When you sign up for horses as your career, you have some big things to look forward to. If you're doing it right, you will have a horse who exceeds your wildest dreams, one who you buy for a song, or who is broken and you fix him, and go further than anyone ever thought possible. You'll have a student who blows expectations out of the water. They're rare, but you'll find in your work a few little miracles that make your heart soar and that make you want to get out of bed and do it all again the next day.

But you have some big realities to face too. You'll work your tail off on a horse only to have it taken from you at the last moment, by the owner's hand, or by God's. You'll get your own horse to the top only to have it break down. You'll have a colic in the middle of the night, a horse who has every reason in the world to be great and never follows through, and a client who leaves you high and dry even when you do it all right. That's the price you pay for all the little miracles.

Lately, at my farm, little miracles have been in short supply. Clairvoya (Cleo), my big grey Grand Prix mare, is officially a retiree after spending all winter fighting an injury. My schedule is insane. I lost a very dear, dear client's horse to an illness that came up so fast and so unexpectedly that I'm still reeling, and while I know there is nothing I could have done better, my heart still aches. Plans are changing, and not for the better!

The little miracles are still there. My own horses are doing great. Midge won his first Prix St Georges last weekend (only to be eliminated in his qualifier for standing on his hindlegs. I thought judges liked engagement of the hindquarters?!); Ella's up to 67% now in the Brentina Cup test, and is officially qualified for the Championships; and Fender was a pro in his first Four-Year-Old test outing, getting 7.7s. In retirement, Cleo can pop out lots of little embryos for transfer, and we're expecting last year's breeding project to grace us with her presence in the next few weeks. The sun is shining and the grass is growing.

But there's a bit of a dark cloud over my place, and so in an effort to simplify and streamline, I'm signing off from the Horse Hero team. You are not getting my best effort, which isn't fair to you. So "Adios Amigos" for now. If you ever find yourself in Northern Virginia, y'all are welcome anytime. It's been a pleasure!

Woo hoo! What a way to start the year. I took Ella, Fender and Midge to a show in North Carolina, about a five hour drive. The facility was very nice - great stabling, lots of arenas, and really well managed. And the weather even held out for us, which is a miracle. If I'm horse showing, we're pretty much guaranteed rain, but the rain only came this weekend when I was not on a horse. Very considerate!

Fender was my first up on the Friday, and he was a very, very good boy. He'd hacked around the place like an old lesson pony on Thursday minus one very minor temper tantrum, so I was happy with his warm up. Of course, as we went around the ring, the judge (in a car) honked the horn for us to start when we were only about 15 feet away, sending poor Fender and I flying through the air. I had to gallop him on a little, which left him pretty tight for the test, but he got almost 67% - very respectable for his first attempt.

Midge was also tight, which is nothing new, but he was in rare form on Friday. Midge is not a fan of indoor arenas, particularly exciting ones where the audience is right up against the ring. We've moved him up to Fourth Level, which is very similar to Prix St Georges, but harder in my opinion as it makes full use of the arena instead of diagonals ad nauseum. And wouldn't you know it - almost every line Midge had to go on had something scary at the end. He was, basically, a big strong troll, and when all my coach, Scott Hassler, could say at the end was "Dang, you rode him for a 10!", you knew things weren't looking good. Well, apparently the judge missed the blips, because she loved Midge and gave him a 70.9%. Cool!

Saturday brought Fender up for another Training Level test, but things were a little less pleasant. He said NO, thanks, I will NOT relax. I am TIRED and I am in this LITTLE ARENA and I do NOT want to PLAY ANYMORE. But we stayed in and went around and had a good schooling session on why temper tantrums are not good pony behaviour, and he settled nicely. Kids, whatcha gonna do?

The Red Hots, though, were on fire. Midge did the Developing Test, a special PSG for horses age seven to nine, and while I could have ridden more forward, he was nearly foot-perfect. He stole two changes from me, the last of the four-tempis and the change after the extended canter, but other than that there were no mistakes, just a general lack of elasticity and freedom in his back and steps. The judges gave me the same comments and a 65.8%, which is terrific for his first outing.

Ella was the star of the day. We rode the Brentina Cup test, a Grand Prix for riders age 20 to 28. She warmed up really well, and other than a scare in her first piaffe that left it hard to recover for the passage, she stayed right on target. She did tie her legs up in the one tempis, but that happens about a third of the time anyway, so I can't really complain, and she did reorganise quickly. She also ran out of gas on the last centreline, so I had to help her out, but I was reassured that it looked better than it felt. She got a 66.795%, with 8s on her extended trot and pirouettes, which is a big deal - I usually get run away with in both. Winter work pays off! And I think that her score puts her in the number one spot in our national standings for the Brentina Cup Championship, which is a heck of a place to start!

And Sunday was even better. Midge was himself - a little less distracted in the indoor than on the first day, but he made more mistakes for a 67%. Fender did a Materiale class - a group under-saddle class, divided by age and gender for young horses, and scored a bit like the Young Horse classes: walk, trot, canter and overall impression. He got a whopping 8.3, the highest score I've ever got in my life, though admittedly it's not the same as an 83% in a real dressage class, but still...! He was also really civilised, which tells me I need to spend more time training in a 20x60 ring - my indoor is quite a bit larger, and while I work him on smaller figures often, it's different when the ring itself is small.

I was worried about showing Ella at this level two days in a row - it's a lot for her back, which I've always struggled with keeping good, but I wanted to see how she'd do mentally and I wanted to test a very light warm up, just walk-trot-canter and a little piaffe-passage. It was exactly the right thing to do, and she was absolutely marvellous, even better than the previous day. We rode the Inter II, which is easier than the Brentina Cup test, but she never backed off, never said no, and stayed with me all the way through. She even clocked off all 11 one tempis beautifully, earning a 9. Woo hoo! She got 71.8%, and won the class by more than 10%.

We even won a little money - Ella's Inter II win and Midge's second place got me a total of $250 (I think that's about six British pounds with the current conversion rate - haha). So I could afford to drive my big diesel rig home. Thank goodness, because it would have been a long ride!