Colleen Kelly is a incredible dressage/balance coach from Australia. 2 years ago I went to the Raleigh Horse Expo with Liz Booth. I rode Seamus and Fiona her two big Irish Sport Horses in Colleen’s clinic demonstration. At first, when she saw me she couldn’t believe it but I did it and Colleen was funny through the hour demo. I saw Colleen on facebook and wrote and asked her if she remembered me and this is what she wrote (you can see a picture of me on Seamus if you go to the calender on my website under July 2008 post.
Colleen sent you a message.
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Re: a young rider
REMEMBER YOU!!! HUH!!! I’ve been dining out on the story of how the little tiny girl did half pass on a big elephant!!!!
I’ll NEVER forget you!!! You brought the house down! If only I had got it on video when you were still tiny!!!
Now…a correction…..your goal should never be to make an Olympic Team (believe me I work with Olympians and that’s NOT what they think). It’s TO GET A MEDAL. To get a medal is far more important than making a team. Any of my riders could make a team, a MEDAL is what you’re after.
So, every morning I KNOW THIS – Andrew Hoy gets out of bed, and gets his pretend medal gets up and puts it around his neck.
When he goes to bed at night, he takes it off and puts it by his bedstand. EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. He told me that back in the 1980’s and is now the most celebrated rider in the world. He has more medals than anyone else ever has!
Hey I’m coming to Virginia soon! We’re up there in April, but I’m also driving through a couple of times as well. Where are you located?
GREAT GREAT GREAT to hear from you and hi Mum too!!!
Mac has the craziest curly Q going in every direction winter coat. When it warms up even a little bit he gets drenched in sweat (my little west virginia guy) and then cold on the trailer ride back so we decided to do a trace clip to help him stay cooler while working. Doesn’t he look wild? Here are the before and after. Of course it snowed and dropped to 9 degrees the day after we clipped him. More work for me with double blanketing to keep him toasty warm. I adore him, he is the best. Big dressage lesson with Catherine Sutton and jumping with Ray from Ireland. Mac is doing awesome and I can’t wait for the competitive season to start. Stay with me. lol.. Leah
It has snowed so much in Virginia. I have never ever seen so much snow and so much cold. At first it was fun, lots of snow days but 9 degrees? 13 degrees? My toes have never been so cold no matter what socks or boots I wear. I am totally ready for spring and warmth and a new competitive season. With my pony MAC. Yeah, finally. Remember we couldn’t finish the season because his foot was sore. He is doing awesome now. Talk to you later. Leah
I had the best time and learned so much in my clinic with Nick Larkin last weekend. He is so funny and knows his eventing. It was so exciting to be in his clinic on my own rolex bound pony. (The last clinic my pony Mac was still not sound so I rode my trainer’s event mare “Tess”) but it is not the same as being on your own horse). Nick is so great about making you a team. I have video so stay tuned. Since it is only my mom she has a hard time taking pictures and videos at one event.
This has taken much sweat and effort from so many people, especially Chi, to finally get video working on a computer with many issues. Please enjoy and I hope we have this down now. LEAH
Hi everyone, I am so sorry that I have been out of touch. Our computer hard drive crashed and we couldn’t afford to fix it so we had to wait for a friend to replace the hard drive. I have MISSED everyone. The hard drive also took ALL my photographs and files. I have so much to tell you. I’m working on it and I am back!!!!:-))))) Please stay in touch. Leah This will be Mac and me this season. We are following you Teddy O’Conner!!!! The next 14.1 pony to compete with the big guys.
I am so sorry that I haven’t posted but my
website has been through some kind of
upgrade and still is. I cannot BELIEVE that
we have a leftover hurricane in November
the same weekend as Calais. I think they
are having the TD come out tonight and I
think they will call it because it is such a
mess. Every horsetrailer will get stuck not
to mention how mucky and slippery and
awful the course will be. I am so
DISAPPOINTED. I was going to take Terry’s
event mare Tess and I love her. We will see
Sorry no pictures. Raining too hard. lol
I am sorry I haven’t been posting like I normally do. My grandma died last night. I was going to go say goodbye today with my big sister but it was too late. I haven’t been to see her since she went into hospice because even though she hasn’t really been awake I was scared her spirit would hear me crying and being sad and I didn’t want to do that. I miss her very much. We had special games and always ate a chocolate bar and made popcorn to eat together. Here is my grandma. Leah
My balance in the saddle works for me while doing gymnastics on a tree limb up in the air by the river. The river park is called Pony Pasture. That’s pretty funny. We took Haze for his first long walk after healing from his fractured hip. We went down by the river and it is so pretty. Then my mom said look at that perfect balance beam up there in the tree. So I did what any girl would do I climbed it and did gymnastics. lol. Had a lot of fun. I am trying to learn a new schedule with my training since school has started and my pony is off on his left front again. Stolle who I have been riding and helping to train sold and Epi is probably not far behind but he needs to work on slowing down. Terry is going to let me show Tess her event mare for the final competitions this fall while I work and bring Mac up to speed so we will be ready to take on everything big in the spring.
Here a couple more pics of warm up with Stolle. We had a cross country jumping clinic today and I will tell you all about it tomorrow. Mac is still on the mend so everyone please please think good thoughts for us. Terry says I should wait until the spring to “campaign” him and compete and work hard all fall and winter with his training. She is going to let me compete Stolle through the fall. That will be fun. Leah
Dreams are magical. When talent, passion, determination and desire come together you get a champion. Leah has extraordinary talent and she has a dream to become a champion. We need your financial support to give her a chance. Often anything to do with horses is perceived as elitist. This simply isn't the case. Children don't understand class designations, they understand their dreams, their talent and the belief that everyone can try. Your sponsorship of $1.00 or more will be an important step towards making this sport more accessible for children like Leah everywhere. In order to receive the larger sponsorships Leah has to get to that level of competition through training opportunities, clinics and horse trials. To have a chance to get to that level, Leah needs your grassroots sponsorship and support. Thank you for visiting and helping Leah achieve her dream!
