebecca Farm and the Area II Young Riders’ horses arrived Sunday afternoon. We were able to catch up with Maddie Chisholm and Caitlin O’Roark, who we heard from a couple of
weeks ago, following their week of camp at Loch Moy Farm last week.
The girls were busy traveling to Montana themselves so we kept the interviews short, but they said the week at camp was an amazing experience and they learned so many things, not only to improve their riding but to improve themselves as horse people and as teammates. When asked what the most useful thing she learned at camp was, Caitlin replied without hesitation, “…that we are a whole team no matter what, the score board may say that we are riding individually but we aren’t. We are a team and we stick together [no matter what].”
Maddie is going into this week focusing on keeping Baron very forward, but not to the point that he is “running off his feet.” She spent the week at camp practicing the idea of slowing his front end while quickening his hind end, which has given her a lot of confidence in her cross country riding.
Baron, Taz and Fancy left Loch Moy Farm in Maryland around 9 p.m. on Friday night for the 30-hour drive to Rebecca Farm. Caitlin and Maddie both commented that there were so many emotions while loading the horses: a sense of achievement of a dream that is actually happening, excitement for the week ahead, a bit of nervousness that they’d forgotten to pack something, as well as a slight feeling of apprehension due to the fact that they weren’t going to see their horses for two whole days. They also grumbled a bit that the packing was particularly difficult because each horse was only allowed to travel with two trunks, and everything, including all of their tack, had to fit inside.
The girls arrived in Montana to meet their horses on Sunday afternoon, feeling nervous but very excited, and we will catch up with them again later in the week for another update. Stay tuned!
