JANUARY: On the heels of a dominant year in working cow bridle competition, Smart Boons was retired from the show pen as he embarked on his new career as a breeding stallion. Under trainer Corey Cushing, the striking 8-year old red roan stallion (Peptoboonsmal X Smart Little Easter) recorded two major wins in his first year in the bridle — the Magnificent 7 at Horse Expo and the World’s Richest Stock Horse event — and pushed his lifetime earnings to almost $200,000. The 2009 National Reined Cow Horse Association Derby Open champion, owned by Kevin and Sydney Knight, is at the top of Cushing’s rides in the arena. “He’s been a great horse for a long time,” said the trainer. “I think the most important thing if you want to have a breeding stallion is to finish when he is at the top of his game. With the success Smart Boons had this year, we felt he was at the height of his career, and this was the best time.”

FEBRUARY: In a thrilling, down-to-the-wire fence work finish, Ron Emmons of Ione claimed his second consecutive World’s Greatest Horseman Championship aboard Olena Oak (Smart Chic Olena x Fritzs Oak E Doakie), a 2002 stallion owned in partnership between Nichole Scott and Emmons’s wife, LaDona Emmons. The pair scored a 219.5 in the herd work, a 214.5 in the rein work, a 221.5 in the steer-stopping and 219 in the cow work, and while they did not place first in any of the events, the steady stream of above-average scores added up to the winning 874 composite total on four events. “I’m ecstatic,” Emmons said. “To be able to get by those guys and win a prize is pretty awesome.”

JANUARY: It may not have been a day at the races, but Tommi Clark’s win-place-show stranglehold on the $2,500 USHJA Hunter Derby certainly brought some excitement to the LAEC Opener Horse Show, held Jan. 18-20 at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank. Although she is no stranger to the winner’s circle, Clark’s finish in the top three spots was quite a feat for the young professional. “I am so lucky to have all these great horses that performed their best,” she said. “We really just went in and had fun.”

Looking ahead to another great year with your horses in 2014? Be sure your club or private events, shows, meetings or fund-raisers are listed on Horsetrader.com. Shows also will be in the California Horsetrader printed calendar! To place them online, just go to Horsetrader.com and click on “Place An Ad” on the homepage. Then, log in or create an account, and select “New Show/Event” … then list it! With more than 1,000 visitors every day (and growing!), you don’t want to miss out on this great FREE service.

STUTTGART, Germany — American sisters Cassidy, 20, and Kimberly, 18, Palmer secured a pas de deux victory last month at the FEI World Cup Vaulting 2013/2014 leg at the Stuttgart German Masters, recording the first American win in FEI World Cup Vaulting history.

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The United States Dressage Federation (USDF) last week announced that the 11-year-old, 17-hand, Westfalen gelding, Legolas, owned by Akiko Yamazaki’s Four Winds Farm LLC, and ridden by Steffen Peters, is the 2013 Adequan/USDF Grand Prix Horse of the Year. Legalos’ median score of 75.926 percent made him the top horse in the United States competing at this level and the recipient of USDF’s highest honor for the second year in a row.

Two of the six scheduled USEF Dressage Observation and Strategic Planning Sessions wrapped up late November in California, led by Robert Dover, the USEF Chef d’Equipe/Technical Advisor.

57th in a series
Last issue, Les showed us details of collected stops. Now we take into account the gait.

Three Stages: Walk, Trot and Lope
So is a horse that just did his first great collected stop at the walk ready to go on to the lope? I don’t think so, maybe not even to a trot yet. There’s work to be done but only perfect stuff. To get the perfect stuff it’ll seem like you’re spending a lot of time doing exercises that don’t seem really exciting or fun – you don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel – but as you continue to work on the fundamentals, the stops will start to happen right before you, and they’ll stay consistent because both you and your horse will be comfortable. Don’t worry – it happens.