News Archive Prior news items from the past year in reverse chronological order. Click here to return to the home page

Sandy and Woccelli are invited to ride for Arthur Kottas A five day clinic with Arthur Kottas will be held at Angels Landing Farm in the beautiful Santa Ynez valley 1/12/2008 Alix Kendall, owner of Angels Landing Ranch in Los Olivos, has graciously invited Sandy and one of her deserving students to spend five days learning with Arthur Kottas. Sandy chose Kim Frederick and her fourth level mount Klondyke to accompany her to Santa Ynez. This is an incredible opportunity to get intensive and classical training that can only be found in Europe. Arthur Kottas has worked as a rider at the Spanish Riding School in Austria since 1960 and in 1980 was appointed head teacher of the school. He is the youngest person ever to hold that post. His work there ended in 2002 when the school underwent some reorginazation and he has since then dedicated his life to riding and training up to the olympic level. Arthur will be teaching a total of four dates at Angels Landing, the first of which is on March 27th through the 31st. The other dates are June 19th to the 23rd, September 10th to the 14th, November 12th to the 16th. Auditors are welcome at the price of $100 per day.

Successful show at Championships Sandy and her students fared very well at Championships despite bad weather and sloppy footing 10/18/2007 I think that the 2007 CDS Championship and USDF Regoinal Finals will be remembered as a show with some of the most difficult conditons ever. This was the first year they were held at the Horse Park at Woodside, and I think everyone is hoping it is the last. No arena lighting, no indoor arena and pouring rain were some of the things that riders were challenged with this year. Despite these things, Sandy and her students put in several stellar performances with their horses and came home with many ribbons. After sustaining a suspensory injury at the end of May, Woccelli was able to come back and be in championship form to win the USDF region 7 final at Prix St. Georges. Many thanks to Sandy's vet Linda Lauper who provided continuous therapy for Woccelli and even accompanied them to the show. Ryan, owned by Laura Blanton, finished 10th in the USDF final at Training Level. Also amazing considering he was just broke in February of this year. He was a real trooper with all the rain and scary things going on. He never even batted an eye. Kim Frederick and Klondyke finished 4th in the USDF final and 5th in the CDS final at Third level. Kim and Klon had very precise and steady rides and were well rewarded for their efforts. Laura Blanton was able to qualify Pikolo for the USDF final at Prix St. Georges which is a feat in itself. They came just outside of placing, but Pikolo gave Laura a very nice ride and we are so proud of them both for making it to the Championships at the FEI level. All in all, it was a very successful show and Sandy's new tent and stall drape arrangement earned a second place award for best "tack room" just behind Starr Vaughn. That was an extra bonus. Congratulations to all! For complete results, see the show results page.

Clinic to be held at Los Lagos Equestrian Center Click here to find out new dates for the clinc at Los Lagos Equestrian Center 9/10/2007 On November 10th, Sandy will be at Los Lagos Equestrian Center for a one day clinic. Contact Marty for details at equuspassage@aol.com.

USDF Medals for Sandy's students Congratulations to Laura Blanton and Kim Frederick on their USDF medals 8/30/2007 Kim Frederick and her Swedish warmblood Klondyke have earned their scores for their Bronze medal this year. In order to earn this you have to achieve 2 scores of 60% or higher at first, second and third level. This is no small achievement to be sure. They have both worked very hard. Laura Blanton just earned her final score for her Silver medal. For this she had to earn 2 scores at fourth level and two scores at Prix St. Georges. As you can imagine, it is quite an achivement to reach the FEI level of competition and the Silver medal is proof that it has been done properly and well. Congratulations to both of you Kim and Laura!

Off to Championships Be sure to catch Sandy and her students at Woodside for the CDS and USDF Regional finals in October 8/30/2007 Besides Woccelli, Sandy has qualified Ryan, Laura Blanton's four year old Oldenburg for championships this year. This is quite a feat considering Ryan was broke to ride by Sandy only in February of this year. So far he has only attended 4 horse shows, and just two of them have been away from the ranch. Seven out of his ten classes have been scores of 69% or over. In order to qualify for the open level in CDS you must get 5 scores of 67% or over. For USDF, you need 2 scores of 68% or over. We are so proud of "Peach Fuzz". It is especially fun for Laura to see Ryan all grown up, because she and Sandy found him as a yearling at Con Brio farms in Gilroy, California. It's nice to see patience and good training finally pay off. Laura has another reason to be attending championships since she has qualified with her Hungarian gelding Pikolo at the Prix St. Georges level. Congratulations Laura! Kim Frederick has also qualified with her Swedish Warmblood gelding Klondyke at third level. This will be Kim and Klon's first championship show. We are pulling for you!

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